The jungle

“The private control of credit is the modern form of slavery” – Upton Sinclair

Appeal to Reason was a US socialist newspaper published by Julius Wayland at the turn of the twentieth century in the small Kansas town of Girard that became home for many radical migrant miners. In its unabridged serial edition of The Jungle by renowned muckraker Upton Sinclair, the publication unveiled appalling conditions, angst and despair amidst the stockyards, abattoirs and fertiliser plants in the Packingtown district of southwest Chicago.

The politically influential and critically acclaimed novel was initially published in 1906 and revealed the systemic and brutal exploitation of vulnerable Baltic migrants and their impoverished families. It was even acknowledged by many aristocrats including Winston Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt and generated widespread public outrage, which culminated in the establishment of the US Food and Drug Administration.

However, its intent and altruistic polemic was a humanitarian appeal against the exploitation of migrant workers, indentured servitude and penury. It advocated extensive social reform although it produced an unexpected corollary, which created overwhelming concern over public health and food safety standards. This generated a frustrated response from its noble author who proclaimed……..I aimed for the public’s heart and by accident, I hit it in the stomach.

The Radium Girls

Oppressive conditions and cruelty were by no means restricted towards vulnerable migrants in the abattoirs and stockyards. The exploitation intensified and significantly expanded throughout the First World War. During 1917, the much lamented Radium Girls flocked to work in factories across New Jersey and Illinois painting the dials of watches, clocks, compasses and other military instruments.

There was plenty of competition for jobs and the naïve young women were inveigled via a prestigious and patriotic wartime crusade with offers of a lucrative salary. The work involved lip pointing to hone the tips of paint brushes and delicate painting with Undark, an intriguing luminous amalgam containing radioactive radium.

The young ladies were told the paint was harmless and actually beneficial for their health although Marie Curie, who discovered the element eventually succumbed to aplastic anaemia and its deleterious health effects were well established. After several years of exposure many of the girls became violently ill and symptoms included loose teeth, halitosis, excruciating pain and rotten jawbones.

The first victim died in 1922 aged just 24 years and her death was recorded as syphilis, much to the dismay of her family and close friends. Sickness continued with evidence of decaying teeth, friable bones and disintegrating spines. The owners denied it was happening and subsequent autopsies by company appointed doctors disguised the cause, whilst the death toll escalated. Radiation levels were falsified or concealed, although two victims were buried in lead-lined coffins at the Ottawa Oakwood Memorial Park in Illinois.

In 1934 a small group of courageous female employees took legal action against their employer, the Radium Dial Company. Many were sick with anaemia, sarcomas, decaying jaws or amputated limbs and knew they were dying. Under a preferred sobriquet, entitled Society of the Living Dead, their tenacity prevailed with a concluding establishment of legal protection via federal health standards for future generations.

During the trial, the company ceased operating but the owner soon opened another factory under a different name at nearby premises. Safer conditions were promised but radioactive waste was emptied into toilets and factory ventilation shafts discharged near an infants’ playground.

The sickness was unrelenting but the factory owner, city officials and most people in the region displayed a casual indifference. In 1978 federal inspectors found radiation levels significantly exceeded prescribed limits and the factory was closed. Egregious management of the execrable saga has many similarities with other deadly industrial diseases such as asbestosis, mesothelioma, black lung and silicosis.

Asbestos

The scourge of asbestos and its debilitating pulmonary diseases is well documented. During 1913, the Cape Asbestos Company opened several factories in London, which included a large manufacturing plant in Barking to produce an extensive range of asbestos containing products including gas masks. In 1929 concerns were raised about asbestos dust exposure but operations continued until the factory closed in 1968.

Employees often worked in casual clothing without respiratory protective equipment and were merely informed to drink a glass of milk to ameliorate any respiratory complications. Excessive dust from extraction fans frequently shrouded a primary school adjacent to the factory.

The manufacturing plant was eventually demolished in the late 1960s and the land was purchased by the local council. Several council houses and tenements were built on the contaminated site. The factory employed over ten thousand people and it is difficult to estimate the precise number of employees who suffered asbestos related deaths.

However, the incidence rate for mesothelioma fatalities in the neighbourhood is amongst the highest in the United Kingdom. Many elderly residents remain afflicted with the eponymic Barking Cough. Asbestos related deaths are frequently reported and it has been described by a local member of parliament as one of the greatest tragedies the community has ever experienced.

Meanwhile, Cape PLC continues operating and aims to provide a workplace where everyone can work safely and healthily and operate in an environmentally and socially responsible manner. It recently established virtual offices across most states in Australia and was rewarded with several lucrative structural and mechanical piping contracts on major oil and gas projects.

A Turner and Newall factory near Leeds in the United Kingdom manufactured asbestos products over many years. Emissions from its ventilation system contaminated countless properties in the nearby Armley Lodge district of the city.

Several hundred former employees are believed to have died from asbestos related diseases and the adjacent housing estate has the highest incidence rate of mesothelioma in the United Kingdom. The factory closed in 1959 and the devastating consequences have been described as a social disaster.

Back in 1937, Lang Hancock from the Mulga Downs pastoral station in Western Australia began mining and milling activities for blue asbestos (crocidolite) at the nearby Yampire Gorge. The primitive, predatory and reckless extractive mining venture with its 3D dig, dump and depart tactics exploited cohorts of vulnerable migrants who were deployed to the region under a coercive federal government labour policy that was reminiscent of the brutal Soviet Gulag system.

Many itinerants slept in tents almost a kilometre from the mine site and the filthy hellhole was eventually acquired by Australian Blue Asbestos, a subsidiary of CSR Limited but the callous Dickensian working conditions remained. Meanwhile, the rapacious plundering bulldozed ahead without any skerrick of respect or sensitivity towards traditional landowners.

