Australia was no doubt exploited by its former colonial master, but the country willingly allowed it to happen and even paid to be involved by setting up the Maralinga range and providing various kinds of personnel and logistic support throughout the test series. Why? What does Maralinga tell us about our nationhood? From this distance, the events of the test era speak of a somewhat immature democracy, anxious to please its motherland despite the high cost. Most of the decisions about the atomic tests taken by the Australian Government were not discussed and debated in public. The secrecy put in place at the atomic test sites, shored up by the imposition of information controls such as D-notices that deliberately fostered media self-censorship, enabled experiments of unprecedented risk to be conducted without public consent and their aftermath to be left unaddressed for many years. On the dusty and expansive desert test range, experiments on the destructive capacities of the atom proceeded without complete safeguards, including the safeguards afforded by public scrutiny and accountability.
Could harm of this kind happen again? The answer must be yes. Without independent scrutiny of their activities, governments are capable of anything. In more recent times, the Edward Snowdon revelations about US and UK government surveillance of citizens and the leaders of other countries gave the world a glimpse into a covert world of government activity that had, until that moment, been invisible to the majority of people. Snowdon ‘revealed to Americans a history they did not know they had’, as one of the journalists who received the leaked material said; the nuclear veterans, Indigenous people, journalists and politicians who blew the whistle on the British nuclear tests did the same in Australia.
The hazards posed by the tests were significant and continued for many years. However, these intrinsically dangerous experiments were not available for public assessment largely because the media, in line with official British and Australian government policy, did not report them to the public. The fact that their dangers and damage were not part of Australian public conversation had dire ramifications. A deadly substance was scattered across the Maralinga lands, and an equally toxic legacy of cover-up and deceit was left behind. To this day, we do not know the full extent of the human toll. Australia fulfilled the role its government had volunteered it for 11 years earlier, but the cost was immense. If there is a word that speaks not only of thunder but also 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.
Appendix
British atomic tests in Australia
Operation Hurricane
Monte Bello Islands, Western Australia
3 October 1952
Operation Totem
Emu Field, South Australia
Totem 1: 15 October 1953
Totem 2: 27 October 1953
Operation Mosaic
Monte Bello Islands, Western Australia
Mosaic G1: 16 May 1956
Mosaic G2: 19 June 1956
Operation Buffalo
Maralinga, South Australia
Buffalo 1 (One Tree): 27 September 1956
Buffalo 2 (Marcoo): 4 October 1956
Buffalo 3 (Kite): 11 October 1956
Buffalo 4 (Breakaway): 22 October 1956
Operation Antler
Maralinga, South Australia
Antler 1 (Tadje): 14 September 1957
Antler 2 (Biak): 25 September 1957
Antler 3 (Taranaki): 9 October 1957
Kittens
Emu Field and Maralinga, South Australia
Emu Field: September–October 1953
Maralinga (Naya): May–June 1955
(Naya): March 1956
(Naya): March–July 1957
(Naya): March–July 1959
(Naya): May 1961
Tims
Maralinga, South Australia
(Naya): July 1955
(Kuli/Naya): March–July 1957
(Kuli): September–November 1957
(Kuli): April–June 1958
(Kuli): September–November 1958
(Kuli): May–November 1959
(Kuli): April–October 1960
(Kuli/Naya): August 1961
(Kuli): March–April 1963
Rats
Maralinga, South Australia
(Naya): April–June 1958
(Naya): September–November 1958
(Dobo): March–July 1959
(Naya/Dobo): September 1960
Vixen A
Maralinga (Wewak), South Australia
June–August 1959
May–August 1960
March–April 1961
Vixen B
Maralinga (Taranaki), South Australia
September–October 1960
April–May 1961
March–April 1963
Glossary
Alpha particles — Positively charged particles containing two protons and two neutrons that are emitted by certain radioisotopes, particularly those with a high atomic number.
Alpha radiation — Radiation caused by alpha particles. Alpha radiation has very little penetrating power but may present a serious hazard if alpha particles are inhaled or ingested.
Atom — The smallest particle of an element that retains the characteristics of that element. It is made up of a nucleus and a cloud of surrounding electrons.
Atomic number — The number and position of an element in the Periodic Table, equating to the number of protons in the nucleus.
Becquerel — The international standard unit of radioactivity, defined as one radioactive disintegration per second.
Beta radiation — Radiation caused by beta particles. Some radioactive elements emit from the nucleus charged particles of low mass called beta particles, which are identical to electrons. Beta radiation has medium penetrating power, between that of alpha and gamma radiation, and may be stopped by light metal such as aluminium.
Deterministic effect — The dose-dependent radioactive effect on a biological entity such as a human body. One kind of deterministic effect is radiation sickness, an often-fatal effect of exposure to a large dose of radioactivity.
D-notice — A secret government request to senior media representatives not to publish certain specified details about defence- or security-related activities. The D-notice system was adopted in Australia in 1952. D-notices were decided by the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Committee administered by the Department of Defence and made up of senior government and media representatives.
Dose — The amount of energy delivered to a mass of material by ionising radiation passing through it.
Dose equivalent — Different kinds of radiation, such as gamma or alpha, have different biological effects. For example, for the same absorbed dose, alpha radiation will produce more effects than gamma radiation. The dose equivalent is measured in sieverts.
Dosimeter — A device, instrument or system used to measure or evaluate a dose of radiation. Two types of personal dosimeters were used at Maralinga by personnel entering radiation areas during the tests: quartz fibre electrometers and film badges.
Fallout — The descent to the earth’s surface of particles contaminated with radioactivity, following the dispersion of radioactive material into the atmosphere by nuclear explosion. The term is applied both to the process and, in a collective sense, to the particulate matter.