Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to commence my contribution to the debate by commending the member for Fremantle for bringing this motion to the parliament and also for the work that she has done on the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties in relation to the current inquiry that the treaties committee is holding into nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation. This is one of the issues, if not the most important issue, confronting civil society. Unless we can resolve this issue, unless we can have a world free of nuclear weapons, the challenges and the implications for the future are enormous.

As the member for Fremantle notes in her motion, there have been over 2,000 nuclear weapons tests between 1945 and 2009. In 1995 I travelled to Tahiti at the time that the last nuclear weapon was detonated in that country. Whilst I was there I met with many people that had lived there through the whole series of French testing. I kept in touch with them for quite a while after that visit to Tahiti. But over the years there have been fewer and fewer of them, until now there are none that I keep in touch with. And you might ask why. The answer is quite simple: they have all died. They have all died of cancer related diseases. That in itself is one of the issues that should make it so important for us as a parliament, and for the world as a whole, to confront.

When it comes to nuclear weapons, there is no winner. That is the important message: there is absolutely no winner. The country that has the biggest and the most weapons, the largest stockpile, is not the winner. Any nation that is depending on one of those countries for support is not a winner. And those other countries that do not have supplies of nuclear weapons are not winners either. As the member for Wills pointed out, there is a definite divide between those that have and those that have not. Those that have want to ensure that there is no nonproliferation and those that have not want to bring about disarmament.

I, like the other members that have spoken on this debate, am a member of the treaties committee. I went to Geneva, Vienna, Washington and New York and whilst I was there I felt some optimism, as did the other members. But I also felt that, after so many years and so many efforts by so many people, we still seemed to be debating the same issues over and over again. When we attended the Conference on Disarmament I was really pleased that an agenda had been agreed to, an agenda of work. But then I was quite disillusioned when I heard speaker after speaker with one particular view standing up and pontificating and delaying the appointment of chairs of those committees. So, whilst there was an agenda to be debated, it could not be debated because the proper framework was not in place.

I have been very heartened since President Obama came to power. I think that his speech on 29 May in Prague was one of those watershed speeches, one that set the agenda and showed that he is a person who is absolutely committed to nuclear disarmament. I think that the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty must be fully ratified and I urge those nine countries that have not signed it—including the United States, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea—to sign it. I know that President Obama is working within the US to see that that country actually does sign up. It is very, very important, coming up to the review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty next year, that this issue has the support of all nations. Once again, I commend the member for Fremantle for bringing this to the House and I think it is one of the most important motions that could be presented.

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