Western Australian Premier's Book Awards - West Australian History Category Winners
A new award, the West Australian History Award, was added for the 2004 Awards for a significant historical work that makes a major contribution to the understanding of Western Australia's past. This award is sponsored by the Department of Culture and the Arts.
2006
The Workshops: A History of the Midland Government Railway Workshops - Bobbie Oliver and Patrick Bertola
University of Western Australia Press
For ninety years from 1904 Midland’s Railway Workshops were one of Western Australia’s best known industrial sites, where several thousand employees laboured to build and repair locomotive engines and rolling stock. Twelve authors, headed by Patrick Bertola and Bobbie Oliver, have collaborated to write an exemplary history of this important industrial facility which was constructed and then closed amid political controversy. The authors’ contributions are grouped into four sections : Context; The Working Factory; Culture and Leisure; Closure and Afterwards; exploring every dimension of the workplace from the Chief Mechanical Engineer’s office to the factory floor, together with the employment of women munitions workers in World War 11. This is a major contribution to Australian industrial history.
2005
Cleared Out: First Contact in the Western Desert - Sue Davenport, Peter Johnson and Yuwali
(Aboriginal Studies Press for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies)
Between May and October 1964 a successful attempt was made to remove a small group of Martu Aboriginal women and children from the Percival Lakes region of Australia's Western Desert. This was done because the Martu, who had no previous contact with European society, were within the Woomera firing range stretching across remote South and Western Australia, and used for testing Britain's Blue Streak rockets. The story of the encounter and removal is told by Yuwali, a Martu woman, and two patrol officers, one of whom, Walter MacDougall, was later condemned “for having placed the affairs of a handful of natives above those of the British Commonwealth of Nations.” Besides presenting Yuwali's compelling and amazingly accurate recollection of events, the authors place this first encounter within a political, bureaucratic and social context, forcing us to consider not only the consequences for the Martu of removal from the desert, but also the wider issue of Indigenous people's relationship to their lands.
2004
Behind the Play - Anthony Barker
West Australian Football Commission
Judges' Comments
Too often sports historians focus on personalities and achievements, avoiding any discussion of the ways in which sport is integrated within society. In evading this trap and by making skilful use of oral history, Tony Barker goes “behind the play” to examine the politics of football, as well as to embed the game in Western Australia’s social history. The result is a masterly study of a major sport – objective, analytical and always entertaining.