News Archive

UWA Publishing book Justice: A History of the Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia , by Fiona Skyring, has been shortlisted for the 2012 Margaret Medcalf Award.

Justice is a lively and multi-dimensional insight into Australian history that takes the story of the Aboriginal Legal Service beyond the criminal justice system as it covers some of Australia's major social, political and legal reforms of the past four decades.

From its beginnings in the early 1970s, the Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia (ALSWA) has played a significant role in addressing the legacies of dispossession and human rights abuses of Aboriginal people, including deaths in custody, equality before the law, land rights and the legacy of stolen generations.

This is the third consecutive year that a UWA Publishing book has made the shortlist for this award.

In 2011, it was awarded to Murdering Stepmothers: The Execution of Martha Rendell by Anna Haebich, and previously, "It's Still in My Heart, This is My Country": The Single Noongar Claim History by South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council, John Host with Chris Owen won the 2010 Margaret Medcalf Award.

The annual award, which includes $1000 prize money, is presented to a fiction or non-fiction writer whose work demonstrates the use of archival sources, and substantial (but not necessarily exclusive) use of State archives held by the State Records Office.

The winner of this year's award will be announced at an award presentation on Wednesday June 13, 2012 at the State Library of Western Australia.

Media references

Kiri Falls (UWA Publishing) (+61 8) 6488 6806 / (+61 4) 28 136 847
Michael Sinclair-Jones (UWA Public Affairs) (+61 8) 6488 3229 / (+61 4) 00 700 783