With the winding up of the Bernie Banton Foundation on 30 June 2020, this website [now renamed as simply: Bernie Banton] is being independently continued and maintained by myself and Karen Banton-Smith.
We take pleasure in being able to maintain the website as a voluntary community service to not only honor and foster the memory and legacy of Bernie Banton AM, but to allow every Australian to access comprehensive reference information about mesothelioma asbestos cancer, asbestos related diseases, related support & care, and asbestos awareness.
The Bernie Banton website is not sponsored, or funded by any external sources, nor is it subject to external private, individual, organisation, government, union or commercial pressures – we are totally apolitical and autonomous.
As Karen and I are close to commencing a new chapter in our lives devoid of governmental, corporate and organsational bureaucracy and responsibilities, I am in the process of re-branding and re-writing much of the website to better reflect and reposition its’ new purpose, as purely an independent community based information and reference resource, and a blog site.
For Karen it has been a very long 21 years of continuing involvement with asbestos and asbestos related disease, care, support and advocacy. For myself, it has been a demanding 12 years of 24/7 of (one way or another) care, support, advocacy and awareness. As I said when the announcement was made on 28 January 2020, “This is the end of a chapter in our lives – it is not the end of the book!” Who knows what the next chapter holds, or where it will lead us……..
Rod Smith
Awareness & Support Co-ordinator
Bernie Banton Foundation
Karen Banton-Smith & Bernie Banton (passed) – Rod Smith with ‘his’ Julie (passed)