Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Asbestos House The Secret History of James Hardie Industries by Gideon Haigh Haigh, Gideon 1965– Writer, journalist, editor, and sports historian. The Age, journalist, 1984-92; Independent Monthly (Australian current affairs magazine), journalist, 1993-95. Freelance contributor to newspapers. AWARDS, HONORS: Jack Pollard Trophy for The Cricket War, Mystery Spinner, The Big Ship, and The Summer Game; Harry Williams Prize for Promoting Public Debate for Asbestos House; Wisden Book of the Year, 2005, for Ashes 2005: The Greatest Test Series; John Curtin Prize for Journalism, The Monthly, 2006, for "How Google Makes Us Stupid." WRITINGS: The Battle for BHP, Information Australia/Allen & Unwin Australia (Melbourne, Australia), 1987. The Cricket War: The Inside Story of Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket, Text Publishing (Melbourne, Australia), 1993. The Border Years, Text Publishing (Melbourne, Australia), 1994. One Summer Every Summer: An Ashes Journal, Text Publishing (Melbourne, Australia), 1995. Gideon Haigh's Australian Cricket Anecdotes, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1996. The Summer Game: Australian Cricket in the 1950s and 1960s, Text Publishing (Melbourne, Australia), 1997. One of a Kind: The Story of Bankers Trust Australia, 1969-99, Text Publishing (Melbourne, Australia), 1999. Mystery Spinner: The Story of Jack Iverson, Text Publishing (Melbourne, Australia), 1999. (Editor) Wisden Cricketers' Almanack Australia 1999-2000, Hardie Grant Books (South Yarra, Australia), 1999. (Editor) Wisden Cricketers' Almanack Australia 2000-01, Hardie Grant Books (South Yarra, Australia), 2000. The Big Ship: Warwick Armstrong and the Making of Modern Cricket, Text Publishing (Melbourne, Australia), 2001. Endless Summer: 140 Years of Australian Cricket in Wisden, Hardie Grant Books (South Yarra, Australia), 2002. Many a Slip: A Diary of a Club Cricket Season, Aurum (London, England), 2002. The Vincibles: A Suburban Cricket Season, Text Publishing (Melbourne, Australia), 2002. Bad Company: The Cult of the CEO, Black (Melbourne, Australia), 2003, published as Fat Cats: The Strange Cult of the CEO, Thunder's Mouth Press (New York, NY), 2005. The Uncyclopedia, Hyperion (New York, NY), 2004. Game for Anything: Writings on Cricket, Aurum (London, England), 2004. The Tencyclopedia, Text Publishing (Melbourne, Australia), 2004. A Fair Field and No Favour: The Ashes 2005, Scribe (Carlton North, Victoria, Australia), 2005, also published as Ashes 2005: The Greatest Test Series, Aurum (London, England), 2005. Asbestos House: The Secret History of James Hardie Industries, Scribe (Melbourne, Australia), 2006. Silent Revolutions: Writings on Cricket History, Black (Melbourne, Australia), 2006. (Editor) Peter the Cat and Other Unexpected Obituaries from "Wisden Cricketers's Almanack," Aurum (London, England), 2006. The Penguin Book of Ashes Anecdotes, Penguin (Camberwell, Australia), 2006, also published as The Book of Ashes Anecdotes, Mainstream (London, England), 2006. All Out: The Ashes 2006-07, Black (Melbourne, Australia), 2007, also published as Downed Under, Aurum (London, England), 2007. Inside Story: Unlocking Australian Cricket's Archives, News Custom Publishing/Cricket Australia (Southbank, Australia), 2007. The Green and Golden Age: Writings on Cricket Today (essays), Black (Melbourne, Australia), 2007. Contributor to newspapers, including The Age, Australian, Australian Financial Review, Christchurch Star, Deccan Herald, Financial Times, Herald-Sun, Scotland on Sunday, Sydney Morning Herald, Times, Daily Telegraph (Sydney, Australia), Ekdin (Calcutta, India), Sunday Telegraph (London, England), and Guardian (London, England). Contributor to periodicals, including ABC Sports Monthly, Alpha, Arena, Australian Book Review, Australian Quarterly Essay, Australian Way, Bulletin, Business Review Weekly, Cricinfo, Diplomat, Eye, Focus: The Australian Doctor's Magazine, Griffith Review, Inside Sport, Johnny Miller 96 Not Out, Meanjin, Mercedes, Modern Times, Monthly, Naval Historical Review, Observer Sports Monthly, Republican, Scottish Banker, Scottish Business Insider, South African Sports Illustrated, Total Sport, Wisden Cricketer, Time, Wisden Asia, Wisden Cricketer, and Wisden Cricket Monthly. SIDELIGHTS: Author Gideon Haigh is a journalist, editor, and sports historian whose books frequently cover business and sports subjects. In more than twenty years as a journalist and reporter, he has written for many major Australian newspapers as well as periodicals such as the Financial Times and the Age. "Haigh is able, through clever turn of phrase, to successfully review events and turn the mundane into the interesting," commented a reviewer on the History of Cricket Web log. Bad Company: The Cult of the CEO, published in the United States as Fat Cats: The Strange Cult of the CEO, is a detailed study of the role of the chief executive officer, especially in light of the fame and near-celebrity