Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Bernie Banton died on 27 November 2007. He became the face of the campaign to achieve justice for the many sufferers of asbestos related diseases. He worked at the James Hardie facility located at Camellia in Sydney’s Western Suburbs. He worked there for six years in the late 1960s and early 1970s alongside other members of his family. As we know, exposure to just one asbestos fibre can be deadly. Those workers had constant, intensive exposure to asbestos dust day after day. Indeed, those workers were known at the time as the ‘snowmen’ because at work they were covered from head to toe in the white dust of asbestos, from the manufacture of kalite. When Bernie Banton left that job in 1974, there were 136 workers at that facility. As the years passed, one by one they fell victim to asbestos related diseases. As of 2006, only nine of these 136 former employees of the facility were still alive—only nine out of 136. That is a terrible and shocking statistic.

Bernie fought asbestosis, asbestos related pleural disease and finally mesothelioma. He settled his own compensation claim in 2000 but his real fight was only just beginning—the fight for justice for all the victims of asbestos related diseases. Alongside Greg Combet and the great support he received from the trade union movement, Bernie played a critical role in bringing James Hardie to justice through his contribution to negotiations and his high profile and effective public advocacy for justice.

Bernie’s own life was touched by tragedies beyond his own illnesses: the deaths of so many of his co-workers, the death of his own brother Ted from mesothelioma and the fact that his brother Albert currently has asbestosis. Despite the tragedies around him and in his own life, Bernie never became embittered. Instead, he thought about the lives of others who would suffer from these illnesses: fellow workers; their wives and mothers, who daily washed their dust-covered clothes; ordinary Australians who were exposed to asbestos; and the families who lost loved ones and lost their livelihoods as a result.

Bernie thought of what he could do to make sure that they would have support and help in the long years of battling declining health. He fought to make sure their families were not left nothing after they were gone. He became a familiar sight to Australians on our TV screens with his rasping voice and his oxygen tubes, fighting day in, day out for a fair go for working families. Bernie was determined not to give up the fight until it was won, until James Hardie did the right thing for the thousands of past and future victims of asbestos. It was an extraordinary contest, this genuine little Aussie battler, Bernie Banton, staring down the might of a mega corporation—and Bernie won. Backed by Greg Combet, backed by the trade union movement, he kept working for the cause of asbestos victims to the last days before he succumbed.

I will always remember my visit to Bernie just a few weeks before his death. Though facing death he was absolutely full of life, always asking how the campaign was running, asking what further could be done for those suffering from these dreadful diseases. He said to me: ‘Kevin, were it not for the unions, I never could have prevailed.’ He was a genuine Australian hero, an ordinary bloke with an extraordinary heart who led an extraordinary life—a man of faith, courage and conviction. In his fight for justice Bernie somehow reached out and touched the Australian soul, reminding us all of what it is to be Australian, reminding us all of the need to look out for one another and reminding us all that we need a fair go for all, not just for some.

Bernie became a living symbol of basic human decency, and this was reflected in the state funeral held for Bernie on 5 December last year, provided by the government of New South Wales. I believe that in the future kids will talk about the story of Bernie Banton. It will become part of Australian folklore, and I think that is a good thing. On behalf of the Australian parliament I extend our thoughts and prayers to the Banton family, to Karen and to Bernie’s five children.

I would also like to make some remarks about the passing of Matt Price. On the day after the election last year we received the terrible news of Matt Price’s death. He had become one of the nation’s great journalists, and he was still a relatively young man. John Hartigan from News Ltd described Matt in his 2007 Andrew Olle lecture as a ‘quality bloke’. I cannot think of a better description. He was a professional. He was witty. He was a first-class human being. He was a great Western Australian with a passion for sport.

Matt’s writing career began with a cadetship at the Albany Advertiser, a small paper in the south of Western Australia. He moved then to the Daily News in Perth, a paper that has since disappeared. This was followed with a stretch at Channel 9, a few years working in television bureaus in London and then back to Perth. In 1997 he joined the Australian and it was in the years following that that he rose to national prominence through his political writing. Those in the Canberra press gallery and members and senators on both sides of the House knew him as a friend, but he was a friend of so many people. In the days after his death, at his funeral in Perth and at his memorial in the Great Hall here in Parliament House, we heard many touching stories of the generosity and kindness of this thoroughly decent young man. He wrote on politics, he wrote on sport, but you knew he could write on just about anything and it would be quirky, informative, entertaining. He was terrific.

For those of us who served in this House before the election, I doubt that many parliamentary days passed without us picking up a copy of the Aus to read ‘The Sketch’ and to read Matt Price skewer one of us or the other—and, if it was not us that day, we would know it would be us the next day. Matt daily chronicled parliamentary events for the national daily. Matt sketched cartoons with words and there he did, tastefully, artfully, the task of disembowelling each of us, always with a smile. Matt always described this to me as one of the important character-building experiences of national political life. He was a great writer. His writing brought colour and warmth to the often dry debates in this chamber. The election campaign trail was not the same without him. For those of us returning to the House, it is hard to imagine this new parliamentary session without Matt Price.

Matt was destined to a long and distinguished career as one of the greats of Australian political journalism. It is sad for all of us as his friends and colleagues that we will never see him reach his full potential. But for Matt, the core of his being, the core of his life, the absolute core of his life, was his wonderful family. Many of us have spent time with them and see his life and his love for them radiated through each of them. So for Matt’s wife, Sue, and his kids, Jack, Matilda and Harry, your loss has been terrible. Our hearts go out to them, as we remember Matt and his contribution to our time in this place.

I would like to add to that, Mr Speaker, a contribution on the life of Sir Charles Court, a great Western Australian and a son of the Liberal Party. As Premier Carpenter said, no man has had as much influence in the development of Western Australia in the past 50 or 60 years as Sir Charles Court. It may be of some surprise to those opposite, but the first person ever to award me a prize in public speaking for anything was Sir Charles Court.

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