The true horror asbestos can wreak was laid bare in a slew of court challenges against James Hardie over the past decade.

Bernie Banton, an unlikely social justice campaigner, was the human face of the legal and political campaign to win compensation for sufferers of asbestos-related diseases.

Mr Banton drew his last gasping breath in 2007, but his fight for justice is ongoing.

The latest battleground for the fight is NSW, where the government has responded by offering free asbestos inspections for pre-1980 homes.

As an older settlement with thousands of older homes, Wagga has a fair stake in the fight.

Already, more than 3000 homeowners have registered to have their properties inspected for loose-fill asbestos.

But thousands more haven’t.

Building inspector Brad Wilson’s startling claim that more than half the 8000 Wagga homes he has inspected over the years were likely to contain loose-fill insulation that could contain asbestos should be a flashing red light to those homeowners that haven’t registered.

Ignorance and apathy are no excuse.

If you care about your health, if you care about your loved ones, you will ensure your family is not living under a toxic timebomb.

To think the deadly substance isn’t lurking in your home would be to ignore a growing body of evidence.

Even in the sleepy town of Holbrook, 21 homes have recently been found to contain asbestos, reinforcing how widespread the issue is.

The NSW government should be commended for acting swiftly and decisively on this issue.

It stands in stark contrast to the ACT government, which was dangerously slow to respond to the emerging Mr Fluffy insulation scandal.

Death by asbestos is a tough sentence.

It is invisible, a deadly dust of tiny fibres that catch, like countless tiny fish hooks, in the lungs.

It can take years, even decades, for the mesothelioma to show, but it's there. First comes the coughing, breathlessness and weakness, then the doctors' appointments, until the day the condemned is shown X-rays marking sinister spots on ravaged lungs.

There’s a way to avoid this potentially happening – and it simply involves picking up the phone.