Extract from ABC News
The resounding message of the Safe Work Australia report is simple: Ban engineered stone benchtops and save worker lives.
It's a message that resonates most with unions, customers, health experts and tradies like Ken Parker, a father of two, who cut, grinded and polished artificial stone slabs.
In 2019, he was given a life expectancy of five to 10 years after being diagnosed with the preventable work-related lung disease, silicosis.
Parker's words are even more pointed: "Engineered stone benchtops are straight up killing people and the only way to stop it is to ban it."
The decision is now in the hands of state and federal governments, who have had the report since August.
Instead of reaching consensus on Friday, state and federal workplace ministers agreed to reconvene before the end of the year to decide the fate of artificial stone benchtops, after one or two states requested more time.
If agreement is reached — and so far federal Minister for Workplace Relations Tony Burke, NSW Premier Chris Minns, South Australia, Victoria and Queensland all support a total ban — Australia will become the first country in the world to eliminate artificial stone.
It's a move that would have global ramifications.
Safe Work's report lays bare the economic and scientific implications of working with engineered stone, which will make it harder for any state to squib.
It says the only way to ensure that another generation of Australian workers do not contract silicosis from such work is to prohibit its use, regardless of its silica content.
Put simply, it says it sees no evidence that slabs containing lower silica levels are less risky.
"There is no toxicological evidence of a 'safe' threshold of crystalline silica content, or that the other components of lower silica engineered stone products (e.g. amorphous silica including recycled glass, feldspar) do not pose additional risks to worker health," the report says.
Manufacturers hit back
Safe Work's findings will be a blow to the manufacturers who have been lobbying to reduce the level of crystalline silica content to 40 per cent or less. Artificial stone slabs can contain up to 95 per cent crystalline silica.
In the past two weeks Caesarstone ramped up its lobbying ahead of the ministers meeting on Friday. It went on a media blitz briefing journalists and launching an advertising campaign, including taking full-page newspaper ads.
The media pack sent to journalists included the headline: "Banning benchtops won't solve silicosis. This incomplete solution puts workers at risk."
It described a ban as "unnecessary, excessive" and "catastrophic" for the industry and workers. It said it would create "anxiety" among the 2-3 million Australian households with engineered stone benchtops. And it said it may "actually increase risks" for workers on the basis it was focusing on only one product containing silica.
The campaign went down like a lead balloon with unions such as the CFMEU, who described it as "evil". Unions have been rallying to ban the product to protect workers.
The message also raised the ire of NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey who said it reminded him of the tactics used by James Hardie shortly before asbestos was banned 20 years ago.
"Having seen that ad … I thought it was a disgrace, and an attempt at misinformation and misdirection worthy of James Hardie and the worst of their tactics as they fought to stop the regulation of asbestos," Mr Mookhey said.
The fight is on. The manufacturers will do what they can to try and water down the banning order by getting agreement to reduce the level of silica in artificial stone products, but Safe Work Australia has covered all bases, even regulation and compliance.
The report says while silicosis cases have been found in workers across a range of industries, including mining and tunnelling, a disproportionate number were engineered stone workers. It says in these workers, compared to workers exposed to silica from natural sources, silicosis was associated with a faster disease progression and higher mortality. That is hard to argue with.
Safe Work concludes that despite a myriad of laws and regulations introduced over the past decade, nothing has worked. Workers and operators, including fabricators, continue to breach the rules, putting lives at risk.
Documents released to the NSW parliament under standing order 52 made this abundantly clear. There were dozens of examples of companies repeatedly doing the wrong thing, and workers being diagnosed with silicosis or other conditions.
Earlier this year surveillance was conducted on factories in Western Australia, NSW and Queensland, which found breaches of compliance.
The report also highlights the role of importers, manufacturers and suppliers, saying they have failed to provide end-users with comprehensive up-to-date health-based data and evidence on the risks of crystalline silica in relation to engineered stone.
It is a statement that hasn't been lost on experts and lawyers who have wondered why regulators have been reluctant to go after the manufacturers, preferring instead to target the small businesses and factories that cut and fit the slabs.
Lurking danger not clear to tradies
Most tradies diagnosed with the disease say they were never told about the dangers of cutting the slabs. Some say they were told the engineered product was safer than natural stone.
One owner of a business in Sydney, who was recently diagnosed with silicosis, said he had no idea about the dangers of the products and the deadly dust.
For a long time customers were also unaware of the dangers as they went on a global buying frenzy, installing the shiny, relatively cheaper and more colourful kitchen and bathroom benchtops, pioneered by Caesarstone in 1987, imported into Australia in the late 1990s, inspiring numerous copycats including from China.
In the early days, the slabs carried inadequate warning stickers about the dangers of breathing in the toxic crystalline silica.
It was only after a TV documentary aired in Israel in 2010 that Caesarstone started putting warning stickers on the blocks of stone.
A study by Professor Mordechai Kramer — a director at the prestigious transplant centre, the Institute of Pulmonary and Allergy Medicine at Bellison Hospital in Israel — officially linked an outbreak in silicosis among stonemasons in Israel to the 1987 opening of the Caesarstone factory. His research paper covered 1997 to 2010, with the first silicosis-related lung transplant in Israel recorded in 1997.
Caesarstone says from the 1990s it included warnings about the risks of silicosis in its safety data sheets, followed by warning labels on the slabs in 2010.
Many workers say they didn't see the stickers.
Silicosis is a work-related disease that is entirely preventable. It is on the rise globally due in part to weak regulators and companies putting profit before the safety of workers.
Caesarstone's latest annual report details 56 pending lawsuits in Australia relating to silicosis claims, up from 38 in the previous year.
It also reveals that since September 2020 it has been unable to get product liability insurance in Australia on newly diagnosed silicosis related claims. It means the company self insures.
'We cannot let another James Hardie occur'
For Maurice Blackburn lawyer Jonathan Walsh, who has represented numerous tradies, Caesarstone's need to self insure due to its inability to secure product liability insurance, creates a risk. This could run into "the hundreds of millions of dollars over time", he says.
Walsh says if there is a ban, and the manufacturers decide to exit, the federal government needs to ensure they don't leave without a plan for how they will pay for their liabilities to Australians.
"We cannot let another James Hardie problem occur again. We owe it to workers and their families," he says.
Caesarstone said in a statement that regardless of the final decision, it had no intention of leaving Australia and would always meet its legal obligations.
It said it was disappointed that the Safe Work report had not looked into the risks that would remain for workers handling all other stone containing silica.
Caesarstone's position remains that it is illogical to ban only one product that contains silica when almost all engineered stone substitutes not covered by a proposed ban – such as granite, natural quartzite and porcelain – contain crystalline silica and carry the risk of silicosis if not handled correctly.
"Any announcement of an outright ban would have an immediate, significant impact on the housing industry and renovations, with consumers unlikely to install a product they know will be prohibited. If an outright ban is ultimately imposed by government, there must be an orderly timeline to avoid this disruption, with a transition to lower-silica stones, in line with other permitted stone products," it says.
For tradies like Ken Parker, silicosis is a death sentence and Australia needs to stop dragging its heels.
"Realistically how long does it need to take? How many people have to die for the sake of a cosmetic item of no necessary need while the creators of the product make millions? It's not right," he says.
What's the cost for a human life? Safe Work boils it down to $4.9 million, arguing that 49 or 51 cases would need to be "averted" for the measures to offset the costs of bringing in a ban.
It's an uncomfortable question state and federal ministers will address when they decide the fate of shiny kitchen benchtops that are helping drive a silicosis epidemic.
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