Sunday the 6th of August marks 78 years since the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, and then later on Nagasaki, at the end of the Second World War. Each year on Hiroshima Day we remember this horrific incident, the catastrophic loss of lives and the decades of resulting radiation impacts.
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For as long as I can remember I've been folding paper cranes and wishing earnestly for world peace.
After the bombing, instead of banning nuclear weapons forever, the British and Soviet governments raced to develop their own nuclear arsenal. Between 1952 and 1963, the Menzies government gave permission for the British to test atomic weapons at Emu Field and Maralinga in South Australia, and the Montebello islands off the coast of Western Australia. Over 22 kilograms of plutonium was dispersed around the site of Maralinga, which has a half life of 24,000 years.
One person was given the job of warning the Anangu Pitjantjatjara people to move to safety. The site was hundreds of thousands of square kilometres and consequently many never received the warning and were exposed to radiation along with pastoralists, and airforce and army personnel. It took a Royal Commission, hundreds of millions of dollars and 37 years for the site to be "cleaned", although concerns still remain of ongoing contamination.
There are currently over 10,000 nuclear weapons in the world today that all pose their own risks for humanity. All require good governance and an extraordinary level of global trust.
Alternatively, we could have a world free of nuclear weapons, although international nuclear disarmament efforts have not yet been successful as nuclear states continue to resist.
Australia signed the Treaty for the Non Proliferation of Nuclear weapons (NPT) 50 years ago, but we are yet to sign the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) which was created in 2017. The prohibition treaty imposes a blanket ban on developing, testing, stockpiling, using or threatening to use nuclear weapons, or helping other countries to carry out such activities.
It was a hugely important moment in 2021 when the TPNW became international law for those states who have ratified it. There are currently 92 signatories, 68 of which have formally ratified the treaty. Australia is not yet a signatory despite the Labor government having made commitments to do so. So far they have sent an observer to the 'first meeting of states'. The treaty is strongly backed by Indonesia and New Zealand.
For the treaty that we did sign 50 years ago, we made a binding commitment to never acquire nuclear weapons. Under AUKUS, the trilateral security agreement with the United States and the UK, Australia will become the first non-nuclear weapon state to acquire nuclear-powered submarines. While the submarines will not carry nuclear weapons, the highly-enriched uranium onboard has required us to seek an exemption from the Non Proliferation Treaty. This will likely encourage other non-nuclear states to participate in an arms race.
The sealed nuclear reactors for the submarines will keep their nuclear powered engines running for around 30 years before they will need to be disposed of as radioactive waste. Part of the AUKUS deal is that Australia must manage all radioactive waste generated by the submarines on Australian soil. This waste remains poisonous and carcinogenic for tens of thousands of years. To date we have no plan as to how or where we will store that waste.
What we do have is a long line of failed plans for nuclear dumps around the country over the last few decades, including the recent successful legal challenge of the Barngarla Traditional Owners to stop a nuclear waste facility near Kimba in South Australia.
The Greens are opposed to the AUKUS agreement and opposed to investing $368 billion for eight nuclear powered submarines over the next 30 years that will lock us into the war ambitions of the US and the UK. To put that into context, that's $35 million a day for the next 30 years. We've had no public consultation on spending our public funds on these submarines or to ask us how we could end the threat of nuclear war.
On Sunday, I'll be joining my local Hiroshima Day rally at 11am at the Tighes Hill Reserve. This year, it feels more important than ever.
