ABC Rewind

North west of Ooldea in South Australia's Great Victoria Desert is Maralinga where the British exploded seven nuclear bombs. This episode explores the Cold War politics behind the bomb tests and their ongoing impact on the traditional owners of the land, the Maralinga Tjarutja people.

Ooldea's most famous resident was Daisy Bates, also known as "Kabbarli" or grandmother. She lived at Ooldea for sixteen years in a tent, helping to feed and clothe Aboriginal people, but these days her reputation is very mixed.

On the edge of the Nullabor, Ooldea, with its ancient water soak "Yuldi Kapi", is one of the most important Aboriginal sites in Australia. Trading routes and dreaming stories crossed here for thousands of years, but then the transnational railway arrived in 1917.

Forty years ago Australian women weren't fighting for equal pay, they were fighting for an equal right to work.

This is the story of our nation's biggest class action suit, instigated by a group of blue-collar women against the company known in those days as The Big Australian.

Find out why, in its relatively short history, one instrument has offended ideologues, drawn the ire of dictators, and been put down, shunned and outlawed.