The malevolent ecological vandalism and catastrophic socioeconomic consequences are described in the prolonged and horrendous plight of the browbeaten Banjima people. During a 1984 television interview Lang Hancock proposed statutory sterilisation of the indigenous community through its potable water supply to resolve landowner conflict and other emerging disputes. It’s such a shame artificial intelligence cannot be applied retrospectively to implement this radical solution and ensure it specifically targeted the fecund mining magnate.

Even before the 1930s, an indisputable body of scientific evidence verified a causal nexus between asbestos exposure and respiratory diseases. It remains apodictic that the corporate brigands and many state government panjandrums and poltroons were fully aware of the associated health risks. Numerous Wittenoom employees and former residents have since died from asbestos related diseases. Moreover, many itinerants returned to their country of origin and subsequent health records were never obtained or disclosed. The exact death toll remains uncertain but it is incontestable that it will escalate.

Mining and milling of asbestos at Wittenoom officially ceased in December 1966 although numerous Hancock group employees continued working amongst the contaminated mine tailings and surrounding gorges. The swashbuckling recidivist pleaded ignorance over the associated health risks and claimed activities were endorsed by statutory authorities.

Almost three decades later a state parliamentary inquiry recommended its government force CSR Limited and the Hancock group of companies to remediate the contaminated site. An independent report summarises the serious public health risks and extensive environmental damage and estimates remediation with encapsulation of the site will cost approximately $150 million.

The state government eventually dissolved Wittenoom’s status as a township and it is now classified as a contaminated site. Toxic tailings still remain and pollution extends well beyond the designated exclusion zone. Meanwhile, the traditional neoliberal dichotomy of privatising profit and socialising loss prevails and rehabilitation costs will inevitably cascade onto beleaguered taxpayers despite extremely lucrative annual mining royalties.

Maybe Georgina Hope Rinehart AO and the Hancock Prospecting media liaison team should extend their renowned philanthropy towards the impoverished Banjima people. The mining magnate could even conspire with Jordan Peterson, the high priest of tyranny and embrace his Clean Your Room dogma. After six decades it may stimulate her subconscious mind to remediate the sustainable mining venture that her plundering late father and several socially autistic CSR executives left behind at Wittenoom.

Asbestos was used extensively in the manufacture of building products, which experienced an unprecedented demand during the post war housing construction boom across Australia and elsewhere around the globe. Major manufacturers and suppliers included CSR and James Hardie who twisted every which way but loose to safeguard their assets, evade accountability and minimise any liability. The venality of James Hardie was described by Greg Combet as one of the most morally and legally repugnant acts in Australian corporate history.

No criminal charges ever ensued although numerous senior executives faced civil action under corporations’ legislation in the New South Wales Supreme Court. The chief executive, Peter MacDonald received a $350,000 fine and was disqualified from serving as a board member for 15 years. This was attenuated by a resignation windfall, which included a bountiful $9 million golden parachute.

The late Justice Ian Gzell reserved some harsh criticism for Meredith Hellicar, the former James Hardie chairperson. During testimony she was found to be a most unsatisfactory witness who feigned shock and displayed unacceptable dogmatism. She received a five-year directorship ban with a $30,000 fine. It was reduced on appeal and the former AMP director, coal industry lobbyist and corporate sociopath was merely confined to the naughty step.

The notorious home insulation program during the leadership of our Milky Bar Kid removed yet another scab from the festering sores of the asbestos saga and was colloquially referred to as the Mr Fluffy scandal. Between the 1960s and 1970s loose-fill asbestos was pumped into roof cavities to insulate over 1000 properties in the suburbs of Canberra. It was a lucrative venture and encompassed additional homes across the border in New South Wales.

The commonwealth government spent almost $100 million in a futile attempt to remediate and restore contaminated properties throughout Canberra. In August 2014 a report from the asbestos response taskforce confirmed an unknown and perhaps unknowable number of residents lived in homes affected by loose fill asbestos insulation. It concluded demolition of the affected properties was the only enduring solution to the risks posed by loose fill asbestos that was used to insulate roof cavities and attics in many houses across the Australian Capital Territory and surrounding regions.

In Australia, malignant mesothelioma is a significant public health issue and additional cases will be identified each year due to its complex aetiology and inherent latency. Our national death toll for asbestos related diseases will eventually exceed the number of casualties from the First World War. Those horrific events at Gallipoli inspired a tradition of annual remembrance but the bereaved families of most mesothelioma victims typically encounter obfuscation with a patronising disposition of unaccountable power. Welfare rapidly degenerates into warfare and when the rich wage war, it’s the poor who die.

The material was also used in the fabrication of friction products such as gaskets and automotive brake and clutch assemblies and major suppliers included Lucas Girling Limited. The organisation established a production facility at Bromborough on Merseyside in the United Kingdom to supply local automotive manufacturing plants at Ellesmere Port and Halewood. It has since transferred its operations to Wrexham in North Wales.

The organisation is currently named as a defendant in a least one UK High Court mesothelioma claim arising from alleged asbestos exposure. Other suppliers established similar production facilities to meet the demands of automotive manufacturers in major regional centres across the United Kingdom. The complex aetiology of the disease and its prolonged latency will ensure additional plaintiffs arise and the death toll escalates.

In the 1950s, Bendix Mintex established a friction products manufacturing facility at Delacombe near Ballarat in Australia to meet the demands of a developing automotive industry, especially in Adelaide, Melbourne and Geelong. The products were made by mixing raw asbestos with additional materials such as cement and glue. Over several decades, countless employees were exposed to asbestos dust and fibres without effective controls and the provision of adequate or sufficient personal protective equipment.

