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Martin Lehmann - 8 March 2005
Erin Brokovich's heroic struggle against corporate power almost pales into
insignificance when compared to the story of Robert Vojakovich and his wife Rose Marie.
For over 25 years Robert and Rose Marie, founders of the Asbestos Diseases
Society of Australia, have been fighting some of Australia's corporate giants
over their despicable treatment of people dying from asbestos-related diseases.
Their fight started when they became involved with the victims of the blue
asbestos mine at Wittenoom in the northwest of Western Australia - hundreds of
miners, mill and transport workers who had handled the deadly fibres.
The Vojakovich's became locked in protracted legal battles with the mine's
owner, corporate heavyweight, CSR Limited.
In later years they also took on James Hardie Industries the manufacturer of
asbestos-based building products.
Both companies steadfastly refused to pay compensation to their
victims.
As the battle intensified the Asbestos Diseases Society was subjected to extreme
harassment - the Vojakovich's were regularly threatened with violence, the
society's offices were burgled and papers stolen, the phones tapped and an industrial
spy infiltrated the organisation.
As the legal tide was turning against it, James Hardie went to the
extraordinary lengths of relocating its corporate headquarters to the
Netherlands to place it out of Australian jurisdiction. It then proceeded to
strip the company's assets so that there would be no funds to pay victims.
Only intense government and public pressure forced the company to
retreat from its extreme position.
Feminists bleat that if more women were on the boards of companies we
would not see such acts of corporate bastardry.
The Chairman of James Hardie Industries
is Meredith Hellicar - a woman.
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