At least four ABC employees die from asbestos exposure

At least four former ABC employees have died after breathing in asbestos dust while working at the public broadcaster’s former Melbourne studios, while many more are believed to have been exposed to the deadly substance.

Family, colleagues, lawyers and experts confirmed the deaths with this masthead. They said the asbestos exposure occurred at the national broadcaster’s old television studios in Elsternwick, which operated until 2017, and at Broadcast House in the CBD, home to ABC radio until the late 1980s.

Melissa’s father, Ziggy, passed away from mesothelioma last year following asbestos exposure at the ABC in Melbourne. Credit: Justin McManus

Those who died were former technical staff and a broadcaster, with two of the deaths recorded in the past year.

The revelation comes as the taxpayer-funded ABC faces an increase in compensation claims from former staff who have contracted asbestos-related diseases after working in studios that shed the hazardous material.

The ABC is now urging former and current staff members to come forward if they suspect they have been exposed to the deadly dust.

“Any current or former ABC staff member who believes that they may have been exposed to asbestos or are suffering from an asbestos- or dust-related illness should contact us so we can discuss how we can support them,” an ABC spokesman said, adding that the broadcaster did not comment on individual cases.

Ziggy died from mesothelioma last year after a long career with the ABC in Melbourne.

Ziggy, whose family did not want their surname published for privacy reasons, passed away from pleural mesothelioma in April 2024 at the age of 76, following a 36-year career at the ABC.

Mesothelioma is one of the most deadly and aggressive forms of lung cancer, with most sufferers typically dying within four to 18 months after diagnosis.

His daughter Melissa said her “easygoing, positive and kind” father worked as a broadcast engineering officer, mainly at the Elsternwick studios.

“Dad was aware there was asbestos in the building but … he did not know of the dangers of asbestos exposure until the late ’80s, and thought he dodged contracting its disease,” Melissa said.

The old ABC studios in Elsternwick.Credit: Penny Stephens

But in early 2023, after experiencing ongoing pain in his shoulder and shortness of breath, Ziggy received his devastating diagnosis. He died 12 months later.

Melissa remembers her dad talking about how he used to crawl into the ceiling of the Elsternwick studios when he was a young technical officer to replace old equipment and run new audio and video cables among lights that were insulated with mats of asbestos.

“The lights back then ran very hot,” Melissa said. “Asbestos was used as an insulation material to reduce the risk of fire.”

Ziggy loved his time at the ABC and fondly told his family about his involvement in the broadcasting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 1981, and the planning and building of the semi-trailer broadcast van in 1996.

But Melissa said her dad wished that employees had been offered free lung screenings annually.

“If Dad was diagnosed earlier, there may have been other treatment options,” she said. “Unfortunately, Dad’s [disease] was too far gone.”

Data obtained by this masthead under freedom-of-information laws shows that Comcare has also compensated four former ABC employees who contracted asbestos-related diseases since 1990, with all these settlements reached in the past four years.

This masthead has been unable to verify how many of the compensation claims were made by employees who have since died.

The number of claims is expected to rise as there is often a decades-long lag between asbestos exposure and a diagnosis of a related disease, such as mesothelioma or asbestosis.

One former employee, who did not want to disclose his name for privacy reasons, has recently been diagnosed with lung scarring. The man, who is in his 60s, was prompted to get a screening after a former colleague contacted him before Christmas and informed him that he had been diagnosed with lung disease.

“I was heavily exposed,” the former employee said. “I’ve had anxiety about this for more than 30 years. My lung results show there is something there. We just don’t know.”

This former employee worked as a broadcast engineering officer at Broadcast House from the mid-1980s, where he constructed studios, often running cables in the space beneath the floor.

He said asbestos that had previously been used as insulation in the wall cavities had dropped to the space beneath the floor during the demolition of the old studios.

“It was a really dusty and dirty environment,” he said. “We were not aware of asbestos in the environment – we were led to think it was just insulation and nothing to worry about.”

He said ABC management had become aware of the asbestos after it began building new studios. Management arranged for it to be cleaned up in 1987.

Not satisfied that it had been completely removed, this employee collected samples of fibre insulation with another colleague in 1988 and took them to the nearby Australian Government Analytical Laboratories.

“It was blueish grey and in clumps,” he said.

A report from the laboratory – seen by The Age – which was sent to the ABC said: “All samples taken contain blue asbestos … as a major constituent.”

Blue asbestos is considered one of the most dangerous types of asbestos, as its fine fibres can be easily inhaled.

According to the former employee, this prompted management to pause all new studio construction, and the ABC arranged another clean-up.

Following that second clean-up, a further hygienist’s report – also viewed by The Age – concluded that an absolute clean-up of the floor space area was “questionable” and recommended that staff wear a disposable dust mask and cotton coveralls for protection.

The former employee said ABC management ordered the resumption of studio construction and staff arranged their own protective gear, which the ABC paid for.

Carmel Shute, a former union organiser for the ABC Staff Association, said that in 1984, staging assistants at the Elsternwick studios complained that asbestos in the staging runway ceiling was debonding and falling off.

After their concerns were ignored by staging management, Shute said the assistants resolved not to service the upcoming Australian Sportsman of the Year Awards.

“I penned up some notices saying, ‘Warning: Danger, asbestos’, and stuck them up,” she said.

Shute said that on the same day, the crew preparing to shoot the news glanced up at their ceiling, declared they could see asbestos and refused to broadcast from that studio.

“Management quickly relocated the news broadcast to the commissionaire’s desk. Some bright spark notified Channel Seven, and they turned up to shoot the event. Suddenly, it was a national story.”

Over the past decade, former ABC employee Carol Simpson-Bull has visited two ex-colleagues who were dying from mesothelioma.

“It was absolutely dreadful,” said Simpson-Bull, who worked for the ABC for more than 20 years across radio and television and as an executive assistant to the former Victorian managing director. “They couldn’t breathe.”

She said asbestos was being talked about at the ABC in the ’70s, but it wasn’t until the next decade that management realised the scale of the problem.

The ABC did not respond to a series of questions about alleged delays in its response to the threat of asbestos, the adequacy of clean-ups and whether staff were left to source their own protective gear.

“The ABC has a strong commitment to workplace health and safety, including with asbestos-related diseases,” an ABC spokesman said.

Jessica McAvoy, an asbestos and dust diseases senior associate at Maurice Blackburn, said while asbestos exposure was commonly associated with construction workers, firefighters and industrial and power plant workers, it was less commonly linked to the media industry.

She said the ABC should contact former employees to notify them of their potential exposure.

“They need to be reaching out to former employees and families and recommending that they potentially have a scan or monitor their health,” said McAvoy, who has helped one former ABC employee secure compensation for asbestos exposure in the workplace. This exposure led to their death.

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