status that some CEOs have attained. Haigh's aim is "to trace the rise of big-company CEOs, to assess how important they are to company performance, and to question their remuneration," noted reviewer Philip Augar in Management Today. In the wake of modern corporate scandals such as those at Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, and others, CEOs have attracted as much scorn and infamy as they have admiration and respect. Looming large in the public perception of CEOs are the sometimes astronomical salaries and benefits packages they routinely command, even while their companies may be undergoing severe financial crises and rank-and-file workers are being laid off to slash operating costs. In his book, Haigh traces how the perceptions of CEOs have evolved over time, how they have frequently come to be treated with the same awe and reverence as sports stars, and how they have sometimes represented all that is unfair and dysfunctional about the business world. The author includes a number of anecdotes about important CEOs of the past, including Ford and Rockefeller. Haigh outlines the evolution of business from the 1960s to the modern days of dot.com boom and bust along with lavish corporate excess. He describes several businesses and their CEOs, and recounts what went wrong during some of the most spectacular corporate failures of recent years. Throughout his account, "Haigh weaves secondary material skillfully and is well acquainted with the work of top business writers," Augar observed. Ultimately, Haigh concludes that CEOs are "overrated and over-paid," Augar reported. Asbestos House: The Secret History of James Hardie Industries is Haigh's business history of one of Australia's oldest and most respected companies. Founded in 1888, James Hardie Industries is a prominent fixture in Australia's business landscape. However, the company's reputation and vast fortunes were built through involvement with asbestos, a substance once considered useful and benign but which has been proven to be the source of many terrible health problems for those exposed to it. Haigh covers James Hardie Industries' history and evolution; its disavowal of responsibility for any asbestos-related diseases and the public and political outcry that resulted; and the deal that the company was forced to accept. Rachael Power, writing in Arena Magazine, named the book a detailed study of "high finance, industrial history, legal intrigue, medical breakthrough, and human frailty." Haigh is also well known as a sportswriter who focuses on Australian cricket. "Haigh is undoubtedly an author of the highest quality, but importantly for us, he is an author that chooses to write about cricket," remarked the History of Cricket Web log reviewer. He is a player himself, as a member of a cricket club called the Yarras, noted a Eye on the Ashes Web log contributor. Among his many cricket-centered works are The Cricket War: The Inside Story of Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket; Endless Summer: 140 Years of Australian Cricket in Wisden; and Inside Story: Unlocking Australian Cricket's Archives. Haigh often writes on the history of cricket and presents biographies of prominent teams and individuals in the sport. In The Big Ship: Warwick Armstrong and the Making of Modern Cricket, Haigh presents a detailed profile of Warwick Armstrong, one of Australian cricket's strongest, most effective, and best-known players. Large and imposing, Armstrong earned his nickname through his sheer physical size and strength. Haigh assesses Armstrong's influence on the sport of Australian cricket, examines his impressive record, and explains that Armstrong retired unbeaten following a prestigious sports career. "Mr Haigh's is an uncommonly exhaustive study of a cricketer and his time," commented a reviewer in the Economist. "His style is that of a historian who weighs evidence and detects the sweep of a whole life rather than that of a chronicler of contemporary celebrity." Mystery Spinner: The Story of Jack Iverson is a biography of Iverson, an unlikely cricket superstar from the mid-twentieth century who "zoomed like a shooting star into the great Australian team of 1950, and just as swiftly zoomed out of it again," commented Robert Winder in the New Statesman. Iverson was not originally a cricket player, but he developed a unique playing style based on years of spinning a ping pong ball as a nervous habit. This technique transferred successfully to the turning of a cricket ball, and soon Iverson found himself playing in major matches pitting Australia against England. His career was short-lived; without any apparent reduction in his ability to play, Iverson inexplicably left the world of cricket to work for his father's property business. Later, he suffered from depression and ended his life as a suicide. Haigh concluded that Iverson "loved the game, but feared the stage," and fell victim to unexpected fame, Winder stated. BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES: