Australia’s Albanese Government
Urged to Sign Treaty Banning Nuclear Arms
Tess Ikonomou / The Canberra Times

(November 24, 2023) — Pressure is mounting on the Albanese government to back a treaty banning nuclear weapons, bringing the nation into step with its Pacific neighbours.

A group of independent parliamentarians including David Pocock, Allegra Spender, Helen Haines, Andrew Wilkie and Zali Steggall have called on Anthony Albanese to ensure the government advances its signature and ratification of the treaty “without delay”.

“Every nuclear weapon that exists is a humanitarian catastrophe waiting to happen,” they said in a statement.

“Nuclear weapons do not promote security, they undermine it.

“We don’t accept the everlasting presence of these weapons. We must all work to put them in the past.”

Before winning the election, the prime minister had pledged Labor would ratify the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

But the treaty is opposed by Australia’s closest ally, the United States and other nations with nukes.

It emerged earlier this year the Foreign Affairs Department had warned against sending an observer to the first meeting of countries that back the treaty, although that advice was not heeded.

The government maintains the AUKUS security pact with the US and UK – under which Australia will acquire nuclear-powered submarines – will not lead to the greater proliferation of nuclear material.

It has also said the nation will comply with a regional nuclear-free treaty, which legally binds members against manufacturing, possessing, acquiring or controlling nuclear weapons.

The parliamentarians said the UN ban was a “powerful” contribution.

“We urge the government to advance its signature and ratification of the ban treaty without delay, to bring Australia in line with our southeast Asian and Pacific island neighbours, and the international majority on the illegality of nuclear weapons,” the statement said.

“This is something we can, and must do.”

Goldstein MP Zoe Daniel, a signatory of the statement, said voters needed to look at what Labor does, not what it says.

“In the most perilous times since the height of the Cold War this treaty is needed more than ever,” she said.

“Voters want it and so do the vulnerable nations of the Pacific whose backyards were used for nuclear testing without their permission.”

A second meeting of countries that support the treaty will take place next week at the UN’s headquarters in New York.

Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong said in August the treaty was an important articulation of people “rightly” wanting a nuclear weapon-free world.

The treaty came into force in 2021, and has been backed by 97 nations.

Signatories are prohibited from developing, testing, producing, acquiring, possessing, stockpiling, using or threatening to use nuclear weapons.

Australian Associated Press

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