British nuclear tests in the desert destroyed a way of life for the Maralinga Tjarutja people

When Prime Minister Robert Menzies agreed to top secret British nuclear testing in the South Australian desert, he paved the way for a series of massive explosions that contaminated vast tracts of pristine land.

Traditional owner Keith Peterson at the 2009 handback ceremony returning Maralinga to the Maralinga Tjarutja people. Picture: Kelly Barnes

Atomic bomb trials at Maralinga sent artist's father on walkabout

When prime minister Robert Menzies agreed to top-secret British nuclear testing in the South Australian desert, he paved the way for a series of massive explosions that contaminated vast tracts of pristine land.

Menzies’ decision also blasted open a tragic chapter for the region’s indigenous people.

The Maralinga Tjarutja had lived in the South Australian desert for countless generations. But after Menzies’ agreement with the British in 1950, they were forcibly herded away from 3200sq km of their own lands in order to clear the test sites.

The Maralinga Tjarutja would not go home for many decades.

In fact, no one returned to Maralinga except scientists and technicians who made numerous attempts to decontaminate the blighted terrain.

A major breakthrough came in 2009 when the South Australian government authorised the lands to be handed back to their traditional owners.

The then premier Mike Rann commented that this would end “a shameful episode in our history”.

A traditional way of life had been all but destroyed, but now it seemed there was hope.

At the December 2009 handback ceremony in the desert, federal indigenous affairs minister Jenny Macklin praised the determination of the Maralinga Tjarutja to reclaim their homelands “and live again in the red desert country”.

The explosion generated by the last nuclear test at Maralinga in 1957. Picture: News Corp

Judge James McClelland with a group of women at Maralinga, in a private sitting of the McClelland Royal Commission in April 1985. Picture: Bryan Charlton

The Australian nuclear tests were the subject of Atomic Thunder: The Maralinga Story, a damning book by Dr Elizabeth Tynan that won a Prime Minister’s Literary Award in 2017.

“If there is a word that speaks of government secrecy, nuclear colonialism, reckless national pride, bigotry towards indigenous peoples, nuclear-era scientific arrogance, human folly and the resilience of victims, surely that word is Maralinga,” Dr Tynan wrote.

The seeds for the Maralinga disaster were sown in 1950 when British prime minister Clement Attlee rang Menzies to ask if Australia would host nuclear tests in the desert.

“Menzies agreed without hesitation. The matter was not presented to cabinet,” Tynan wrote.

“Maralinga was neither Australia’s nor Britain’s finest hour. Both countries behaved at times with questionable ethics and little regard for future consequences.

“Later investigations revealed that insufficient safeguards were in place to protect people and land, even allowing for the less-developed understanding of matters atomic back then.”

The harm done to indigenous people was “shameful”, Tynan wrote.

“The test authorities said openly at the time that there was ‘nothing to suffer damage except spinifex and mulga’ at Maralinga, despite the long and complex history of indigenous presence there.”

Checking for contaminants around the Taranaki area of Maralinga in March 2000. Picture: News Corp

As for anyone near the test site, including British and Australian personnel, they were “exposed to radiation that may have made them ill”. And indigenous people have suffered higher cancer mortality rates and more cancers than the general population, according to the National Museum of Australia.

British nuclear tests at Maralinga, about 800km northwest of Adelaide, occurred between 1956 and 1963 . According to the National Museum, windblown radioactive fallout resulting from the tests was detected as far away as Townsville.

Tests also dispersed plutonium-239, with a radioactive half-life of more than 24,000 years, around the site.

Nuclear tests ceased at Maralinga in 1963, and in 1967 the British undertook a site clean-up called Operation Brumby. But in 1984 Australian scientists found major and widespread plutonium contamination remained, and the McClelland Royal Commission was established.

It reported in 1985 that significant radiation hazards still existed.

Another clean-up, completed in 2000, cost $108 million.

The royal commission said Menzies’ actions in agreeing to the tests were “grovelling”, and it condemned the lack of commitment to ensuring the safety and welfare of indigenous people.

In 1994, the federal government paid $13.5 million compensation to the Maralinga Tjarutja people for contamination of the land.

By 2000, according to the National Museum, all but around 120sq km of Maralinga country “had been cleaned to a standard considered safe for unrestricted access”.

According to the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, there are still restrictions on permanent occupancy in one area surrounding Taranaki, a former test-site at Maralinga.