313
undertakings”, which included measures to ensure that sick workers and their families
damages payments would not be affected.
192
Court judgements have held
CSR accountable, as evidenced by the payment of
compensation and, in some cases, punitive damages. There have been no other legal
ramifications for CSR, unlike the former owners of the Swiss Eternit Corporation, who in
February 2012 were sentenced in an Italian court to sixteen years gaol for their negligence in
knowingly having exposed their employees and the local residents of Monfalcone to
asbestos and asbestos-related diseases.
193
Conclusion
In light of the available and increasing scientific knowledge linking
asbestos exposure to two
of the three major asbestos-related diseases prior to the opening of the Wittenoom mine in
1943, the high number of deaths from asbestos-related diseases among Wittenoom workers
and residents was avoidable. The scientific knowledge grew as more cases of asbestosis,
lung cancer and eventually mesothelioma were reported in the global research literature.
During the 1940s, 50s and 60s, the efforts of the Western Australian Department of
Health and several Mines Inspectors to bring the dust and associated health problems at
Wittenoom to the attention of CSR and the Western Australian Department of Mines went
unheeded, as CSR and the Commonwealth and Western Australian
governments pursued
their economic goals. Both governments ignored or proved complacent in the face of those
warnings. As part of the Commonwealth’s overall post war economic strategy, significant
government investment in the necessary infrastructure to attract workers and their families to
Wittenoom in order to establish a self-sufficient asbestos industry no doubt held sway over
the Department of Mines and its Minister’s failure to enforce the Mines Regulation Act. CSR’s
threat to close the mine was no doubt also significant.
192
Reuters/AAP Staff Reporter (2010), 'FIRB approves Sucrogen sale',
Business Spectator. Retrieved
12/9/2012 from http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/CSR-wins-FIRB-nod-for-Sucrogen-
sale-pd20101108-AZDC2?OpenDocument.
193
Peacock, M. (2012), 'Billionaire, baron get 16 years for asbestos deaths'.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-14/billionaire-baron-get-16-years-for-asbestos-deaths/3828204
314
Wanting to diversify their interests beyond their already highly successful sugar
interests, CSR, encouraged by commonwealth and state support, had entered into asbestos
mining in the pursuit of more profit. Buttressed by the Department of
Mines inertia in the
discharge of the Mines Regulation Act, CSR proved intractable regarding when and if to
implement the Mines Inspectors’ advice to improve working conditions. The company’s
assurances to the Department of Mines that they were dealing with the dust issues, in fact,
allowed CSR to move slowly on the introduction of the new mill they finally opened in 1958,
as well as any ventilation or dust suppression improvements to safeguard workers’ health.
The establishment of the Wittenoom mine had been borne of specific economic goals
and
disregarded the impact asbestos would eventually have on
the health of workers and
their families. The official reasons for Wittenoom’s closure in 1966 similarly failed to
acknowledge the growing health implications. Rather, CSR cited financial losses.
Wittenoom’s closure came at a time when
,
despite the known hazards, global sales of
asbestos products and profits were increasing. The company also participated in the price
fixing of asbestos, acknowledged
by ABA director, C. H. Broadhurst, in the late 1950s. Given
ABA Limited’s reported loss of $2.5 million in 1966, the question of $7 million present in the
non-liquidated ABA Limited’s account in 1975 remains, which CSR replaced with a $100,000
interest free loan. Increasing discussion in the international media regarding asbestos-related
diseases in the 1960s and available CSR correspondence on the increasing cases of
asbestos-related diseases at that time show that despite subsequent denials the company’s
senior executives were monitoring health issues at the Wittenoom mine. The
reasons for the
mine’s closure may have been influenced much more than CSR has ever admitted
by the
possibility of litigation, in view of the unquantifiable number of future mesothelioma cases.
The media scrutiny of the 1970s regarding what had gone on at Wittenoom prompted
the CSR secret defence strategy of hiding
behind the limited liability of its subsidiary Midalco,
formerly ABA Limited, to avoid anticipated damages claims. Despite the moral obligation felt
by at least two senior CSR executives, the protection of the company’s name and their profits
had taken precedence over damages payments to workers dying from asbestos-related
disease. That moral obligation did weigh heavily on the to this day unnamed informant who
315
revealed CSR’s strategy in 1988.
This disclosure
paved the way for Wittenoom victims to
receive damages for the consequences that resulted from
asbestos exposure,
to which they
would never have agreed had they known the truth about its dangers.
The evidence presented in this thesis suggests that CSR and the Commonwealth and
Western Australian governments have all contributed to the deaths reported in the
Wittenoom population, as well as those which have emerged and will continue to do so in the
general population as a result of environmental exposure to products containing asbestos.
