It was formerly thought to be endemic to Western Australia, but has recently been collected near Maralinga in South Australia.
The Antakarinya people were greatly affected by the atomic testing at Maralinga in the 1950s and the language was similarly affected in an attempt to explain the tests.
Protection of sensitive defence establishments, including Defence Headquarters at Russell Offices in Canberra; the joint Australian/US communications facility at Pine Gap in the Northern Territory; the former atomic testing site at Maralinga in South Australia; the Australian Defence Signals facility at Geraldton and the naval communications station at Exmouth, both in Western Australia
In 1984, as Justice McClelland, he was President of the Royal Commission into British nuclear tests in Australia at Maralinga.
Mamungari Conservation Park (formerly known as Unnamed Conservation Park) is a wilderness reserve in South Australia (Australia) in the southern Great Victoria Desert and northern Nullarbor Plain, around 200 km west of Maralinga and 450 km northwest of Ceduna.
On 27 September 1956, Operation Buffalo commenced at Maralinga, as Emu Field was found to be too remote a site.
•
The local Aboriginal people have claimed they were poisoned by the tests and, in 1994, the Australian Government reached a compensation settlement with Maralinga Tjarutja of $13.5 million in settlement of all claims in relation to the nuclear testing.
Mike Harding's 1989 folk protest song Shaky Isles mentions the fate of the atoll in the lines "Black mist on Maralinga, grey snow on Rongelap, white sun under Mururoa. Whitewash to cover the cracks.".
In one of his first cases, Victor Dominello represented applicants in the Maralinga cases, who sought compensation following the findings made by the Royal Commission into British nuclear tests in Australia.
A testing site at Maralinga was established in 1955, close to a siding along the Trans-Australian Railway.
The first trial at Maralinga was in September 1956, with the Operation Buffalo series.