Outback Australia isn't exactly the busiest place.
[SFX Crickets Chirping]
But around 70 years ago there were some big things happening out here and I mean, big!
[SFX bomb explosion]
Yeah, I wasn't kidding. Back in the 1950s and 60s there were
some massive nuclear tests out there. See, after World War II in 1945, when the first nuclear
weapons were dropped over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the world was shown
the true power of nuclear, everyone wanted a slice of the atomic pie, and so started the atomic era.
Britain was one of those nuclear-hungry countries, and their government needed some wide, open,
spaces to develop their weapons. I wonder where has that? Bingo! Australia! So, in 1950
the British PM Clement Attlee went to Aussie PM Robert Menzies and said, "Hello old chap,
would you mind if we blow some things up in your desert? You know, for science!" to which Menzies,
who wanted to maintain a good relationship said, "Uh, sure, go ahead!" Britain conducted
its first three tests in the Montebello Islands and Emu Field in 1952 and 1953, before moving to
Maralinga in South Australia, which from 1956 became the home of seven more major tests,
during Operation Buffalo and Operation Antler and up to 600 smaller tests. These tests happened
right up until 1963, when nuclear tensions around the world hit boiling point following
the Cuban Missile Crisis. World leaders came together to sign the Partial Test Ban Treaty,
which banned the testing of nuclear weapons under water, in the atmosphere, or outer space, as well
as pledging to work towards an end to the nuclear arms race, welcoming a new era of world peace.
But while the tests ended that wasn't the end of the Maralinga story. In fact, it's still going
today, and to understand why we need to go a little scientific.
These are nuclear weapons, like the ones tested at Maralinga. They contain radioactive elements like
Uranium-235 or Plutonium-239, and when you split or mash the atoms of these elements together, they
release a lot of energy and if you do that just right, it equals a big bang. Like, really big!
Some of the bombs tested in Maralinga caused mushroom clouds that reached more than 14 kays
into the sky! But in those clouds were a whole lot of radioactive particles,
and winds blew those particles everywhere, even as far as Townsville! The Maralinga site
and surrounding area was blanketed with dangerous radioactive material. Too much radiation can cause
major health problems including deadly diseases like cancer.
But it was all out in the middle of nowhere, what harm could it do? Well, a lot actually.
There were around 16-thousand onsite workers and many Indigenous people in communities around
the site, all of whom were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. In 1967 British authorities
tried to clean it all up, but in 1984 Australian scientists found they hadn't done a very good job,
and major radioactive contamination was still there. The following year the Aussie government
launched a royal commission into the tests, and it found that that very little effort was put
into protection and monitoring radiation levels. Traditional owners were also not
asked for permission to use the land and many Aboriginal people weren't warned of the danger
or removed from the area, leaving them exposed to radioactive fallout, which they called ‘the black
mist’. It led to another massive clean-up effort costing around 101 million dollars,
and 13.5 million dollars in compensation for the Indigenous people of Maralinga. All of that
didn't stop the long-term effects though. Veterans and Indigenous people of the area suffer higher
cancer rates than the rest of the population, and many have ended up getting really sick and dying.
2012 and 2013 saw huge class-action lawsuits spearheaded by British and
Aussie veterans against their governments, saying their human rights were violated.
I love this country, I served this country, and now I feel I've been
abandoned by the country. There's no doubt in my mind that the scientists
working on the experiments knew the risks to us, but they chose not to tell us the truth.
Their argument was shut down though, as the UK Supreme court ruled that too much time had passed
for them to prove that their illnesses were caused by the testing. In 2017 the Australian government
agreed to provide better healthcare for both veterans and Indigenous people of Maralinga,
and today most of the site has been cleaned to a standard safe enough for people to go visit, but
some areas still contaminated with Plutonium-239 won't be habitable for more than 24-thousand
years. So, while the Maralinga nuclear tests disappear into the pages of history, their
effects will live on long into the future.