Australia asbestos campaigner lauded as 'real fighter'

CANBERRA, Nov 27 (Reuters) - An Australian factory worker who forced multinational company James Hardie Industries to set up a A$4.5 billion (US$3.9 billion) fund for asbestos victims like himself died in Sydney on Tuesday from asbestos-related cancer.

Bernie Banton, 61, was Australia's version of Erin Brockovich, whose fight for justice against an American power company was made into a Hollywood film.

"Bernie's great, great contribution was as a fighter, a real fighter," Australia's Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd said in a tribute.

Banton, who could not go anywhere without an oxygen bottle to help him breathe, fought for compensation until he died, delivering a 17,000-name petition to the Australian government last month and lobbying from his hospital bed.

He was the public face of a global campaign for compensation for workers at James Hardie Industries, who were exposed to dangerous asbestos dust during their work at the international building products company's Australian factories.

"We were known as the snowmen because the only part you could see that wasn't white were your eyes. They never told us that it would kill you," Banton told Reuters in 2004.

The company used asbestos as a fire retardant in wallboard and other products until Australia banned the material in 1984. Asbestos contains tiny fibres that settle in the lungs and can eventually choke victims to death.

Asbestos Diseases Society of Victoria estimated that up to 45,000 Australians would be affected by asbestos illnesses by 2021, with a "great proportion" exposed through Hardie products. Banton worked the night shift for six years at one of the company's Sydney plants, where he made moulds of cement, silica and asbestos. Of the 137 fellow workers at the plant, including Banton's two brothers, fewer than 10 are still alive.

Banton will be given a state funeral.