What You’ve Got Within You

Do you know what you’ve got within you? If it’s deadly asbestos, you’d better have what it takes to fight for what’s right.

When Harry Langlands picked up a chunk of red rock from the floor of the gorge, he thought he had discovered something special. Harry’s hunch proved correct. It was special stuff. Very special. He had discovered blue asbestos… But all the money he made from it never made him happy. The fortunes made from the asbestos didn’t make many others very happy either. It wasn’t the miracle fibre everybody had thought it was. In the end, many wished Harry had left it lying on the ground in Disaster Gorge.

James and Jenny Henderson came to Australia for a new life. They started a family and worked hard for a brighter future. They never expected to be fighting for their lives or for justice in a court case against two of Australia’s biggest companies.

Big end lawyer, Bruce Fraser, thinks he can springboard into partnership and fame with a win for his client, Henry King Industries Limited, a large asbestos cement manufacturer. Plaintiff lawyer, Vivienne Glosioli, hopes she can overcome her self-doubt, her boss’s advances and the sausage-factory mentality of her firm to secure a win for the couple.

What unfolds is the ugly truth of asbestos and the legal industry it spawned. James Henderson’s story is the history of asbestos exploitation in Australia. His legal battle may change the law forever. There is much at stake. Money, careers, reputations, lives. Who has what it takes to win?