In 1957, the "Warburton Ranges controversy" or "Warburton Ranges crisis" arose, after it was reported in 1956 that at least 40 Aboriginal people had been discovered to be ill and
malnourished in the
Central Desert. The matter came into public consciousness after, in partnership with the British Government, the
Commonwealth government had started testing
nuclear weapons in the desert, and the
Government of Western Australia raised concerns about the Western desert people living nomadically in the area. The response from the Commonwealth was that Aboriginal welfare was a state government matter. Activists protested and many concerned members of the public wrote letters to the
Prime Minister of Australia, Sir
Robert Menzies, as well as their local
MPs. An enquiry into the state of the Aboriginal people by a select committee followed, with their report tabled in the
Western Australian Parliament in December 1956, officially called the
Report of the Select Committee appointed to Enquire into Native Welfare Conditions in the Laverton-Warburton Range Area (or the Grayden Report, after chairman
William Grayden). It reported that many of the
Wongi people (referring to the
Wangkatha, a group of eight Aboriginal peoples) of the Warburton Ranges region suffered from
malnutrition,
blindness, disease, burns and other injuries, and that
abortions and
infanticide were common. Mainstream newspapers brought the matter to public attention after the
Communist Party of Australia's newspaper
Tribune published a damning assessment of the report, and
letters to the editors flooded in. In response to the publicity, three separate groups visited the area: • a group of
journalists led by
Rupert Murdoch, then editor of
The News (Adelaide), to an area up to the
Rawlinson Ranges in the north; • a group of
Western Australian Department of Health officials, who covered the ground as far as the
Laverton area in the west; and • a group of
anthropologists, including
Ronald and
Catherine Berndt, who travelled southwards as far as the
transcontinental railway. Murdoch rejected the findings outright, saying in an article "These fine native people have never enjoyed better conditions", accompanied by a photograph of a well-fed, happy family group – failing to mention that the photo was four years old. The anthropologists said that the report had been exaggerated, and that malnutrition was not as widespread as it claimed, but argued that the status of
Aboriginal reserves need examination. Being the Aboriginal people's "most tangible asset",
mineral rights should not be granted in their land by the government. In response to Murdoch's repudiation of the report, Grayden set out to return to the area in February 1957, this time with Pastor
Doug Nicholls and armed with a
movie camera. The resulting film, titled
Manslaughter, was screened in
Adelaide,
Perth,
Sydney, and in country towns, shocking audiences with its depiction of malnourished children. More White Australians wrote to the Prime Minister and rejected the federal government's response and Murdoch's report, and the Save the Aborigines Committee was established in
Melbourne (a precursor to the
Victorian Aborigines Advancement League. The incident proved a spur to a range of activism, including plans by the
Anti-Slavery and Aborigines' Protection Society, based in
London, in conjunction with the Victorian
Council for Aboriginal Rights (CAR) and the
Aboriginal-Australian Fellowship in
New South Wales, in collaboration with
Jessie Street, a leading Australian
suffragette. Anna Froland of the
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom's Melbourne branch, was a leading figure in keeping the issue alive, arguing that both federate and state governments were responsible for the welfare of the country's Aboriginal peoples. Soon a national movement grew, promoted by
Shirley Andrews, the Secretary of the Victorian Council for Aboriginal Rights,
Charles Duguid, the President of the
Aborigines' Advancement League of South Australia, and
Stan Davey, Secretary of the Victorian Aborigines Advancement League. The national movement was created in Adelaide in February 1958, when activists from all over Australia formed the
Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement (now FCAATSI). ==Geography==