The son of the man who gave rise to the Mr Fluffy asbestos crisis says he is “so sorry” for the heartache it has caused.
Paul Jansen, who is one of Dirk Jansen’s eight children, is the first descendent to speak out publicly.
He said he felt a mixture of guilt, fear and compassion for the thousands of people who have been forced from their Mr Fluffy homes and the tens of thousands of others who may have been exposed to the potentially deadly asbestos.
“I’m disturbed, I get upset, I feel for these people,” an emotional Mr Jansen said from his home on the New South Wales coast.
“I care and I am so sorry [for] what they are going through because I am going through the same thing myself.
“I have feared for my health for decades, it’s always been in the back of my mind. It always will be.”
‘My father believed he was doing it for his family’
Dirk Jansen started the original asbestos insulation business in Canberra and imported loose-fill asbestos, which was then sprayed into rooves as insulation in the 1960s and 1970s.
In recent decades he has become known as Mr Fluffy, but the business only took on that name after he sold it.
Paul Jansen said he thought other operators in Canberra and parts of New South Wales may have also copied his father and used the substance.
In total, two governments may have to spend more than $1.2 billion to fix the problem.
“Rightfully or wrongfully, what my father did, he believed at the time that he was doing it for his family,” Mr Jansen said.
“He had eight children, all under 10, and he’s trying to make a living to put food on the table.”
The business was run out of the family home in the Canberra suburb of Lyons and bags of the asbestos fluff were stored under the house.
“We used to romp on it and the fibres in the air were like a dust storm,” Mr Jansen said.
“This went on for quite a while.”
Government should have taken action sooner, son says
Mr Jansen was only a primary school student at the time and, unlike some of his older brothers, said he did not help install any of the substance or work with his father.
Now 60, he has scarring on his lungs but has not contracted an asbestos-related disease, like mesothelioma.
“I do not have a real relationship with my family … I really never liked my father that much,” he said.
“But as far as I am aware no-one in the family has mesothelioma.
“Part of the reason I am doing this interview is I want to try to reassure people that the risk of contracting this disease is very low.”
For symbolic reasons, Mr Jansen would like his former family home to be one of the first demolished, as part of the ACT Government’s buyback scheme.
He said he thought he was a “victim” of the crisis and said it had had “a significant impact” on his family.
He blamed successive governments for not taking more meaningful action sooner.
“People’s wellbeing emotionally is more important than one dollar,” he said.
“The quicker it’s cleaned up and not allowed to be ever used again, the better.
“When the last house goes … I’ll sit back and relax.”
You can see more on this story tonight on ABC News and ABC News 24.