JAMES O’LOGHLIN The Missing Piece. Reviewed by Braham Dabscheck

James O’Loghlin wanted to help a dying friend. He ended up running a campaign to change the law for victims of asbestos.

There is something special about friends made during your formative years as a child, at school or university. Special friends know each other for who they are; they understand and accept each other’s foibles. James O’Loghlin observes:

With old friends, you just turn up, crap on and see who can make the other laugh first. If you say something that comes out wrong, they’re not going to judge you.

These special friends are like a bank you can draw on for support at any stage of your life. You don’t have to see them all the time; you just know that they are there and when you catch up, it is like you were never apart.

So what do you do when you receive news that someone who was once your best friend, with whom you have since lost contact, has an incurable disease with probably less than a year to live? This is what confronted James O’Loghlin when he learned that Jum (James) Wallner, his friend from Wesley College days at Sydney University in the mid-1980s, had contracted mesothelioma.

Mesothelioma results from exposure to asbestos, which historically had been used as insulation in buildings. Most who contract it do so because of exposure during their employment, and a scheme exists to provide compensation for workers who contract mesothelioma.

But Jum Wallner’s exposure had nothing to do with his employment, and there was no mechanism to compensate victims like him. Jum grew up in Canberra, where a company called Mr Fluffy installed loose-fill asbestos to approximately 1000 Canberra homes during his childhood. Mr Fluffy had since gone out of business, so there was no legal entity that could be sued for compensation.

Canberra had been administered by the Commonwealth government during this period. It became a separate legal jurisdiction – the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) – only in 1989. O’Loghlin points out that in 1968 there had been a Commonwealth government inquiry into Mr Fluffy’s use of asbestos, which recommended it be stopped. This recommendation had not been taken up by the government. In 1988, the Hawke government acted to remove asbestos from Mr Fluffy homes. It was not clear, however, that the houses were in fact ‘cleaned’. In 2010, the ACT government bought the houses at a cost of $1 billion and demolished them.

Jum and his brother Bruce didn’t think it was fair that Canberra’s Mr Fluffy victims wouldn’t receive the same help as workplace victims of asbestos. When O’Loghlin heard about this, he instantly wanted to help.

… part of it was guilt that I had seen so little of him in the last twenty years, and a desire to make up for it. This was an opportunity to pay him back for his friendship, and try to make up for all the things I hadn’t done to nurture it over the years.

Most of The Missing Piece is an account of their campaign to convince the Commonwealth and ACT governments to establish a scheme for Mr Fluffy asbestos victims. Being novices in lobbying and political action, they took advice from a number of Canberra insiders on how to play the lobbying and media game, which they did in 2020 and 2021, during the height of the COVID pandemic when both governments, especially their health departments, had a lot on their respective plates.

They were ultimately successful. A few days before Jum’s death, the two governments announced a jointly funded scheme of $16 million, with top-ups down the line if necessary, to be administered by the ACT. While for O’Loghlin and the Wallner brothers progress seemed long and drawn out, both governments acted relatively quickly. The time between the initial letter sent to Greg Hunt, the Commonwealth’s Minister for Health, and the eventual announcement was slightly more than 11 weeks. O’Loghlin observed:

I’m much less cynical about government now. Setting up the scheme involved two governments with opposing political views and a long history of vigorous disagreement about all matters Fluffy putting aside their differences and negotiating and cooperating their way to a solution. It would have been a lot easier for both of them not to do it. They listened, considered and when time was running out, moved faster than they wanted to so they could make a difference to a dying man. Full credit.

To my mind the most interesting parts of this book are O’Loghlin’s insights on dealing with grief and the importance of friendship. All of us have to deal with grief at some point, and it is confronting to see a loved one or a special friend suffering an incurable disease, witnessing their pain and death. O’Loghlin has a ten-page chapter discussing being available for a close friend in their dying days. This is not something I have come across before; it is the best chapter in the book and should be published as a separate piece for a broader audience. He also has a two-page chapter entitled ‘Designated Grieving Time’, which also provides valuable advice.

With respect to friendship, he says:

At Wesley, we told ourselves that friends were forever, and were stupid enough to believe it. In real life, however … friendships only last if you maintain them. Once we leave those places where we automatically see friends every day – school, uni, work, jail – then unless we put in some effort they can drift away … when Jum was sick, and after he died, we got used to asking each other how we were dealing with it, and so we’re better at making those sorts of enquiries about each other’s lives now. As some of us have kids leaving home, and inch towards retirement, and have other changes to adapt to, that’s a good thing.

While James O’Loghlin’s focus is on a campaign to establish a compensation scheme for those who contracted mesothelioma from the asbestos used in homes in Canberra, it is ultimately a book about the human condition, the importance of friendship, and dealing with the grief of losing special friends. 

James O’Loghlin The Missing Piece Echo Publishing 2026 PB 296pp $34.99

Braham Dabscheck is a Senior Fellow at the Melbourne Law School at the University of Melbourne who writes on industrial relations, sport and other things.

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Tags: activism, asbestos, Australian writers, friendship, James O'Loghlin, James Wallner, memoir, mesothelioma, Mr Fluffy, political lobbying, terminal illness, victims compensation