He has bunkered down to help prepare federal budgets, handled John Howard's paperwork and ceremonial duties, and managed APEC security and logistics on the post-September 11 era. But nothing could have prepared Andrew Kefford for Mr Fluffy.
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The career bureaucrat's day job as Public Service Commissioner and Deputy Director-General of the Chief Minister's Directorate changed in ways he could never have envisaged earlier this year when it became clear the ACT was harbouring a potentially deadly threat to residents living in more than 1000 homes.
The ACT Government's decision to borrow $1 billion from the Commonwealth to facilitate a buyback and demolition of every single Mr Fluffy house in the ACT – a decision which has now also been replicated in NSW – followed the advice of Mr Kefford heading the ACT Asbestos Response Taskforce.
After decades of government prevarication, remediation and, many would argue, head-burying, the taskforce pulled together the evidence base to state no Mr Fluffy home should be left standing.
Such a momentous decision will change the landscape of the ACT as it is played out over its five-year projected time frame and, no doubt, well beyond.
Just over a year ago, Mr Kefford's responsibility for the Office of Industrial Relations, in the Chief Minister and Treasury Directorate, meant he shared oversight for asbestos. He was preparing to inform the public of the findings of an investigation into a Downer house discovered to have significant contamination from loose asbestos insulation, or – the words now synonymous for amosite in Canberra – Mr Fluffy.
The home was missed in the $100 million Commonwealth clean-up of the late 1980s.
It provided a case study to see just how Mr Fluffy fibres spread and settled within the walls and subfloors of a building. It was a portent of massive upheaval and distress which would grip Canberra throughout 2014.
The Downer home was contaminated to the point it was unlivable and dismantled under a pressure bubble at a cost of $2 million. The Government decided to urge caution among Mr Fluffy households in line with three previous general warnings over the previous two decades.
A letter arrived at Mr Fluffy addresses across the city in February.
Mr Kefford stresses that, at that point, the government had no idea of the extent of the problem inside houses – namely that a Class 1 carcinogen presented a clear and present danger to residents.
"At that point the position was residual fibres in the wall of a missed house, with a sample of one … We had no idea."
Following the letter, a small number of families had their homes checked and the reports that started to dribble in suggested, worryingly, that some families were being exposed to the deadly fibres within their living areas.
As homes aged, cracked, required maintenance and renovation, the likelihood of exposure increased.
Through March and April Mr Kefford began receiving contact from the asbestos assessors themselves who were worried about what they were finding.
A warning by the head of the federal Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency Peter Tighe that all Mr Fluffy homes posed a threat and should be demolished – published in The Canberra Times in April – led to something of a community panic. Mr Kefford described it as a tipping point, with families scrabbling for assessments and more coming back with bad news.
By May, Mr Kefford realised the issue was a territory-wide public health matter – bigger than something just the staff in the Office of Industrial relations, or one directorate, could handle.
Then Chief Minister Katy Gallagher appointed Mr Kefford to head the Asbestos Response Taskforce made up of bureaucrats from across all directorates, and gave him riding instructions to assess the extent of the problem across the territory and come up with an enduring solution.
For Mr Kefford, the job took on a new human dimension, where he was the face of assistance for families in crisis. By the hundreds they came, seeking asbestos assessments and – for the unlucky 10 per cent of owners – accessing new $10,000-plus financial crisis packages when their homes were deemed toxic.
His work hours blurred into day and night as he often dealt personally with distraught parents, sick with guilt that they may have unwittingly exposed their children to serious harm.
"The emotional impact on the families was massive, of course, and I heard it all, the anger, the guilt, the panic, the tears. Lots of tears."
"The conversation stopped being about buildings, and started being about people."
The asbestos assessments continued to roll in – 972 to date – and while most had a couple of red lines regarding hot spots of contamination, 80 of the worst-affected houses had reports littered with red lines. Some of these owners left with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
"You can have all the discussions about the prevalence of disease, but I cannot sit here and say to someone I know how you feel, because I am not in a Mr Fluffy house."
Nearly seven out of every 10 homes tested have been confirmed to have fibres inside the living areas. Most agree you can find traces of amosite in all Mr Fluffy homes if you look hard enough.
