Politics and Demography in a Contact Situation: The Establishment of the Giles Meteorological Station in the Rawlinson Ranges, West Australia

Abstract

In connection with the Maralinga Project it has been decided to establish a permanent meteorological radar station at the nominal 600 mile point along the centre line of the range. The exact point cannot be determined until a more detailed reconnaissance is made. ... It is proposed now that a joint reconnaissance and construction team should leave Finke on the Adelaide–Alice Springs railway line, about 5th November 1955, and travel across through Mount Davies to the general area in which it is felt the final point may be chosen.1 In December of the same year, the reconnaissance survey team chose a site in the Rawlinson Ranges, WA. The patrol officer accompanying the team on this survey later termed it a ‘rush trip’ in which ‘there was no attempt made to select a site that would interfere as little as possible with the Aborigines’.2 Some months later, Len Beadell, then Chief Surveyor of the WRE, graded a track from Mulga Park to the Rawlinson Ranges, where the meteorological station, named Giles in honour of the explorer,3 was to be built.