Senior executives were fully aware of the associated health risks but prioritised production over protection and continued using the raw material until the use of asbestos was banned by the Australian federal government in 2003. Bendix Mintex has since attempted to rebrand its tarnished image and has distanced itself from the BBA Group, its parent company.

The organisation’s trading name is currently FMP Group (Australia) Pty Ltd and it is generally referred to as Friction Materials Pacific. Much like James Hardie and many other corporate brigands, the organisation denied its egregious performance. It sacrificed truth and accountability to protect its corporate image, secure assets and defend reputations when the numerous claims for exposing its employees to asbestos dust and fibres emerged.

Black Lung

During the recent resources boom in Australia a resurgence of coal workers pneumoconiosis or black lung emerged across the Surat-Bowen basin coalfields in Queensland. A parliamentary inquiry and subsequent report revealed a catastrophic breakdown of a regulatory system that was intended to secure and protect the health and safety of coal miners.

Mine dust lung diseases are caused by long-term exposure to high concentrations of respirable dust generated during mining and quarrying activities. The current toll of diagnosed employees across Queensland’s resources sector is almost 800 victims.

Over in the United States, mine dust lung diseases were rampant throughout Appalachia, especially across the West Virginia coal fields. Many larger coal seams were depleted by rapacious demands and remaining sections in many underground mines were much narrower and more restrictive.

This required additional blasting through surrounding rock to accommodate larger cutting machinery, ventilation ducts and materials handling equipment. It increased the risk of exposure to highly toxic respirable crystalline silica, which causes silicosis. Innovative processes were also introduced to increase productivity such as longwall top coal caving or the environmentally destructive mountain top removal technique, which generated even more dust.

In the New South Wales coalfields mine dust lung diseases enigmatically disappeared. Maybe extraction techniques generated less dust or mechanical ventilation systems were far more effective although absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. In a McJob gig economy, most of the labourers were probably transient contractors or fugacious labour hire slaves and did not feature in the statistics.

Occupational exposure to respirable crystalline silica occurs across a comprehensive range of industrial sectors. This includes quarrying, mining, mineral processing, foundries, stonemasonry, refractory processes, construction, tunnelling, demolition, pottery, glass, ceramics and cement and concrete manufacturing. In some operations dust emissions are often unnoticeable and extremely fine particles can remain airborne and uncontrolled for prolonged periods.

Silicosis

Silicosis is a recognised occupational fibrotic lung disease and its severity varies from simple or complicated forms to progressive massive fibrosis. It is caused by inhalation of respirable crystalline silica and usually categorised into three principal classifications.

Acute silicosis occurs following severe exposure over a relatively brief period, which produces a rapid progression of dyspnoea or breathlessness and death typically occurs within several months. Accelerated silicosis develops within five to ten years following direct exposure to high concentrations of airborne contaminants. Chronic silicosis manifests over time following prolonged exposure to low concentrations of respirable crystalline silica in the occupational environment.

Respirable crystalline silica is also present in iron ore and bauxite deposits but the development of silicosis is not restricted to operators in underground or open cut mining activities. It presents a much greater risk than coal dust and may be responsible for the rapid onset of progressive massive fibrosis amongst coal miners.

In Australia, a recent escalation of acute silicosis amongst tradesmen and stonemasons with the manufacture and installation of fashionable stone kitchen benchtops prompted health officials to warn of an impending public health emergency.

The Queensland government issued an alert following the lodgement of numerous silicosis claims, which included six terminally ill victims. It was described by a senior physician as the worst occupational lung disease crisis since asbestosis and the federal government has since prohibited the manufacture, supply, processing and installation of engineered stone because of the severe health risks.

In the United States during the early 1930s Union Carbide Corporation awarded a major engineering contract to Rinehart & Dennis, which involved construction of the Hawks Nest tunnel beneath Gauley Mountain in West Virginia. The independent contractor submitted the cheapest tender and the project achieved notoriety as the worst industrial disaster in US history. It resulted in the deaths of at least 750 construction workers from silicosis although most Americans remain oblivious to the carnage.

Construction of the five-kilometre tunnel began midway through 1930 using a continual supply of impoverished migrant labourers. It was part of a deceitful hydroelectric project, which also generated cheap power for the Electro Metallurgical Company, a subsidiary of Union Carbide. The mountain rock contained extremely high concentrations of silica and dry drilling techniques were employed to expedite construction and reduce project costs.

Blasting, drilling and cutting activities generated persistent clouds of swirling white dust as the labourers toiled without adequate ventilation or respiratory protective equipment. Numerous peons collapsed under the oppressive conditions and were hauled outside via wheelbarrows to recuperate in the fresh air.

Following a brief respite they were forced to return underground by company appointed guards to complete their ten-hour shifts or face dismissal. Countless labourers became seriously ill with acute silicosis following repetitive, intense and unprotected exposure to significant concentrations of freshly fractured silica dust. Many of the victims died in their beds at the project’s segregated and primitive accommodation camps in overcrowded converted boxcars near Gauley Bridge.

The death toll began to escalate and additional emotive and political issues soon emerged via the Jim Crow laws and the legal doctrine of separate but equal, which covered racial segregation in public facilities including cemeteries. Repatriation of the deceased became increasingly complicated because many victims were anonymous itinerants without any identification, next of kin or dependents.

Union Carbide responded instinctively and a local undertaker was rewarded with a fruitful contract to bury the victims. The unidentified bodies were unceremoniously loaded onto a neighbouring farmer’s flatbed truck and transported to makeshift cemeteries near Summersville then dumped into unmarked mass graves. Some incapacitated workers managed to return home and suffered unbearably harrowing deaths. The initial symptoms included a rasping cough and excruciating chest pains with a rapid onset of progressive massive fibrosis until their lungs eventually ossified.

