Maralinga : the struggle for return of the lands / Garry Hiskey.

Mile End, South Australia : Wakefield Press, 2021.©2021

Hiskey, G. F. author.

01-01-2021

xiv, 271 pages, 8 pages of plates : illustrations (chiefly colour), maps, portraits (chiefly colour) ; 24 cm

text

volume

363.1799 HIS (Copy 1) MAIN-MONO 322298 INLIBRARY

Maralinga

Nuclear weapons tests

Atomic bombs

South Australia

Aborigines

Aboriginal land rights

History

Aboriginal Australians, Treatment of -- South Australia -- Maralinga.

Aboriginal Australians -- Land tenure -- South Australia -- Maralinga.

Atomic bomb -- Testing -- South Australia -- Maralinga.

Australia -- Politics and government -- 1945-

Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1945-

Includes bibliographical references and index.

9781743057254

The British government notoriously conducted a series of atomic bomb tests in South Australia's Maralinga lands during the 1950s and 1960s. The traditional owners were moved to Yalata, within a kilometre or so of the main highway from Adelaide to Perth. Estranged from their lands and unable to visit their sacred sites or attend to the ritual obligations owed to the lands, the Yalata community became a troubled one. A legal battle began in 1980 to enable these past injustices to be remedied. Young lawyer Garry Hiskey, senior solicitor for the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement, was assigned to the case. This is his story of the fight to return the Maralinga lands to their original owners, helping them gain an inalienable freehold title to some 76,000 square kilometres of land. It's a story of intrigue, divided loyalties, political controversy, voting rights, and of a mining company finding itself the meat in the sandwich in a battle of wills as to who should be permitted to explore and mine the lands on which the customs and beliefs of Anangu were based.

1272037

322298

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