Fed: Combet pays tribute to ailing Banton

AAP General News (Australia)
08-21-2007
Fed: Combet pays tribute to ailing Banton

MELBOURNE, Aug 21 AAP - Outgoing ACTU secretary Greg Combet has paid tribute to asbestos
victim Bernie Banton, now seriously ill after leading the long campaign for victims' compensation.

Mr Combet, who today formally resigned as the ACTU's national secretary, said he had
been very proud to have been involved in the fight for justice for victims of James Hardie's
asbestos products.

"That campaign is sharpened very much today by the news that my close friend Bernie
Banton has now been diagnosed with mesothelioma," Mr Combet told reporters in Melbourne.

"It only underlines the importance of achieving compensation for people who are stricken
with asbestos-related diseases.

"I would like today to emphasis how much I appreciate and respect the contribution
that Bernie made to that campaign.

"He was the public face of it and he was an asbestos victim in every sense of the word."

Banton, the public face of the campaign for compensation from James Hardie, has now
been diagnosed with the third leg of what he calls the "triple whammy".

Mr Banton, who worked at a James Hardie insulation plant in the 1960s and 70s, first
contracted asbestosis then ARPD (asbestosis related pleural disease).

Now he has been diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma, an abdominal cancer whose victims
normally have a prognosis of six to nine months to live.

AAP sjm/dg/gfr/jt/cdh

KEYWORD: BANTON COMBET

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