James O'Loughlin

James O'Loughlin is a TV and radio host.

Before that he was a stand-up comedian and before that he was briefly a lawyer, which means that James is a man who knows everything about everything.

But James was at a loss when he got some bad news from one of his best and oldest friends, Jum Walner.

Both James and Jum had grown up in Canberra, where a whole lot of modest bungalows were built in the post-war years to house its army of public servants.

But so many of these Canberra houses were given asbestos insulation, asbestos that was often carelessly installed and removed.

And there came the day when James's friend Jum felt a pain in his side and remembered he'd grown up in one of those houses filled with asbestos that had been installed by a local company called Mr. Fluffy.

Jum discovered that if you got asbestosis from your workplace, you were entitled to compensation.

But if it came from within the home...

then no such luck.

So Jum asked James for his help to petition the powers that be to help asbestos victims like himself and their families.

James O'Loughlin's now written a book about how a small group of amateurs had to figure out how to get the attention of powerful and busy ministers in the middle of a pandemic before it was too late.

James O'Loughlin's book is called The Missing Piece.

Hello, James.

G'day, Richard.

Tell me a bit about your friend, Jum.

How did you meet him?

So you'd known him in school and then you re-met him at uni.

Okay.

So you didn't beat him up when he was a year below you, would you?

Sounds like he was bigger than you anyway.