Union Carbide executives and West Virginia state officials conspired to conceal the magnitude of the disaster, which was rarely covered in tertiary education curricula or commemorated via remembrance services. Newspaper editors were somewhat reluctant to publish inflammatory articles and most media reports inevitably blamed the victims. The escalating disease was mistakenly attributed to poor nutrition or an unhealthy diet and unhygienic behaviour.

During the late 1930s the state governor described a federal writers’ project and guide covering the region as blatant propaganda and refused to sanction its publication until references to the disaster were moderated. After leaving office, the former democrat, Governor Homer Holt was rewarded with a sinecure as general counsel with Union Carbide.

The corporate turpitude displayed by Union Carbide is incontestable. The primary objective of the Hawks Nest project was to provide cheap power for the adjacent metallurgical facility and use the excavated silica for production of precious ferrosilicon alloys, which were an extremely popular commodity throughout the steel industry.

The creation of the New Kanawha Power Company was merely a fraudulent tactic that enabled Union Carbide to circumvent statutory requirements and mine the vast silica reserves and the peons were just collateral damage. Its vituperative recklessness and contumelious irresponsibility resulted in the deaths of almost 800 workers although the exact number of fatalities will never be known.

Just over five decades later in December 1984 the corporate brigand was involved in the world’s worst industrial disaster following a leak of highly toxic methyl isocyanate at its Bhopal pesticide manufacturing plant in India. The estimated casualty toll varies significantly and media reports indicate approximately 8000 deaths occurred within two weeks of the incident and thousands of additional fatalities emerged following exposure related complications. History may not repeat itself but it sure does rhyme.

Australian Health and Safety

The cost of workplace health; safety, injury and disease across Australia provides an interesting trajectory. In 1992-3 it amounted to almost $20 billion and was uniformly distributed between employers (40%), employees (30%) and the community (30%). This significantly increases for individuals, their dependents and the community if the consequences involve traumatic fatalities or serious injuries.

More recent estimates put the cost at $62 billion per year with a staggering redistribution amongst employers (5%), employees (77%) and the community (18%). Any estimation of expenditure covering workplace injuries and diseases requires consideration of an extensive range of direct and indirect parameters and it is quite a complex exercise.

However, since 1993 the allocation of costs endured by incapacitated employees has increased by a staggering 157% with a corresponding decrease of 88% for employers. It suggests other exogenous risks such as the gig economy and contingent labour hire with rampant exploitation and vassalage of vulnerable workers may be significant contributory factors although you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

Wages of Fear

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” – Upton Sinclair

Wages of fear is a critically acclaimed classic suspense movie starring Yves Montand. It is based on a French novel by George Arnuad entitled Le salaire de la peur, which was written almost seven decades ago and the narrative remains eerily familiar. Southern Oil (SO), a fictitious American transnational conglomerate dominates an isolated pastoral town in South America amidst accusations of unethical practices, which include the exploitation of vulnerable workers. The company operates several large oilfields across the vast surrounding desert and provides many locals or itinerants with a scarce opportunity to attenuate or even escape from the prevailing despair and anomie.

In the 1970s, my formative years amidst the innocence and arrogance of youth were spent at the Shell UK Oil Stanlow petrochemical complex on the Wirral peninsula in Cheshire. The company was easily the largest regional employer and it dominated the local borough of Ellesmere Port and Neston. Its workforce consisted of almost 20,000 people, which included permanent employees and many contractors. The alluring terms and conditions of employment were supplemented by enticing remuneration packages, career development prospects and many other inveigling corporate benefits.

Despite the incentives, refinery life was not all beer and skittles, which was corroborated by the obituary column in the refinery’s quarterly bulletin. Indeed, only a few operations and manufacturing stalwarts reached retirement age and even less spent rewarding, healthy and productive years beyond that significant milestone.

Eye protection was mandatory throughout its laboratories although stained tiled floors in the bitumen plant control room and its laboratory were often manually cleaned using raw pyrolysis gasoline, which contained significant amounts of benzene. Moreover, it was practically impossible to perform analysis on many aliphatic or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons without repeated exposure to toxic and carcinogenic organic vapours.

Before the second world war, the Royal Dutch Shell group under the helm of its imperious founder collaborated with the Nazi party and provided finance for the Third Reich. It also formed a controversial partnership with the German chemical conglomerate IG Farben, which manufactured Zyklon B gas that was used across several notorious death camps. The liaison generated significant discomfort and uneasiness amongst most Shell UK Oil directors in London.

Following the war, Sir Douglas Bader, a cantankerous and staunch conservative embarked on an extensive public relations crusade across Europe and North Africa on behalf of the swashbuckling predator and was eventually appointed as managing director with Shell Aircraft. The ruthless corporate brigand’s ravenous maw remains motivated by unscrupulous gluttony and it continues trading with many brutal, despotic and corrupt regimes elsewhere around the globe.

Its Australian interests include Arrow Energy, which is an upstream coal seam gas joint venture with PetroChina across the Surat-Bowen basin in Queensland. It also operates the Shell QGC downstream gas processing and liquefaction facility on Curtis Island near Gladstone. Over in Western Australia it has substantial interests in the Prelude floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility and the Crux gas field in the Browse basin. It has a minor stake in the North West Shelf LNG joint venture, which is operated by Woodside Energy, another notorious transnational corporate recidivist.

Shell no longer owns its downstream retail fuel business, which is exclusively franchised through Viva Energy and ensures its cherished brand name remains predominant. It has also established a renewable energy generation profile through Shell Energy Australia. This includes the 120MW Gangarri solar project in Queensland and several onshore windfarms across several states.

Toxic Chemicals

Besides asbestosis, mesothelioma black lung and silicosis, many other ailments can emerge following exposure to toxic industrial chemicals and other lethal substances. Indeed, financial incentives can prevent people from accepting truths that contradict their economic interests and it is extremely difficult to get anybody to understand something if their income depends on not comprehending the concept.

