This company made solid profits by selling deadly asbestos products to Australians for almost 80 years - a product that causes a form of cancer which kills within 12 months of diagnosis and for which there is no cure. Mesothelioma has already killed 7,500 Australians and is expected to kill 18,000 Australians by 2020. And rather than face up to its responsibilities for this human tragedy James Hardie skipped town leaving just $293 million to fund compensation liabilities now estimated at $2.3 billion.

I see this as a defining issue. We will fight as hard and long as it takes to ensure justice is done and asbestos victims get proper compensation from the company that is responsible for their injuries. Every Australian Government, regardless of its’ political persuasion should do what is necessary to right this outrage and ensure it can’t happen again.

The reason I raise the issue at this moment is to place in some scale and context the issues about industrial relations. Here we have a truly sickening corporate act but the silence of both business and the federal government to date has been deafening. I ask you to imagine the outcry if a union had done anything evenly remotely comparable.

Even the possibility of Labor restoring the ability of the AIRC to insert provisions for blood donor leave and the like last week drew howls of outrage, with the Prime Minister warning that this represented ‘the most anti-business agenda in a generation’. But not a word about thousands of deaths that will go uncompensated if James Hardie’s scheme prevails.

A week ago counsel assisting the James Hardie inquiry released submissions accusing James Hardie of treating asbestos victims with ‘disdain’; words like ‘dishonesty’, ‘misleading and deceptive conduct’, failure ‘to exercise due skill and care’ were used.

Reporting the reaction to these findings the next day The Australian newspaper quoted a building material stock analyst as saying:

‘Ultimately, questions of negligence or other misconduct by company executives are only of interest to the extent that they affect shareholder value.’

Another analyst in The Age declared the business community had complete confidence in James Hardie CEO Peter MacDonald – he’s a ‘nice guy, he runs the company well’.

These are exceptionally callous and insensitive remarks that would sicken the families of asbestos victims. I know that this attitude is not reflective of the views of most people in the Australian business community. But business needs to make it clear that it does not condone the actions of James Hardie.

If you expect responsibility from the union movement, expect us to play a responsible role in the economy and the shape of the industrial relations system, you’d better stand up for some corporate responsibility too.

This is an extract from a speech given by Greg Combet to the Sydney Institute on 4 August 2004.