Politics in the Pub: Asbestos Nation with James Watson
28 October at 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm AEDT
A ‘magic mineral’ impervious to fire, Australia was the highest per capita consumer of asbestos in the world, using it to create flat sheeting, pipes, brake linings, insulation, and other products that would be ‘safe’ and ‘useful’ for post-war suburbia. Instead, it created a mass cancer epidemic disproportionately borne by workers, migrants, and Indigenous Australians, with an estimated 40,000 cases of asbestos-related diseases.
Though asbestos was eventually banned in Australia in 2003, its impact is still felt today: 6 million tons of asbestos are still present in the built environment, asbestos products are being discovered in homes and schools, and more than 700 Australians die from mesothelioma each year. And with silica posing a similar hazard to tradies and construction workers today, the spectre of dust diseases will unfortunately still be a part of Australia’s near future.
Join the University of Canberra’s Frank Bongiorno, the Australia Institute’s Deputy Director Ebony Bennett to discuss Asbestos Nation, a new history of Australia’s use of asbestos by Australia Institute Postdoctoral Research Fellow James Watson.
Frank, Ebony and James will discuss the long history of asbestos, how Australia created this large-scale toxic hazard, and how we can avoid producing new industrial epidemics again.
