Cleared Out: first contact in the western desert

By Sue Davenport Peter Johnson And Yuwali, Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2005, 208 pages, paperback, $45.00. Reviewed by Kathleen Broderick in the July 2006 issue.

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It is a rare non-fiction book that maintains momentum when read cover to cover. Cleared out proved such a rare work. It masterfully captures the first contact of a group of Martu women and children with white men. In doing so, it also explains the varied perceptions of 'tribal' peoples in the 1960s and the events that lead to the detribalisation of a group of Indigenous people in the Western Desert.

Of particular interest in this story is the role of a developer, in this case the Weapons Research Establishment (WRE). The WRE employed native patrol officers Walter MacDougall and Robert Macaulay as 'insurance' against the public backlash associated with their development of the central desert reserves and the dispossession of Indigenous communities from their lands. It seems clear however that decisions were fundamentally made for development purposes rather than the wellbeing of the people.

The siting of the range, the development of a road network and Giles weather station, all had impacts on the desert population. In attempting to mitigate effects of development on the people in the Percival Lakes area the WRE faced a problem of taking responsibility when the government policy was not clear. The lasting legacy of Australia's foray into rocket technology through the WRE (estimated at $3.25 billion according to Morton 1989) was the detribalisation of Indigenous people, a network of roads and development in the desert with no ongoing discernible economic or security benefit for Australia.

First hand accounts from Yuwali, a Martu woman, the native patrol officers appointed by the WRE, and an officer from the Department of Native Welfare, capture the events that lead to the detribalisation. The authors demonstrate respect for the various discourses that 'tell' the story and highlight the impressive personal qualities of many of those involved. There is respect for the physical prowess and land literacy of Martu women and also respect for the tenacity of the search party and their desire to protect their charges.

The recency of the story gives it power and vibrancy. Yuwali's personal account describes seeing a car and white person for the first time and her experiences of being pursued by the search party. Photographs taken by MacDougall and others capture the group emerging from the desert and initial meetings between the group and the search party. A revisit to the Percival Lakes area in the late 1990s by the authors and other Martu people provides further insights into country, and the Martu relationship with it, through both interview and photographs.

My only criticism of the book is that after taking pains to carefully identify the many discourses associated with detribalisation and indeed the mixed feelings of the Martu women to being removed from their country, the authors revert to a relatively simple criticism of lack of appropriate government policy and action. While it becomes clear in this analysis that lack of clear government policy (especially in WA) regarding the people living in the western and central desert reserves created a void in which the various individuals involved relied on their own judgement in making decisions about the situation that arose.

The book falls short of making suggestions about how current government policy could be improved.

Cleared Out is essential reading for anthropologists, human geographers and local readers with an interest in the Indigenous relationship with the geography, history and plant and animal life of the desert. It should also be read by those involved in the current policy debate regarding the future of remote Indigenous communities.

Citation

• Kathleen Broderick. 'Review: Cleared Out: first contact in the western desert by Sue Davenport Peter Johnson and Yuwali' [online]. Network Review of Books (Perth, Australian Public Intellectual Network), July 2006. Availability: <please cite the web address here> ISSN 1833-0932. [accessed 25 May 2013].

Back Cover Blurb

• In 1964, the eyes of the Australian nation were fixed on its Western Desert. The British and Australian governments were about to fire the controversial Blue Streak rockets across the inland. To the ministers in Canberra and London this was an ideal firing range: empty desert, a place they called the 'dump zone'. But to one seventeen-year-old-girl and her family, it was home.
  
  Cleared Out is the extraordinary story of the events of that winter. Sue Davenport, Peter Johnson and Yuwali - that same Martu girl - recreate this astonishing period in vivid detail. Records of the political outrage, the public outcry, and the battles in the corridors of government are starkly contrasted with Yuwali's first-hand accounts and those of the patrol officers sent to round up her family.
  
  This is not just a story about the clearing of the desert. It's about the people: the bureaucrats whose decisions affected thousands of lives; the patrol officers forced to make ethical decisions in unethical circumstances. And, of course, Yuwali's familiy: women and children who had never before seen a 'whitefella'.
  
  The authors have produced a book that brilliantly recreates the past, but also forces us to confront the future. How should Australia renegotiate its relationship with the Martu? What choices did the Martu make, and what obligations are owen to them? Cleared Out is a gripping book; a book about Australia's yesterday, and Australia's tomorrow.
  
  On Friday 9 June 2006 the Minister for Culture and the Arts, Hon Sheila McHale, announced that Cleared Out had won the $20,000 Premier's Prize in the 2005 Western Australian Premier's Book Awards. The authors also won the West Australian History Award.

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