Toxic City: Asbestos, Amnesia, and the Collapse of Care lays out a story many in Shoalhaven already recognise. Swift action when risk sits inside council walls. Silence when that same risk sits in a small village, under roads, near creeks, beside homes.
This is collaborative community advocacy at its best, from Spark Shoalhaven in Politics. It opens with a preface by Cat Holloway and centres the long, sustained work of Peter Allison. His work is seminal. It shows what happens when ordinary people keep records, keep asking questions, and keep going long after institutions move on.
This is about asbestos. It is also about memory, power, and who gets protected.
How many versions of this reckoning do we need before we all stand up, in some way, no matter how small.
First they came for a small place.
Then they came for people without power.
Then they came for something they should never have ignored.
If you live in Shoalhaven, read it.
If you care about how councils work, read it.
If you wonder how systems drift away from accountability, read it.
And if you are part of a group somewhere else, watching something similar unfold, this is an invitation. We are learning that shared stories, shared evidence, and shared pressure travel further together.