Over many years the Royal Australian Air Force exposed numerous maintenance personnel and contractors to hazardous chemicals during its deseal and reseal program on F-111 fighter jets at the Amberley airbase near Brisbane in Queensland. This required frequent entry into fuel tanks with prolonged exposure to a volatile cocktail of aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons, carcinogens, flammable solvents, sealants and many other toxic chemicals. These included methyl ethyl ketone, benzene, toluene, aviation turbine fuel, strontium chromate and the notorious stench of thiophenol from SR51 and SR51A desealants.

In Victoria, the Country Fire Authority (CFA) at Fiskville was the spiritual home for many of its rural firefighters. Epidemiological evidence suggests contamination from its operational activities at the facility contributed to a cluster of occupational cancers and other related illnesses. Moreover, safety and public health concerns over contaminated water and the handling and storage of dangerous goods were nonchalantly disregarded or ignored.

Many of these toxic substances included classified carcinogens and perfluorinated firefighting foams. The egregious performance of senior executives and its leadership or damagement team left numerous firefighters and community members feeling angry, frustrated and betrayed.

Neglected families were shrouded under a miasma of despair and anxiety and left chasing smoke. Many of the substances were linked to heart, kidney and liver damage and an extensive range of autoimmune and blood disorders. At least nine people died from cancer related illnesses, which were correlated to chemical exposure at the Fiskville site and a further eight individuals experienced serious health problems.

Perfluorinated firefighting foams were frequently used at numerous defence force sites across Australia. These included Royal Australian Air Force facilities at Williamtown near Newcastle and the Richmond airbase west of Sydney in New South Wales. These synthetic substances are often categorised as forever chemicals and have created widespread pollution at many neighbouring properties.

Following several complaints a federal parliamentary inquiry determined contamination was extensive and persistent. Preliminary containment strategies at the airbases were rudimentary and ineffective, which caused substantial environmental damage culminating in significant insecurity and anguish amongst affected communities.

Alcoa is another notorious transnational predator and the swashbuckling brigand has been strip mining bauxite across the pristine Jarrah forest south of Perth in Western Australia over many years. The raw material was refined at neighbouring facilities in Kwinana, Wagerup and Pinjarra and it operated two aluminium smelters in Victoria. These included the Point Henry facility near Geelong, which was closed in 2014. Production at its remaining smelter in Portland near the South Australian border continues.

Many residents of Kwinana near Perth in Western Australia refer to the industrialised suburb as the capital of cancer although a far more accordant or appropriate epithet would be the cancer of capital. A liquor burning facility operated within the K58 section of its Alcoa Kwinana refinery for many years, which involved removal of total organic carbon contaminants from the caustic solvent to improve quality and increase productivity. During the process a toxic concoction of volatile organic compounds were discharged into the immediate and neighbouring environs.

Process operators were frequently exposed to liquor burner vapours or oxalate kiln emissions and numerous complaints regarding noise or offensive odours soon emerged. Serious adverse health effects followed, which included chronic fatigue syndrome and multiple chemical sensitivity with several unexpected deaths.

An exploratory health study from an occupational physician identified an abnormal clustering of cancers such as leukaemia, brain tumours and lymphoma throughout the region. This prompted families to publish a list of casualties who either died or became seriously ill after working at Kwinana refinery.

Epidemiological studies under the Alcoa Healthwise program through the University of Western Australia and Monash University were unable to establish any causal nexus or offer significant conclusions The studies failed to include contractors and contingent labourers who performed many of the maintenance activities on site. They were a significant component of the Alcoa workforce and were excluded from the health studies because of substantial methodological problems.

Any alliance with corporate sponsors inevitably generates a perception of bias, which may have a detrimental impact on research activities. It compromises independence and can emasculate the integrity of epidemiological health studies or surveys. Indeed, independent research covering asbestos, cigarette smoking and glyphosate indicates there is an established tradition of manipulating evidence, data and analysis to create and maintain an auspicious environment for industry at material and ideological levels.

Despite public outrage, the plundering continued and involved significant expansion of its refining facilities at Wagerup, which included installation of a liquor burning facility. After it was commissioned complaints increased exponentially and adverse health effects escalated accordingly.

Incidents involving several different employees were often allocated to a single event and records were amended and distorted accordingly. There were also increasing reports of asset damage to motor vehicles involving pitted windscreens and eroded paintwork. The liquor burner was temporarily shut down and modified with the installation of emissions reduction equipment. Complaints reduced significantly but reaction from deeply suspicious local residents remained resentful.

Alcoa’s activities at its Wagerup refinery generated a substantial adverse impact on the local community at Yarloop. Its residents established the Community Alliance for Positive Solutions (CAPS) support group. It aims to protect and conserve the integrity, quality and sustainability of the immediate communities and their surrounding natural environment. This involved engagement of the renowned US paralegal activist and public health campaigner, Erin Brockovich.

This insatiable quest for economic growth and development catalysed by rampant neoliberalism has brought heavy industry onto the doorsteps of many small communities such as Yarloop in Western Australia and Wollar in New South Wales. The eternal struggle between industrialism and the importance of people, place and profits under corporate skies must be negotiated equitably to achieve meaningful and ethical outcomes between the rival factions.

Extractive mining at Broken Hill in New South Wales has left a daunting legacy of extensive environmental lead contamination, which constrains neurodevelopment of infants. In the early 1990s, health authorities identified elevated blood lead levels as a significant public health risk. Despite decades of intervention, continual screening shows exposure amongst children remains abnormal and is significantly disproportionate throughout indigenous families

At Mount Isa in Queensland, mining and smelting emissions are the dominant source of lead contamination and generate significant public health risks. Multiple studies reveal blood lead levels in children are substantially higher than background urban populations.

