This is a political and cultural history of the Noonkambah dispute in Western Australia — one of the most significant land rights confrontations in late twentieth-century Australia.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Yungngora people of Noonkanbah station opposed oil drilling on their sacred land. What followed was a national flashpoint: state power, corporate interests, Aboriginal sovereignty, church involvement, media spectacle, and the question of who has authority over country.

Hawke documents the conflict through interviews, archival material, and political analysis. The book captures the moment when land rights moved from abstract policy debate into visible, embodied resistance.

Historically grounded, regionally specific, and still uncomfortably relevant. There's a page of the newspaper tucked inside the book too, recounting some of the coverage at the time.