British nuclear tests at Maralinga occurred between 1956 and 1963 at the Maralinga site, part of the Woomera Prohibited Area in South Australia and about 800 kilometres north-west of Adelaide. Indigenous people who lived in the vicinity of the test sites suffered displacement, injury and death, not to mention the service personnel from several countries including Britain and Australia who also suffered long term damage from the tests. The cost of the clean-up exceeded £50m but the UK paid less than half that amount, and that was only after protracted pressure and negotiations. Still today, the full extent of the effects suffered by service personnel and local communities is not known. Despite years of legal wrangling, the suffering and illness that those communities endured has never been properly recognised or compensated.
Pick of the Political Pops: Paul Kelly and the Coloured Girls “Maralinga (Rainy Land)”