At Port Pirie in regional South Australia dust emissions from its heavy metals smelter have contaminated soil, homes, yards and public spaces over many decades. Recent studies reveal elevated blood lead levels amongst many infants across the city, which exceed National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) guidelines.

The prolonged accumulation of residues contaminated with heavy metals remains in dust and grime deposits across the city. Even if emissions are reduced at the source, dry and windy conditions disturb prevailing sediments and disperse the toxic contaminants. During early development, the risk of exposure towards susceptible infants increases significantly through involuntary and unhygienic tendencies or habits.

The smelter is currently operated by Nyrstar and the company has partnered with the state government to establish a Targeted Lead Abatement Program. This aims to remove or contain contaminated deposits and reduce the accumulation of dust through the rejuvenation and restoration of specific problem sites. Additional initiatives include cleaning public spaces and homes and supporting families using public health education campaigns. Despite these noble interventions, the state government and media reports acknowledge that lead contamination remains a serious public health issue, especially amongst infants and adolescents.

Just over two decades ago at Esperance in Western Australia Magellan Metals was implicated in a major environmental and public health crisis. The company transported bulk lead carbonate by rail from its mining operations at Wiluna to the Esperance port facilities on the south coast. There was no sealed shipment of the toxic material and it was eventually discovered that fugitive lead dust emissions were responsible for the mysterious deaths of thousands of native birds across the pristine Esperance coast.

A subsequent parliamentary inquiry revealed further serious aftershocks, which included elevated blood lead levels amongst Esperance residents and contamination of the town’s potable water supply. The inquiry involved multiple parties including Magellan Metals, the Esperance Port Authority and the Western Australia Department of Environment and Conservation.

The mine was placed under care and maintenance and the Esperance Port Authority pleaded guilty to breaching environmental legislation and received a $525,000 penalty. Magellan Metals provided a voluntary contribution of $9 million towards restoration and rehabilitation of the township and a further $1 million for community projects.

Following extensive community and government consultation, Magellan Metals obtained approval from the state government for the sealed shipment of lead carbonate concentrate through the Port of Fremantle and resumed operations at its Wiluna mine. This involved rail transportation of the toxic material in sieve proof double lined bags inside locked steel shipping containers under a comprehensive compliance program. Meanwhile, Magellan Metals changed its name to Roslyn Hill Mining and the final shipment of concentrated lead carbonate left Fremantle in February 2015.

After a series of complex negotiations involving its parent company and failed funding attempts for the development of a hydrometallurgical plant at the Wiluna site, Roslyn Hill Mining entered into a voluntary administration arrangement. Approval to export lead concentrate through the Port of Fremantle recently expired. It has left the company without viable access to the metals trading market and its Wiluna mine site remains under care and maintenance.

Transnational Polluters

Globalisation has enabled many transnational corporate guerillas to transfer manufacturing facilities and exploit the underclass in alternative countries with assistance from corrupt totalitarian despots. In China, manufacturing facilities across the Pearl River delta produce most of the world’s consumer electronics, which includes smartphones. Many vulnerable employees are often exposed to organic cleaning solvents, which include neurotoxins such as n-hexane and carcinogenic benzene.

Respiratory ailments resulting from exposure to specific toxic chemicals and sensitisers are exacerbated through cigarette smoking. Over many decades the tobacco industry has resorted to lies and deception to escape accountability for selling the most lethal consumer product in American history. It was aided and abetted by McKinsey & Company who collaborated with the major tobacco companies in the development of sinister strategies to purvey their poison.

This notorious narcoterrorist was also responsible for turbocharging Oxycontin sales across the United States on behalf of Purdue Pharma amidst an opioid abuse crisis. Its fingerprints are often found amongst the rubble in some of the most egregious corporate disasters, industrial tragedies and financial catastrophes across the globe over many decades. One of its major competitors includes the Boston Consulting Group. Meanwhile, much like the gnomes of Zurich in the Swiss banking network, a conspiracy of silence or omertà provides protection for its clients, which include numerous corporate and state government gangsters.

Eroding Worker’s Health and Safety

During their professional careers many of our elected representatives, parliamentary staffers and government panjandrums have been partners or consultants with these treacherous vagabonds. These include Angus Taylor, Simon Kennedy, Clare O’Neil, Allegra Spender, Alan Tudge, Kate Chaney, Diane Smith (Proper) Gander and Greg Hunt, our former federal Minister for Disease.

The emasculation of Australia’s occupational health and safety framework emerged following the election of its LNP coalition government under John Howard back in 1996. The National Occupational Health and Safety Commission (NOHSC) was subsequently transferred from its Camperdown facility in Sydney. This was situated opposite the University of Sydney and conveniently located adjacent to the State Coroner’s Court and Morgue, which functioned as the centre of coronial justice in New South Wales. It was relocated to Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory and many experienced public servants in the NOHSC refused to move and reluctantly resigned or took early retirement.

In March 2004, the LNP coalition government belated and reluctantly ratified the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention C155. This required national uniformity and harmonisation of work health and safety legislation across Australia and cooperation from its states and territories.

After securing control in the senate the LNP coalition government eventually dissolved the NOHSC. It was replaced by an administrative advisory body; the Australian Safety and Compensation Council and integrated into Tony Abbott’s industrial relations ministerial portfolio. Meanwhile, Jerry Ellis, a former BHP executive was appointed as its interim chairperson.

Its parsimonious budget was ruthlessly slashed and its scope was extended to include workers compensation. Meanwhile, the fundamental tenets of genuine independence and tripartite arrangements were relinquished.

