Comedian James O'Loghlin was one year ahead of James "Jum" Wallner at Canberra Grammar School and the pair later became friends in the mid-1980s, when they were both studying at the University of Sydney and living on campus at Wesley College.
Fast-forward 35 years or so to 2020 and Jum, as everyone knew him, was a vet scientist in Canberra, dying from mesothelioma after growing up in a Mr Fluffy house in Campbell.
And James O'Loghlin, better known as a comedian, host of The New Inventors and ABC Radio host, suddenly became an "accidental activist", working to secure compensation for people like Jum who had developed an asbestos-related disease in one of the Mr Fluffy homes.
Many Canberrans know the story of Mr Fluffy and probably remember that the ACT government in 2014 announced that it would buy back all the affected homes and knock them down. But it would be another seven years before an asbestos diseases support scheme would be announced, largely due to the work of Jum, his brother Bruce and former criminal lawyer turned comedian James, none of whom had any experience lobbying government.
"Mr Fluffy" was shorthand for the loose-fill asbestos insulation installed in just more than 1000 Canberra homes between 1968 and 1979 by D. Jansen and Co Pty Ltd and its successor firms. The material comprised raw asbestos, crushed and blown into roof spaces to insulate Canberran homes in the cold winters and hot summers.
When it was installed in the Campbell home of Jum Wallner in 1969, he was just three years old with three older brothers. When workmen left a mound of asbestos on a tarp in the garage, the four brothers played in it, pelting each other, mostly the youngest Jum, with "snowballs" of the deadly stuff. No one knew the risk. Well, not the homeowners, at least.
Just a year before the Wallners had their Mr Fluffy asbestos installed, a report, in 1968, by physician Gersh Major sounded the alarm about using asbestos as insulation in houses, saying workers could be affected by the "harmful substance" and "there is some evidence that community exposure to asbestos dust is undesirable". But still the stuff was pumped into the roof cavities of Canberra homes for another decade.
O'Loghlin, 60, has now written a book about his and Jum's and Bruce's fight for justice, called The Missing Piece.
On the phone from his home in Sydney, O'Loghlin said the title of the book referred to the fact that before Jum's campaign, people who developed an asbestos-related disease at work could seek compensation, but there was nothing for people who developed the same condition as the result of living in a home. The "missing piece" was also Jum and James' friendship, which had been put to one side after uni as they pursued careers and raised families. Jum's condition and subsequent death made O'Loghlin re-evaluate his friendships.
"My friends are a much bigger part of my life since that happened," he said.
With Jum receiving treatment and becoming the public face of the campaign, Bruce and James were left to get to the decision-makers, but were hardly those sharp-suited lobbyists stalking the halls of Parliament House with their orange sponsored passes swinging from their lanyards. They were babes in the woods. But determined and tenacious ones.
"We found out during the campaign there is a right way and a better way [to lobby] and the right way is to write a letter and we did that and the better way is then to ask everyone you know if they know anyone who can help you get the letter out of the pile," O'Loghlin said.
"None of us knew any insiders directly but we found someone who knew someone who did.
"We worked out pretty quickly that just jumping up and down about how right we were and how bad the government would be if they didn't do what we said was not going to be effective. We had to really try to work out how to play the game."
The campaign, in the end, while conducted by amateurs was strategic and remarkably effective, not least because it was all conducted during the pandemic, when governments were mostly otherwise occupied trying to deal with COVID-19. The men were also trying to get the Coalition federal government and the ACT Labor government to co-operate on an issue they'd each handballed for decades. And they were in a race against time to get something in place before Jum died. Within 10 months, they had achieved the incredible.
The ACT and federal governments in May 2021, announced an agreement to establish an asbestos diseases support scheme, to be administered by the ACT. James passed away just two days later at Clare Holland House. He was 54 and left behind wife Linda and their sons, Max and Charlie.
Today, the The Loose-Fill Asbestos Disease Support Scheme continues to provide financial support for people with an asbestos-related disease from living in a loose-fill asbestos insulation home. The $16 million scheme was jointly funded by each government.
An ACT government spokesman said since then, the government had processed 10 applications from eligible people under the scheme and provided financial support of around $5 million. Chief Minister Andrew Barr said in 2022 that the $16 million was not capped "and could be added to in the future".
O'Loghlin's book is part tribute to Jum and their friendship, part fascinating insight into machinations of government and all written with the knowledge of a Canberra local. O'Loghlin grew up in Canberra and his father, Graham, still lives in Yarralumla.
In one of the snippets in the book, O'Loghlin writes: "In Canberra, you need insulation. I used to ride my bike to school and in winter, if I forgot my gloves, by the time I arrived, my hands were frozen so hard around the handlebars, I'd have to slide them off".
O'Loghlin studied and worked as a lawyer before he took the great leap into comedy and The Missing Piece has his humour threaded through it.
"No one likes dealing with the government. I dreaded renewing my driver's licence, and that only involved asking them for something I was legally entitled to," he writes about his accidental activism.
O'Loghlin said the campaign "wasn't about being righteous".
"It was about being tactical and strategic and trying to find the supporters who would make a difference," he said.
Bruce and James managed to get the Australian Medical Association to write to then federal health minister Greg Hunt about the issue. They had Greg Combet on board to offer advice, the man, who as secretary of the ACTU, had forced James Hardie to create a compensation fund for workers who had developed asbestos-related diseases. Friends of Jum around the nation wrote to their local representatives to put more pressure on the decision-makers.
"It was about asking for as much advice from anyone who knew more than us, which was a lot of people, and then working out the things that really made a difference. People would say, 'Start a Facebook page, get a petition' and we didn't think that would actually make much of a difference. We did think a letter from the AMA [to the health minister] would,"O'Loghlin said.
There are also delicious little asides in the book. ABC journalist Craig Allen had reported about Jum and his campaign. Over one Easter down at the coast, he bumped into then shadow finance minister Katy Gallagher. They discussed Jum's story and Gallagher said she was keen to help the campaign. O'Loghlin was hosting a comedy night in outback Queensland when federal minister Angus Taylor turned up. O'Loghlin took his chance and approached him about Jum and their fight. Taylor took it up with his federal colleagues. So, too, did then ACT Liberal senator Zed Seselja.
The book also highlights that, while governments and public servants receive flak at almost every turn, there are hardworking men and women, usually faceless, often unrecognised, beavering away behind the scenes to make changes and to make the world a better place.
"Everyone I dealt with in government surprised me, in a positive way," O'Loghlin said.
"I was pretty cynical about government in 2020 and I'm much less cynical now. Both governments accelerated their process and moved a lot faster than they would normally do to announce this before Jum died.
"Greg Hunt's adviser Sam Develin came to my book launch the other week. He's a lovely guy and we had a lovely talk about it. I didn't realise it at the time, but he pushed really, really hard for this. As did Michael Cook, Andrew Barr's chief of staff. All that was happening behind closed doors.
"One of our carrots, we were trying to offer the governments was, 'You've both been through hell, as has the whole Canberra community, because of these bloody houses. They're all gone now. But there's one bit left, and this is it. And if Jum dies, next year there will be someone else and we'll help them. And if they died there will be someone after them and someone after them. Sooner or later someone is going to fix it, so why not you?'."
