'I'm really appalled for what they've done' - More parents continue fight over coloured sand

A Christchurch couple's Disputes Tribunal win, after their twins played with asbestos-laced play sand, has given others confidence about their own claims.

The tribunal decision last week ordered Kmart to pay Elle Chrisp and her partner David Dingwall $15,185.42 for the costs of asbestos testing and remediation.

The discovery of asbestos in play sand in November led to recall notices and dozens of schools and early childcare centres across the country closing for clean up.

Among retailers, Kmart alone had sold 67,000 units of the contaminated products. Kmart is owned by Australian conglomerate Wesfarmers, which also owns Bunnings Warehouse.

The Christchurch couple's win has seen more parents speak up on Tuesday about their fight to hold the retailer accountable.

A Hamilton mum - who has been trying to claim costs from Kmart since late last year - said the decision gives her some confidence.

The woman, who did not want to be named, was emotional as she recalled the panic and sadness when she found out that her four-year-old's 14-piece Sandcastle building was a recalled product.

She went on to spend hundreds of dollars on asbestos testing, air quality monitoring and thousands of dollars replacing furniture, and tried to claim back the money from Kmart.

RNZ has seen Kmart's email to the woman in January, rejecting the claim and explaining that respirable asbestos was not detected in tested samples, and that the recall did not require people to replace carpet or furniture.

The woman emailed Kmart more recently, after seeing a new AUT study showing that airborne asbestos was found in some of the recalled products.

She said she was not impressed that it took all of this to get Kmart to finally agree last week for Wesfarmers Limited's General Insurance claims team to look at her claim.

"I'm really appalled for what they've done, that they just swept everything under the rug and I just asked for the claim again - and if not, I'm gonna bring them to the Dispute Tribunal together with other parents.

"And right after that email Wesfarmers just emailed me, saying they're going to lodge my claim," she said.

The timing coincided with the Disputes Tribunal decision in favour of the Christchurch couple.

RNZ asked Kmart what impact the new AUT study had on how Kmart was dealing with claims relating to the asbestos play sand, and whether it was going to re-assess earlier rejected claims in light of the disputes tribunal ruling in the Christchurch couple's case.

Kmart has not yet provided a response to those questions.

Kmart would not say how many customers it has paid out, or was ordered to compensate as a result of court proceedings.

The Hamilton mum said she continued to worry for her son's future health and hoped Kmart can take responsibility if anything happened to her child that would have resulted from asbestos exposure.

In Lower Hutt, Keren Lee said it took more than half a year of back and forth emails with Kmart saying she will take them to the tribunal, to claim back about $1000 she had spent on testing and replacing furnishings.

Both Lee's toddler and baby had been exposed to play sand containing asbestos.

Lee said she was stoked for the Disputes Tribunal win for Chrisp and her partner.

"That Kmart has essentially been held to account a wee bit, publicly, hopefully this will get the government and regulators looking into this so this can't happen again," she said.

Lee said she hoped her own experience and Chrisp's win can show other affected families that there are options - she was encouraging families to stick it out and not take no for an answer.

Lee also remained worried for her children's health further down the line.

She said she wanted New Zealand to learn from other countries that had set up registries for affected families after similar incidents.

"I've heard of an event in Japan where I think everyone was recorded and they get annual monitoring,

"Some kind of actual plan would be amazing, just so we don't feel like we're left on our own to deal with this now that it's happened," she said.

In Chrisp's case, the tribunal did not grant the couple's claim for about $44,000 to cover 40 years of medical monitoring for their twins.

Disputes Tribunal referee Cynthia Hawes said there were too many unknown factors to accept that the applicants had proved their case for the costs of medical monitoring.

Kmart Group said in a statement: "The safety of our products and maintaining the trust of our customers is of paramount importance to Kmart".

It said a number of retailers in New Zealand recalled sand-based toy products as part of a "broader industry issue".

"When the matter became known to us, we acted quickly by removing affected products from sale, issuing recall notices and supporting customers with refunds and guidance on safely disposing of the products based on regulatory advice," it said.