PERIODICALS. Arena Magazine, February-March, 2006, Rachel Power, review of Asbestos House: The Secret History of James Hardie Industries, p. 49. Bulletin with Newsweek, November 23, 1999, Patrick Carlyon, review of Mystery Spinner: The Story of Jack Iverson, p. 22; November 20, 2001, "Son of a Pitch: Gideon Haigh Plays Straight Bat on the Life of Controversial Cricket Captain Warwick ‘Big Ship’ Armstrong," review of The Big Ship: Warwick Armstrong and the Making of Modern Cricket, p. 90; November 21, 2006, Andrew Stafford, review of Silent Revolutions: Writings on Cricket History, p. 76; March 27, 2007, Barry Oakley, review of All Out: The Ashes 2006-07, p. 64. Business Review Weekly, July 3, 2003, review of Bad Company: The Cult of the CEO, p. 63; December 18, 2003, Nicholas Way, "A Mighty Heart," p. 98. Economist, April 6, 2002, "Playing to Win; Cricket," review of The Big Ship, p. 363. Law Society Journal, April, 2006, Philip Burgess, review of Asbestos House, p. 82. Management Today, March 1, 2004, Philip Augar, "BOOKS: How Bosses Got It Wrong," review of Bad Company, p. 34. Meanjin, March, 2000, Nathan Hollier, review of Mystery Spinner, p. 212. New Statesman, June 19, 2000, Robert Winder, "A Dying Game," review of Mystery Spinner, p. 51. Reference & Research Book News, February, 2005, review of The Uncyclopedia, p. 1. Times Higher Education Supplement, April 29, 2005, Rudi Bogni, "The Great Leader Is No Longer Invincible," review of The Big Ship, p. 27. Times Literary Supplement, May 30, 1997, "Australian Cricket Anecdotes," p. 36; July 21, 2000, Simon Rae, review of Mystery Spinner, p. 13; July 5, 2002, "A Giant at the Limit of the Laws," review of The Big Ship, p. 25; June 29, 2007, Jeffrey Poacher, review of Silent Revolutions, p. 30. Asbestos House: The Secret History of James Hardie Industries. The word asbestos comes from the Greek for inextinguishable. It's an apt term when put in the context of the dust-induced diseases of the lungs that take years to develop. And most relevant when applied to James Hardie Industries, which set up operations in the building at the corner of York and Barrack streets in Sydney about 80 years ago when the name had none of the unsettling ring to it. The company will forever be known for trying to cut its liabilities to the thousands sick and dying from breathing in its products that had delivered it such enormous profits. Truth is, by the time of the inquiry into the liabilities and the political fallout and public odium to follow, Hardie had long wiped asbestos from its product lines and the name of its headquarters. But as Gideon Haigh points out, it could not unwrite history. Like the product name's etymology, the legacy was inextinguishable, in part underpinned by powerful memories and accounts. Like the one from the Federated Miscellaneous Workers Union's Doug Howitt in the 1960s when visiting a site that looked like "a factory that had been inhabited by cobweb spiders for centuries . . . "There were festoons of asbestos fibres and dust hanging off the rafters, the ceilings and the windows. There were a couple of exhaust fans out there spilling asbestos dust everywhere and there was no attempt whatsoever to protect the workers." Or this terrible and haunting description from Justice O'Meally of the Dust Disease Tribunal: "I have seen many people present in court, at their homes, at hospitals and at hospices dying of mesothelioma. It is a dreadful and devastating disease, accompanied by pain which is uncontrollable. Those who suffer it reach a stage where it is necessary to fight for every breath, and with every breath accompanied by pain so dreadful that the only way to avoid is not to breathe. The choice between breathing and not breathing is no choice at all. Constant and exquisite pain is all that one may expect in the struggle to exist." Haigh's powerfully written book provides a valuable account of that legacy but the author goes out of his way to avoid turning it into an indictment. This is not to say that the warnings and premonitions weren't there. It was more a case of the directors and executives tip-toeing around the elephant in the lounge room. It is difficult, for example, to imagine how James Hardie directors, knowing that the estimates of the liabilities from the actuaries Trowbridge were indicative at best and with only a 50 per cent chance of being right, could not bring themselves to question the content and assumptions of the reports. When James Hardie set up the trust known as the Medical Research and Compensation Foundation with assets of $293 million, an exercise aimed at putting the company's fibrous past to one side, there were clear signs that there would be a shortfall in funding the liability claims. Particularly when the directors received a paper telling them that while the net assets of the trust were in line with the assets of those companies previously found liable for asbestos related diseases, it was no lay-down misere. "The quantum of assets is not a reflection of what JH thinks