By July, it was clear in Mr Kefford's mind that the homes would be demolished. This was reaffirmed through the taskforce's conversations with national experts. All were asked if houses could be saved. The unanimous answer was "no".
"The report was an unusual document for an official to write in as much as while we considered options we only came up with one answer. That evidence drove us into some really hard decisions very quickly."
Mr Kefford's report was issued on a bleak day for the city on October 28. Not only did it chronicle a serious and ongoing health risk for thousands of residents and the need for 1021 homes to be demolished, but it was issued on the afternoon the Commonwealth Government rejected any financial responsibility for the problem.
While the ACT and Commonwealth had previously assumed shared responsibility for the Mr Fluffy issue and jointly met costs through an historical agreement forged in the ACT's pre self-government days, the Commonwealth said it no longer had a case to answer.
A six-year statute of limitations has also quashed hopes of a class action by residents against the Commonwealth over its failure to close Mr Fluffy down in the late 1960s despite official concerns about the threat the insulation posed to the community's health.
Mr Kefford won't be drawn on his own sense of disappointment with that outcome other than to confirm "an inter-government agreement is not legally enforceable".
The ACT announced it would go it alone – taking out a concessional $1 billion loan from the Commonwealth to rid the city of the scourge of amosite asbestos.
Now Mr Kefford is in charge of the ACT Government's unprecedented program involving the financial, legal and industrial complexities of buying 1021 homes and knocking them down.
His team has grown to 50 staff, which has moved into a separate office in Civic, and will be in likely existence for the next five years.
As of writing, 742 of the 1021 affected households have opted in to have their properties valued.
But the next battle lines are being rapidly drawn by some homeowners who want to remain on their land.
The buy-back scheme is formulated on the premise that the government will be able to change titling arrangements of some blocks, such as those over 700 metres squared, or allow subtitling provisions – subject to a variation of the Territory plan. This will allow it to recoup some of its losses through allowing developers to pay premiums to develop units or dual occupancies.
Mr Fluffy families will be offered the chance to purchase back their cleared blocks at market value which reflects their zoning variations.
"They can buy back their current block with their current boundaries but in some cases it may have different planning permissions and different costs," Mr Kefford said.
This has come as cold comfort to all those families who worry the costs of rezoned land will be beyond their reach. They love their streets and suburbs and have had their lives turned upside down by the Mr Fluffy crisis.
For Mr Kefford, it has been a challenging, but, he is quick to add, rewarding year.
Where bureaucratic wheels normally turn slowly, he acknowledges the government's response has been swift and enormous and the public service has had to keep a cracking pace.
Not only is the cost of the program one of the most expensive commitments the ACT Government has made, but associated legislation has had to keep up.
Six legislative changes have been passed – encompassing privacy regulations to tax laws and the dangerous substances Act – all requiring amendments to pave the way for Mr Fluffy action.
The government also approved more than $3 million in support funding for affected families – paying for asbestos assessments and crisis accommodation, clothes and household goods for families who have had to lock their homes down and leave.
Mr Kefford said those involved with the ACT Government response received a personal and professional boost at the First International Conference on Asbestos Awareness and Management, held in Melbourne in November and drawing together international policy makers, health and industrial experts.
The conference not only endorsed the ACT's actions, but held them as an example for others to follow.
"The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) government's response to demolish Mr Fluffy homes is acknowledged as the only enduring solution to the ongoing risk posed by loose fill asbestos insulation and the conference commends this approach to other governments," said the communique.
By December, the NSW Government ended a notorious 40-year silence on the Mr Fluffy issue, replicating to the word and dollar the ACT taskforce's lead on establishing financial assistance for victims, mandatory disclosure for homeowners, tenants, and tradespeople, and establishing a NSW taskforce to pave the way for a buy-back and demolition scheme. For a small number of affected Queanbeyan families, it was a day they never believed would come.
The one notable difference is that the NSW Government is actively considering owner-rebuilds as part of its response – an issue which has caused the most disquiet in the ACT.
2015 will be the year in which Canberra's small but vocal group of disaffected homeowners will either concede defeat and leave their land under the buy-back scheme in its current terms or fight for further concessions to ease the transition to demolish and rebuild on their own blocks.
While those decisions are for the government and not the bureaucrats, Mr Kefford is fully prepared to receive many more phone calls expressing rage and tears along the way.