Following the 2007 federal election, Kevin Rudd replaced John Howard as the Australian prime minister and embarked on harmonisation of safety legislation to align with ILO requirements through the Council of Australian Governments (COAG). It was an ideal opportunity to implement some radical and meaningful change but the spinless show pony capitulated to neoliberal interests.

The Australian Safety and Compensation Council was replaced by Safe Work Australia, which was merely a statutory agency It required ministerial council approval of corporate and operational plans and enabled the industrial relations minister to veto appointment of its representatives, which undermined genuine independence and tripartite arrangements.

Following extensive lobbying from Peter Hendy at the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Garry Brack at the NSW Employers Federation, the harmonisation process became a trojan horse. The model Act removed the reverse onus of proof and its strict liability or absolute standard covering duty of care was eventually attenuated to as low as reasonably practicable. It was a race to the bottom to encourage economic investment and a classic example of corporate socialism or welfare. Moreover, it provided transnational conglomerates with a malevolent freedom to harm and impunity.

Meanwhile, Diane Smith (Proper) Gander, a former partner with the notorious McKinsey & Company who was previously employed at their corporate office in Washington DC, became chairperson of Safe Work Australia. Previous tenures included several additional executive and senior management appointments with some renowned corporate brigands.

These included AGL, Broadspectrum, Wesfarmers and Westpac. The coercive feminist was also a board member at the University of Western Australia business school. Rumours regarding executive security roles at the Manus Island and Nauru regional processing centres and the Guantanamo Bay detention camp were unsubstantiated.

In November 2017, the former executive director of SafeWork South Australia, Marie Boland was appointed by Diane Smith Gander at  Safe Work Australia to review the model work health and safety laws. The subsequent report entitled the Boland Review was released in February 2019 and concluded model laws were operating largely as intended and support for harmonisation objectives remained strong. It was an extremely bewildering and astonishing statement considering the legislative framework was reminiscent of a dog’s breakfast or an unmade bed.

Several jurisdictions implemented separate health and safety statutes covering their mining, petroleum and resources sectors, which were often administered by alternative state government authorities. This was further exacerbated by a minefield of industrial manslaughter legislation, which is fraught with complex legal technicalities covering the burden of proof pertaining to negligence and recklessness.

Following the 2022 federal election, Marie Boland was eventually engaged as chief executive officer with Safe Work Australia. An additional curious appointment included the selection of Tony Maher as its chairperson. The former general president of the mining and energy division of the notorious Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union (CFMEU) was also a director with Coal Services Pty. Ltd. This organisation assisted with the design and delivery of the coal mining health services black lung program, which was enigmatically successful across the New South Wales coalfields.

The excessively bureaucratic work health and safety legislative framework is supported by numerous codes of practice and other guidance material and merely installs a prefabricated virtual cage around Upton Sinclair’s savage jungle. It is reminiscent of a spider’s web that entraps many minnows but enables a plundering aristocracy to crash through and provides some superficial psychological comfort rather than a testimony of reality. Moreover, the taxonomies and systems used to domesticate the world and control uncertainty are repeatedly pitched into crises by amorphous phenomena.

The health and safety legislative framework is a component of a much larger and coercive industrial relations system or architecture of oppression that is underpinned by a brutal McJob gig economy of indentured servitude, serfdom or modern slavery. It was cunningly promoted as a fashionable accord but is merely a regurgitation and sinister rebranding of the extremely controversial and unpopular WorkChoices legislation.

This was initially introduced by Tony Abbott during a ministerial tenure as an adversarial industrial relations head kicker under the neoliberal command of that unflushable turd, John Howard. It was instrumental in the demise of the LNP coalition government at the 2007 federal election.

The gig economy has uberised the labour market and the creative destruction has fractured employer and employee relationships, which obscures or complicates common law principles covering duty of care. Incomes no longer provide additional benefits such as sick pay or leave entitlements and earnings fluctuate erratically, which generates subsistence without any predictability or security.

Most of the canaille endure a fragmented existence through contingent labour or underemployment. Cohorts of a demoralised and embittered underclass are exposed to a dwindling range of social, cultural, political and economic rights or opportunities. The symptoms include anxiety through insecurity and anomie from despair, which cultivates alienation and then anger with a profound intolerance towards migrants and other strangers and has significantly contributed towards escalating psychosocial risks.

Many of the victims are just a dishonoured paycheck or expensive dental invoice away from destitution or penury as they stumble between intermittent McJobs at the local car wash, aged care facility or car tyre automart. Each day, the relentless drudgery provides a basic income to purchase a bacon and egg McMuffin for breakfast or Domino’s pizza for dinner with no significant prospects or expectations of career development.

The gig economy also involves rampant exploitation of vulnerable migrants across Australia’s killing fields, especially throughout the horticultural and agribusiness sectors. This is cunningly disguised under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme, which is reminiscent of blackbirding. This architecture of oppression is reinforced by the federal government’s work for the dole scheme. It places draconian restrictions on welfare recipients using accredited employment providers under its JobActive program and involved the tragic death of Josh Park-Fing at Toowoomba showgrounds back in 2016.

The inhumanity was aggravated by the LNP coalition government’s extremely controversial Online Compliance Intervention program or Robodebt scam. This bungling dystopian nightmare led to several suicides of welfare recipients and was described in a subsequent royal commission as an extraordinary saga of venality, incompetence and cowardice.

Six of the federal government panjandrums were eventually referred to the recently established National Anti-Corruption Commission but no criminal charges ensued. Two of the perpetrators were only deemed half-pregnant and the remaining four offenders were not considered corrupt enough.

Federal and state governments are supported by a gallimaufry of obsequious neoliberal think tanks, arms-length bodies or quangos. This includes numerous industry associations and peak safety bodies who embellish or attenuate the narrative to reflect and align with the prevailing ideology of casino or gangster capitalism with a winner takes all and no regrets ethos.