the future costs will be. That is a separate question. The ultimate cost of asbestos claims cannot be reliably measured at this time." Still, that did not stop them signing off on the arrangement. Nor did it stop the company putting out a press release where its then chief executive officer, Peter Macdonald, proclaimed that the "fully funded Foundation" would provide certainty for both claimants and shareholders." As Haigh points out, the words "fully funded" turned out to mean different things to different people. What makes this book interesting, however, is the way Haigh avoids the two-dimensional condemnation. The evidence, as he points out, is much more complicated than that. Sure, James Hardie knew that asbestos was dangerous. But did it know that it was lethal to everyone working with it? The epidemiological evidence was not that precise. That said, James Hardie should have known or at the very least, made efforts to dispel the uncertainty. What the company did instead was use uncertainty as a pretext for inaction in the face of the blindingly obvious. While certain individuals in the company took dust and disease seriously, the board and management showed a callous indifference and were too arrogant to acknowledge that ultimately, it was in their interests to act. Hardie's mistake was its failure to take into account the liabilities were actually sick and dying people and their stricken families. And while the directors could hide behind the legalities of the corporate veil, they ignored the fact that limited liability was designed to protect shareholders from the wasteful extravagance of some managers. It was not set up as a system to protect the parent company from misdeeds perpetrated by its subsidiaries. In the end, Hardie's errors had real and human outcomes. Haigh's achievement is letting us see the human side on both sides of the equation. In this age of rigorous compliance and corporate governance rules, it is a lesson for all companies: not breaking the law is not the same as morally acceptable behaviour. Asbestos House: The Secret History of James Hardie Industries by Gideon Haigh. Yes, back to the office for me, at a time of flux. A short history, a few speculations. Out in December. Shelf Life: Journalism 2000-20. Edited by Russell Jackson, friend and scholar. Cricket In Mind. Some stuff. Sold out, I’m afraid. The Dictionary of Made-Up Creatures. Wilkinson Publishing (2019) By far the most important book here, and it’s not mine, but by my daughter Cecilia and her friend Harvey. A heartbreaking work of staggering genius etc. Well, great fun anyway. This Is How I Will Strangle You. Wilkinson Publishing (2019) A remarkable tale of the toll and survival of incest featuring Natasa Christidou, a very brave and resourceful woman. The Standard Bearers: Australia v India, Pakistan & Sri Lanka 2018-19. Wilkinson Publishing (2019) Despatches from eight Smithless Tests, plus Peever Agonistes. Crossing the Line: How Australian Cricket Lost Its Way. Slattery Media (2018) A short guide to Australian cricket’s last decade, on the field but mainly off. Warning: contains grumpiness. From Flock to Baggy Green. Australian Wool Innovation (2018) A little monograph on the ties that bind Australian cricket and the wool industry. Shadows on the Pitch: The Long Summer of 2017-18. Wilkinson Publishing (2018) It wasn’t much of a season, but it got more interesting as it went. A Scandal in Bohemia: The Life and Death of Mollie Dean. Poet, novelist, muse, bohemienne, twenty-five-year-old Mollie Dean was murdered in an Elwood laneway in 1930. This book is as much concerned with her life and her afterlife, in an unsympathetic world. Father and Daughter. A book of my daughter’s lovely stories – and a couple of my odds and sods. An Eye on Cricket. Wilkinson Publishing (2017) Some Cricket stuff 2012-2017. Cover by my Yarras club mate John Scurry. Stroke of Genius: Victor Trumper and the Shot That Changed Cricket. Penguin (2016) Simon & Schuster UK (2016) An ‘iconography’ of the legend of my favourite cricketer from history, with an accent on my favourite cricket photograph. Winner of Jack Pollard Trophy Short-listed for NSW Premier’s Prize for History. Certain Admissions: A Beach, A Body and a Lifetime of Secrets. It all started under the clocks at Flinders Street Station. Winner of Ned Kelly Award for True Crime. Ashes to Ashes: How Australia Came Back and England Came Unstuck, 2013-14. I was there for all of them. It was worth it. Uncertain Corridors: Writings on Modern Cricket. A sequel to The Green and Golden Age , despite popular demand. End of the Road? Long-listed for John Button Prize. Another short ‘un: 34,000 words about Australia’s much-maligned car industry, written for non-experts by a non-expert (and non-driver). The Deserted Newsroom. Five essays on digital media. Gratuitous allusion to Oliver Goldsmith in title. On Warne. Penguin (2012) Simon & Schuster (2012) An assessment of Shane Warne, as bowler, cricketer, phenomenon, personality, and Australian. Winner