A typically activistic Midnight Oil song about the blue asbestos mine in Wittenoom, Western Australia. The hazards of asbestos-fibre inhalation were not well known to the general public in the postwar period when the mine was at its operational peak. The owners, however, knew about the danger, yet provided no information and no safety equipment to the workers, many of whom were immigrants who had left a battered Europe after WW2 to find work. Men worked without breathing masks in areas where the air was so visibly thick with asbestos fibers that bright lightbulbs appeared dim.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittenoom%2C_Western_Australia
http://www.asbestosdiseases.org.au/asbestosinfo/wittenoom_tragedies.htm