Killer Company

Killer Company

James Hardie Exposed

How James Hardie got away with poisoning an estimated 20,000 Australians.

In Killer Company Peacock rips the cloak of secrecy from one of the greatest corporate scandals in Australian history.

His painstaking research, involving newly discovered documents and interviews with over a hundred former Hardie employees and other key figures, reveals in stark detail how the company subverted the institutions designed to protect ordinary citizens, and how a dedicated group of unionists, lawyers and activists finally exposed Hardie's subterfuge.

The shameful story includes frightening evidence that asbestos is still around today- in our homes, driveways and public areas. At the Baryugil Aboriginal community, children who played in the asbestos tailing lining the roads are now developing rare cancers.

Matt Peacock began investigating Hardie 30 years ago and from the beginning the company and its spin machine played cat-and-mouse with the ABC journalist.

Explosive revelations in Killer Company include:
Meredith Hellicar, the former James Hardie chair convicted of breaching the Corporations Act, described asbestos campaigner Bernie Banton (who later died from mesothelimoma) as a liar and professional victim.
An unknown number of Australian homes- probably hundreds of thousands- have recycled asbestos bags under the carpet as under felt. The recycled Hessian bags have left a trial of death wherever they have been used- on the wharves, among wheat farmers in WA, banana growers in Queensland, and fruit sellers at Victoria Markets in Melbourne. Hardie has known of the dangers for decades but said nothing.
How the most powerful bureaucrat in the NSW Carr Government, Cabinet Director General Roger Wilkins, supported legislation to cap asbestos compensation payments and tried to stop the Jackson inquiry into Hardie's move offshore.
The behind-the-scenes battle within Australia's largest asbestos union to ban the killer fibre- a battle lost under the leadership of General Secretary Ray Gietzelt, who still believes the dangers of asbestos have been exaggerated.

Matt Peacock jointed ABC TV's This Day Tonight, as a researched in 1973, later working at Four Corners, Monday Conference, AM and PM.

Since 2004 he has been a senior reporter with the 7.30 Report. He has written for a number of newspapers, magazines and journals and has previously published two books based on his radio programs: Asbestos: Work as a Health Hazard and The Forgotten People- A History of the Australian South Sea Islander Community.

Peacock lives in Sydney with his family.

Killer Company
ABC Books
Author: Matt Peacock
ISBN: 9780733325809
RRP: $35.00