of Jack Pollard Trophy. Winner of Waverley Library Prize. MCC/Cricket Society Book of the Year. British Sports Books Cricket Book of the Year. Short-listed for Australian Book Industry Awards Biography of the Year. Short-listed for National Biography Award. Short-listed for Victorian Premier’s Literary Award. Short-listed for Adelaide Festival Literary Award. The Office: A Hardworking History. Miegunyah Press (2012) I had always wished to read an appealing, accessible, colourful, discursive history of offices as locations for work and recreation, but couldn’t find one, so I decided to attempt my own. Lovingly produced by MUP. Winner of Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction (NSW Premier’s Literary Awards) Out of the Running: The Ashes 2010–11. Penguin Books (2011) Aurum (2011) (as Ashes 2011 ) 3-1: never thought I’d see the day England beat Australia thrice by an innings in a series. A compilation of match reports from Business Spectator and columns from The Times . Sphere of Influence: Writings on cricket and its discontents. Melbourne University Publishing (2010) Simon & Schuster (2011) A collection of essays and columns about the changing geopolitical and economic dynamics of international cricket and the rise of T20, beginning with a specially-written 25,000-word short history, ‘What Just Happened’. Good enough: The Ashes 2009. Victory Books (2009) Aurum (2009) (as The Ultimate Test ) Two average teams – five quite good Tests. This is a bind-up of match reports from Business Spectator and columns for The Times . Inside Out: Writings on Cricket Culture. Melbourne University Publishing (2008) Aurum (2009) A collection of commentaries and essays about various aspects of cricket, its techniques, heritage and literature. The Racket: How Abortion Became Legal in Australia. Melbourne University Publishing (2008) A work of reportage recreating the cruel and corrupt milieu of illegal abortion in Melbourne around the time of the landmark Menhennitt ruling. Probably the book of which I’m proudest; naturally, it was also among the least successful. Short-listed for the Gleebooks Prize, long-listed for John Button Prize. Inside Story: Unlocking Australian Cricket’s Archives. News Custom Publishing (2007) An immense commissioned history of Cricket Australia and its antecedent bodies drawing on original records and interviews. I wrote sixteen chapters, my friend David Frith five. Winner of the Jack Pollard Trophy. The Green & Golden Age: Writings on Australian Cricket Today. Black Inc (2007) Aurum (2008) A bunch of stuff about the all-conquering Australian teams of my generation published just in time for them to become a fading memory. A time capsule now, I guess. All Out: The Ashes 2006–07. Black Inc (2007) Aurum (2007) (as Downed Under ) Hard work to make this series interesting, but I had a go. This collects my bits and pieces for The Guardian and Cricinfo. Silent Revolutions: Writings on Cricket History. Black Inc (2006) Aurum (2007) A selection of previously published writings on cricket history. Glorious cover image of Archie MacLaren in Australia, misleading rubbish cover in England. Asbestos House: The Secret History of James Hardie Industries. A work of reportage on the scandal that engulfed Australia’s biggest asbestos products manufacturer. Written with a piece of crocidolite on my desk. Winner of the Harry Williams Prize for Promoting Public Debate (Qld Premier’s Literary Awards), Gleebooks Prize (NSW Premier’s Literary Awards), Waverley Library Literary Award, Blake Dawson Waldron Business Book of the Year. A Fair Field and No Favour: The Ashes of 2005. Scribe (2005) Aurum (2005) (as Ashes 2005 ) A bind-up of my reports for The Guardian on the 2005 Ashes series. Great raw material to work with. Did my best to do it justice. Wisden Book of the Year. Game for Anything: Writings on Cricket. Black Inc (2004) Aurum (2005) A compilation of cricket articles about issues and personalities written for various outlets. Longer pieces about the benighted Richard Wardill and Harry Trott. Short-listed in the Centre for Australian Cultural Studies National Award. The Tencyclopedia. Text Publishing (2004) A sequel to The Uncyclopedia , superior and less successful. Features Ten Fictional Mice and Ten National Flags That Feature Weapons. Fun to do. Bad Company: The Strange Cult of the CEO. Aurum (2004) Avalon (2005) (as Fat Cats ) Started as an Australian Quarterly Essay , a counterblast to the deification of chief executives in western capitalism. Slightly rewritten for British and American readers; no real need to modify my views since. The Uncyclopedia. Text Publishing (2003) Hyperion (2004) Balans (2004) (as De OnCyclopedie ) Orme Editori (2006) (as L’anticiclopedia ) Edicoes tinta-da-china (2006) (as Inciclopédia ) A few weeks’ rummaging around my library. Suicide notes of the famous. Turkish pick-up lines. Japanese dumping phrases. Harmless enough. Also published in the US, Netherlands, Italy and Portugal too – why, I will never know. The Vincibles: