Thousands of people who suffered asbestos exposure after working for Victoria's State Electricity Commission will receive a state government apology.
Premier John Brumby, making the announcement at Labor's spring state council meeting in Melbourne today, said it was the right thing to do.
Workers at power plants built in the Latrobe Valley, south-east of Melbourne in the 1920s, were exposed to asbestos over a 60-year period.
"Saying sorry is the right thing to do ... the respectful thing to do," Mr Brumby told the conference.
Many of the asbestos-related diseases sufferers were children and family members of workers at the plant.
Gippsland Asbestos Related Disease Support (GARDS) has fought for years for compensation and apologies for power workers and their families.
GARDS secretary Vicky Hamilton, whose father and grandfather both died of asbestos-related diseases, was at the council today with her mother to hear Mr Brumby's announcement.
"It was something I'll never forget," Ms Hamilton said.
"It's going to give closure to a lot of families.
"I think it's vindication that they've been talking about this for a long, long time and crying out for some social justice and finally they are going to get that ...
"And that's not before time. I'm really pleased that John Brumby has decided to be the premier to do that."
She said exact number of victims was not known, because records "deliberately" were not kept.
Her father was a shift supervisor in the maintenance section when exposed to asbestos.
"He was in the thick of it. They all were. It didn't matter if they were the toilet cleaner or the chauffeur or whatever, everybody was exposed to this," she said.
Mr Brumby thanked GARDS members for their work on behalf of asbestos sufferers over the decades.
"When you read the case histories of some of these cases, they are terrible cases," he told reporters.
"There were cases where people who were children, whose father worked for the SEC came home every night with asbestos dust on their uniforms, cuddled their child as you do, and 20 or 30 years later it's the child who has contracted mesothelioma."
State parliament will sit in the Latrobe Valley on Wednesday, where the apology will be formally made.
