Australian Institute of International Affairs | Making the British H-Bomb in Australia – from the Monte Bellos to the 1956 Olympic Games @AIIAvision | Uploaded October 2022 | Updated October 2024, 2 hours ago.
October marks the seventieth anniversary of the first British nuclear test in Australia, in 1952. 130 kilometres off the Pilbara coast of Western Australia, the Monte Bello Islands were the site for what came to be known as 'Operation Hurricane'.

It was the first of several nuclear tests conducted on Australian territory in the 1950s, and the first ever conducted by the United Kingdom. Given the geopolitical implications of the Cold War and Australia's obligations to Britain as a Commonwealth nation, the Menzies government authorised the Monte Bello atomic bomb tests despite the hazards of radioactivity. Further tests continued until a month before the opening of the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne – despite the known dangers of fallout travelling from the testing site at Maralinga to cities in the east.

AIIA Victoria invites you watch the discussion with Sue Rabbitt Roff as she challenges the official narrative of events based on extensive archival research in Australia, the UK and the USA.