A Suburban Cricket Season. Text Publishing (2002) Aurum (2002) (as Many A Slip ) Victory Books (2009) Originally a column in the Guardian : a diary of the 2001-2 season at the Yarras. It’s all as it happened – and as it continues to. While the names have changed, the vincibility persists. The Big Ship: Warwick Armstrong and the Making of Modern Cricket. Text Publishing (2001) Aurum Books (2003) Allen & Unwin (2013) Again, I’d always wanted to read a book about Warwick Armstrong, but it seemed unlikely I would have the opportunity unless I wrote one myself. Winner of the Jack Pollard Trophy. One of a Kind: The Story of Bankers Trust Australia 1969–1999. Text Publishing (1999) A commissioned history of the investment bank/fund manager Bankers Trust Australia. Its publication coincided exquisitely with their disintegration. Very long. Not bad, though. Mystery Spinner: The Story of Jack Iverson. Text Publishing (1999) Aurum Books (2000) Allen & Unwin (2013) Text Classics (2018) Went looking for more information about the most interesting character in The Summer Game, originally for a piece included in Rob Steen’s The New Ball. This is what I found. Winner of the Jack Pollard Trophy and English Cricket Society Literary Award. Short-listed for the William Hill Sports Books of the Year. The Summer Game: Australian Cricket in the 1950s and 1960s. Text Publishing (1997) ABC Books (2006) A history of Australian cricket in the generation before I was born, post-Bradman, pre-Chappell. A lot of pavements pounded and doors knocked on. Subsequently a source for the ABC documentaries Cricket in the 50s and Cricket in the 60s. Winner of the Jack Pollard Trophy. One Summer Every Summer: An Ashes Journal. Text Publishing (1995) I came down with bronchitis during the last Test of the 1994-5 Ashes series, which I’d covered for The Australian . While recuperating, I started writing a book. Two months later I stopped. This is it. Short-listed for The Age Book of the Year. The Border Years. Text Publishing (1994) A quickie about Allan Border’s life and career, on the occasion of his retirement from international cricket. Nice pics. The Cricket War: The Inside Story of Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket. Text Publishing (1993 and 1999) MUP (2007) Bloomsbury (2017) This started with a piece I wrote for a short-lived magazine called FYI while I was staff writer at The Independent Monthly. I got to interview Craig Serjeant – a dream come true. Winner of the Jack Pollard Trophy. One of The Times’ 50 Greatest Sports Books. The Battle for BHP. Information Australia with Allen & Unwin (1987) Having covered the takeover skirmishings involving BHP for The Age, a book contract came my way. I was 20 when I wrote most of it, which shows. Parachutist at Fine Leg and Other Unusual Occurences from Wisden. A collection of the bizarre and the esoteric from Wisden . Peter the Lord’s Cat and Other Unexpected Obituaries from Wisden. Aurum Books (2006) A wide-ranging selection of obituaries from Wisden’s well-thumbed pages. The Penguin Book of Ashes Anecdotes. Penguin (2006) Mainstream (2006) Mainstream (2012) (as ebook) A lot of reading and, again, a lot of typing. I’m very analog. Endless Summer: 140 Years of Australian Cricket in Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack. Hardie Grant Books (2005) Lots of stuff about Australian cricket from the big yellow book, introduced, chosen and in some cases typed out by me. Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack Australia 2000—2001. Hardie Grant Books (2000) The third edition. Editing two was enough for me. Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack Australia 1999—2000. Hardie Grant Books (1999) The second edition of the green companion to the yellow volume. Reckon I rewrote just about every word. Gideon Haigh’s Australian Cricket Anecdotes. Oxford University Press (1996) It passed the time. Revision of ON TOP DOWN UNDER by Ray Robinson (1996) Entries in THE OXFORD COMPANION TO AUSTRALIAN CRICKET (1996) Foreword to ANY OLD XI by Jim Young (2001) Foreword to HOME GROUND by Megan Ponsford (2003) Foreword to THE YEARS OF THE BALLS 2008: A DISRESPECTIVE by Jarrod Kimber (2009) Foreword to 500-1: THE MIRACLE OF HEADINGLEY By Rob Steen and Alistair McLellan (2010) Chapter in McGILVRAY: VOICE OF CRICKET (1996) Chapters in TEST TEAM OF THE CENTURY (2000) Chapter in SYMBOLS OF AUSTRALIA (2009) Afterword in TWO HUNDRED SEASONS OF AUSTRALIAN CRICKET (2003) Chapter in TOLERANCE, PREJUDICE, FEAR (Sydney PEN Three Writers Project with Christos Tsiolkas and Alexis Wright) (2008) Included in THE PICADOR BOOK OF CRICKET (2001) Included in THE BEST EVER AUSTRALIAN SPORTS WRITING (2001) Included in OUR DON BRADMAN (2001) Included in CRÈME DE LA PHLEGM (2006) Included in THE BEST AUSTRALIAN ESSAYS 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2008, 2009 Included in THE BEST AUSTRALIAN SPORTS WRITING 1996, 1998, 2003, 2006 Included in NEW WRITING 12 (2003) Included in THE SLEEPERS’ ALMANAC Vol 1 (2004) and 2 (2005) Included in BEST AUSTRALIAN HUMOROUS WRITING (2008) I can also recommend you Pickleball sport, a paddle sport that combines elements of badminton, tennis, and table tennis. You can get the best equpment such as the pickleball paddles, including the balls and carry bag of a great brand and quality. Asbestos House: The Secret History of James Hardie Industries. The pithiest line in this, the first book about James Hardie's fall from grace, comes from the prominent Sydney solicitor hired to extricate the company from the mess. John Atanaskovic told author Gideon Haigh about the effort devoted to media management during the drawn-out negotiations with the ACTU on asbestos compensation. "After a while, I concluded that Hardie was a company whose core business was the issuance of press releases with a small subsidiary involved in building products." Haigh, a one-time business journalist now better known for his books on cricket, has set out to go well beyond the press releases. With the fresh eye of a Melbourne resident who did not attend the NSW government's special commission of inquiry, the many media conferences or the protest rallies, he has conducted hindsight interviews with key protagonists and dug deep into the archives. Haigh begins with the man James Hardie, born in Scotland in 1851. He recounts his journey to Australia and the business partnership he set up with fellow expatriate Andrew Reid in 1896. The descendants of the latter, not the former, ran the company as it expanded during the 20th century and oversaw the 1951 construction of a headquarters in Sydney's York Street befitting the industrial leader it became. Its name, Asbestos House, gave Haigh the title for his book. The physical building, "heavy, dark and airless", provides an apt model for the company's past, he writes in the prologue. But which part of its past? Haigh is clearly persuaded that failing to investigate the health dangers of asbestos and continuing to manufacture it until 1987 was unforgivable. Devoting a third of the book to this period, including many heart-rending individual stories, he concludes that James Hardie "deserves its place in the public pillory". When it comes to more recent history, when the company was prepared to abandon financial support for thousands of Australians sick and dying from its products, it is a different matter. "Let an obvious point be made at the earliest possible opportunity," Haigh writes on page 10. "None of the directors of James Hardie who deliberated on the constitution of the Medical Research and Compensation Foundation in February 2001 had the remotest connection with the company's asbestos past." He urges readers to resist viewing the gross underfunding of the foundation as "the ultimate profit-before-people story" because "the decisions for which this generation of victims are paying were taken not five years ago, but rather decades ago". Yet Haigh later recounts that when Meredith Hellicar was sounded out about a board seat in 1992, "she asked anxiously: 'You don't have anything to do with asbestos, do you?" When the foundation was set up, all those involved knew its purpose was to handle asbestos compensation and the horrors of asbestos diseases were common knowledge. When the underfunding was revealed, they knew James Hardie's refusal to fund the shortfall would leave in the lurch people suffering from a particularly vicious form of cancer. Of course good health and a long life are more important than money. Preventing illness is far preferable to handing over a cheque. But it does not follow that once James Hardie stopped making asbestos its treatment of those it poisoned became, as Haigh puts it, second-order offences. Personal injury compensation is vital, and not just because it supports people too sick to work and provides their families with income after their premature death. It also serves the important purpose of deterring people who run companies from engaging in activities dangerous to human limb and life, using language they can understand - money. This is a book for those who wonder why James Hardie's conduct caused such a fuss. Haigh is not convinced it was justified. In the first chapter he sniffs that "at least some of the anger springs from popular ambivalence about modern industrial capitalism, reputedly red in tooth and claw, and the forces of globalisation, apparently inescapable and ineluctable". He concludes that the compensation debacle was primarily an oversight. It was a case of executives too eager, directors too accommodating, advisers too captive of their client, consulting actuaries too amenable and the new custodians of the foundation too guileless. Above all, not one among them speculated about the human consequences," he writes. Despite including society's best and brightest, these individuals "behaved as those in social groups with shared backgrounds and shared assumptions are inclined to do". What could be done about it? Not much, apparently. Haigh's explanation for the collective blindness is "the acutely reified version of reality which modern business inhabits". The chronicle of events laid out in Asbestos House shows there is good reason to debate whether society could find better ways of focusing the executive mind on the reality of sick and dying people. It is a topic the book does not explore. Sydney Morning Herald journalist Elisabeth Sexton was a Walkley Award finalist for her coverage of the James Hardie asbestos story. The Fibro frontier. The NSW Ombudsman Bruce Barbour has just released a report about asbestos and its terrible legacy. According to the report asbestos-related disease will soon be killing more people in Australia than car and traffic accidents. Although production of asbestos products was discontinued during the 1980s, decades can pass between exposure to asbestos dust and the onset of cancers. By 2020 it is expected that more than 13,000 people will have been diagnosed with the lung cancer mesothelioma, which is invariably fatal. I have an interest in this subject because in 1997 I published a book titled The fibro frontier: A different history of Australian architecture. Fibro was a good book for me. It wasn’t the first book I’d written but it was the first to give me a real reputation outside the Museum. It was also a good book for the Powerhouse, which co-published it with Transworld Publishers. Along with Australian Dream, Beyond architecture and others, we had a good decade of titles which engaged with design and culture in unusual ways. Unfortunately detours into vanity publishing eventually killed all that. Wunderlich ‘Durabestos’ catalogue, 1955. Collection: Powerhouse Museum. Fibro is not primarily about asbestos and its consequences. It focuses on the architectural and social impact of fibro, arguing that the fibro house is the most distinctive expression of Australian domestic architecture. When I was working on Fibro we considered calling the book ‘Fabulous fibro’ though fortunately we changed our minds, aware that fibro is anything but to people suffering from asbestos diseases. But I’ve had plenty of occasions to ponder the relationship between fibro – asbestos-cement – as the building material which by the 1960s clad one third of houses in NSW and fibro as the material which condemned thousands to a painful death. I’ve spoken at conferences of asbestos disease lawyers and I’ve written expert witness opinions for law firms acting for and against James Hardie, Australia’s main manufacturer of asbestos products and the company which for decades avoided its responsibilities towards cancer sufferers, setting a new low in corporate behaviour. Many careers have been built on the basis of asbestos-induced suffering, not a comfortable thought even for someone on the fringes of that bonanza. Gideon Haigh points out in his award-winning investigation Asbestos House: The secret history of James Hardie Industries: ‘Fibro has a rightly honoured place in Australian life, history, culture, even aesthetics – Charles Pickett’s 1997 book The Fibro Frontier is a splendid introduction’. But Haigh also argues that fibro’s cultural and architectural significance is not necessarily dependant on the suffering it produced: ‘That asbestos has improved lives and taken lives are separate propositions’. The amount of asbestos fibre in fibro was reduced during the 1950s and 1960s because of rising costs and a need to increase the material’s flexibility. But James Hardie did not seek to completely replace asbestos until the company’s future was on the line during the late 1970s; until then the company preferred to cajole, obfuscate and threaten its critics and plaintiffs. Today there are still thousands of houses clad or lined with fibro. In addition many brick or timber homes have fibro used under eaves, in gable ends and ceilings while asbestos often turns up in unexpected places such as tiles, floor coverings and insulation. Fibro is generally safe when left alone but as the Ombudsman points out, no coordinated warning or inspection system exists to reduce the risk of people unintendedly releasing asbestos dust when renovating or altering their homes. There are no laws preventing home owners from working on their homes regardless of the presence of asbestos. Mesothelioma is not just incurable; it is also capricious and pitiless. Many people (including my father) frequently exposed to asbestos dust suffered no adverse consequences; others were condemned from fleeting encounters. After picking off many who mined asbestos, made asbestos products or worked as builders, mesothelioma now ravages home renovators who carelessly meddled with fibro. In its terminal stages mesothelioma is brutally painful, rendering every breath a struggle against pain. As a judge of the Dust Diseases Tribunal wrote: ‘Those who suffer it reach a stage where it is necessary to fight for every breath, with every breath accompanied by pain so dreadful that the only way to avoid it is not to breathe. The choice between breathing and not breathing is no choice at all’.