Many of these associations are littered with ersatz academics or careerist zombie consultants who merely borrow your watch to tell you the time and are reluctant to challenge the orthodoxy or speak truth to power. The discourse frequently involves promotion of asinine shibboleths or draconian fatwas such as zero harm or zero tolerance under a rubric of righteousness and fear but we must never mistake slogans as solutions (cf. Stop the boats).

Technical reports supported with death by Pierrepoint presentations often involve the use of junk science with categorical data and second class minds dealing with third grade material is hardly a necessity of life. Much of the research is merely descriptive statistics and would never pass muster at a Cochrane Library review and meta-analysis.

The Australian Institute of Health and Safety proudly describes itself as the national association for workplace health and safety in Australia but it failed to provide representation or offer any submissions to the Queensland parliamentary inquiry into coal workers pneumoconiosis.

The official response was a lack of technical expertise although it operates a lucrative program for the certification of occupational health and safety (OHS) professionals, which undermines the Australian Qualifications Framework and the work health and safety curriculum. It is reminiscent of George Orwell’s perceptive comments from A Clergyman’s Daughter regarding private schools charging extortionate fees to parents without imparting knowledge to students.

Certification requires an extensive understanding of its OHS Body of Knowledge, which prescribes a positivist and objectivist worldview. It is underpinned by Kantian or rules based ethics and supported by a draconian fatwa of zero harm. Moreover, its binary hard and soft systems management framework transfers the emphasis from material or operational risk to an anachronistic concept of behaviourism, which despite rapid advancements in neuroscience is no better than phrenology or sorcery.

Behaviour based safety generates many counterproductive consequences, which include pettifogging, blame, fear and escalating psychosocial risks. The intuitive sense that one is being watched renders even the most comforting and familiar activities strange and discomfiting. It tells us far more about the observer than those under surveillance and beneath an architecture of oppression, the slave is always a tyrant if he gets the chance to be one.

Irrespective of political stripes the government response to most disasters or public health crises reflects and aligns with John Kenneth Galbraith’s aphorism of private opulence and public squalor. This eternally involves man’s oldest exercise in moral philosophy and includes a frantic quest for a superior moral justification of selfishness. Always back a horse named Self Interest.

Subsequent royal commissions or other official inquiries often become preoccupied with scientism. It eventually entangles the investigation with many of the impurities it attempts to resolve and ends up with more questions than answers. Indeed, science is a contrived foothold in the chaos of living phenomena and merely advances with each funeral.

British Disasters

This is corroborated by a mountain of distortion and dishonesty following countless disasters over many decades. Several egregious examples include Aberfan, Westgate Bridge, Granville, Piper Alpha, Hillsborough and Grenfell Tower. The pageantry of law has very little to do with the discovery of truth and realisation of justice. Survivors and bereaved dependents soon discover judgement and justice are often poles apart and amidst a relentless maelstrom of gangster capitalism their only parole is death or dementia.

The Aberfan disaster which occurred on 21st October 1966 was proclaimed as a mistake that cost a village its children. In the subsequent Tribunal of Inquiry it was described as a terrifying tale of bungling ineptitude although no criminal charges ensued and not a single National Coal Board executive was demoted or lost their job. At the coronial inquest a deeply traumatised man who lost his wife and two young sons refused to accept asphyxia and multiple injuries as the cause of death and demanded it be officially recorded as buried alive by the National Coal Board.

A disaster fund was established by the mayor of Merthyr Tydfil, which eventually raised a total of almost £1.75 million. The government pilfered £150,000 from the donations to contribute towards removal of several remaining precarious slag heaps. Restoration of the site cost almost £850,000.

Much has been written about the Hillsborough stadium crowd disaster, which occurred on 15^th April 1989. This included the notorious red top rag headline from the Murdochracy entitled The Truth although a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has any chance to get its pants on. Meanwhile, the bereaved families and survivors established a support group in a prolonged quest for justice and received an unexpected invoice from Liverpool Football Club covering the cost of hiring a meeting room at its Anfield stadium.

The initial coronial inquest recorded controversial findings of accidental death, which were subsequently quashed and fresh inquests established the victims were unlawfully killed but nobody remains accountable. Following fresh coronial inquests in April 2016, the Right Reverend James Jones KBE was commissioned by the incumbent prime minister, Theresa May to provide an understanding of the disaster from the perspective of bereaved families and many tormented survivors.

The Bishop of Liverpool walked countless miles in their shoes and absorbed many harrowing tales of sorrow and despair. The theologian’s discerning report recounts the deep pain, incalculable sorrow and inconsolable suffering throughout several decades of burning injustice. Grief is a journey without a destination and the relentless myth of closure was persistently aggravated by a patronising disposition of unaccountable power.

Countless public servant panjandrums or poltroons sacrificed truth and accountability to protect reputations of the powerful at the expense of the powerless. Meanwhile after many decades, the Public Office (Accountability) Bill or Hillsborough Law awaits ratification by Sir Kid Starver’s blundering government in the United Kingdom.

The legislation will introduce major reforms to prevent the obfuscation or concealment of critical evidence by public bodies following major disasters or state failings. It will create a statutory duty of candour and assistance that requires state authorities and officials to act honestly and fully support inquiries, inquests and investigations although it has recently encountered stubborn resistance from intelligence and security services.

Substantive evidence suggests little has changed since the Health and Morals of Apprentices Act (1802), the Peterloo massacre (1819) or repeal of the Corn Laws (1846). Meanwhile, the strong do what they like and the weak suffer what they must and the following lyrics from the late Leonard Cohen resonate:

“Sail on, sail on

O mighty ship of state!

To the shores of need

Past the reefs of greed

Through the squalls of hate

Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.”