Federal Member for Macquarie, Susan Templeman, has joined with a delegation from Pacific islands to mark the 80th anniversary of the first US nuclear detonation in the Marshall Islands and the 60th anniversary of the first French detonation at Mururoa Atoll in Parliament House and to recommit to ending the use of nuclear weapons.
Ms Templeman attended a morning vigil and spoke in Parliament of the harmful and enduring environmental, cultural and health consequences of cumulative historical nuclear testing carried out in the Pacific between 1946 and 1996 by the US, British and French governments.
The Pacific delegation to Parliament included representatives of the Fiji Nuclear Veterans and Families Association, the Marshall Islands Student Association, the Pacific Conference of Churches, and Australia's First Nations ambassador.
“More than 300 nuclear tests occurred in the Pacific and of course Australia has its own history of British nuclear tests between 1952 and 1963, with 12 major nuclear weapons explosions and hundreds of bomb development trials in the Montebello Islands, Emu Field and Maralinga.
“With the legacy of nuclear testing still felt deeply in Australia, our region and across the world, we want nuclear weapons testing to be relegated to history,” said Ms Templeman.
“I applaud the work of ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for their work to establish the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the TPNW, which came into force in 2021,” she said.
“I represented the Australian Government at the first two TPNW meetings, and will continue to advocate for Australia to stay engaged with the Treaty and sign it.
“Since the 1970s, successive Australian governments have had a long-standing commitment to a world without nuclear weapons, and the Albanese Labor Government is continuing to work towards that aim.”
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