Anti-nuclear campaign: people vs politicians

August 16, 1995
Issue 

By Lisa Macdonald

The results of a survey conducted by the NSW branch of People for Nuclear Disarmament, released last week, reveal that only 36 of the 221 federal politicians oppose nuclear weapons.

All federal politicians were asked whether they agree that a nuclear test ban should include all nuclear testing, that Australia should argue for the illegality of nuclear weapons in the World Court and that Australia should end all nuclear cooperation with France, including uranium sales.

Both WA Green senators and all Democrat politicians responded positively. The majority of ALP politicians did not bother to respond. Of those that did, only 23 responded positively.

Only two Liberals responded positively, the majority of them replying that the questions were "too complex for a yes/no answer". No-one from the National Party responded positively.

The survey results reveal the huge gap between the views of the majority of Australians, 95% of whom oppose the resumption of nuclear testing in the Pacific according to major polls, and those of the main parties and our elected "representatives". It goes some way to explaining the refusal of the federal government to take serious action against the tests, and also underlines the need for the anti-nuclear campaign to increase the pressure on the government by mobilising public opinion on this issue in the most visible and forceful ways possible.

A clear indication of the continued public opposition to the tests was the participation of up to 50,000 people in commemoration and protest rallies on the Hiroshima Day weekend, August 5-6.

The last issue of Green Left Weekly reported on the large anti-nuclear rallies held on August 5 in Newcastle, Darwin, Hobart and Wollongong. The Hiroshima Day commemoration and protest actions on August 6 were even larger.

From Sydney, Dave Wright reports that 15,000 people joined a rally and march through the city centre. The majority of the crowd were young people, many of them marching in organised high school contingents.

Despite the impression given by the mass media that the Hiroshima Day rallies were primarily initiated and organised by the ACTU, in fact very few trade unionists in Sydney marched in the official union contingents on the day.

An August 9 meeting of the Campaign Against Nuclear Testing committee, which brings together a broad range of anti-nuclear organisations and activists in Sydney, confirmed that the next public action against the tests will be held on September 2 at 12.30pm at First Fleet Park.

In Canberra, Tony Iltis reports that 3000 people gathered outside the French embassy on August 6 before marching, via the US embassy and the Lodge, to Parliament House. The event was organised by the Campaign Against Nuclear Testing (CANT).

The rally was chaired by Val Edwards, a long-term activist in the peace movement and Democratic Socialist Party, who condemned the ALP's treachery in abandoning its anti-uranium policy before gaining power in the 1980s and described how the ACTU paved the way for this by rescinding its own anti-uranium policy a few years earlier.

The crowd was also addressed by speakers from the ACT Trades and Labour Council and the Tahitian independence movement. Year 11 student and Resistance member Aimee Burgess described her mother marching against nuclear weapons decades ago and said that young people were outraged that the threat of nuclear war remained.

Nagasaki Day, August 9, was marked at schools and secondary colleges throughout the ACT by students symbolically wearing black.

In Brisbane, Bill Mason reports that 4000 people marched on August 6 to denounce testing in the Pacific and declare, "50 years of nuclear madness: Hiroshima never again!"

At the largest peace march in Brisbane for years, rally chairperson Jack Sherrington called for an end to the nuclear industry on a world scale as a fitting commemoration of the annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki half a century ago.

Speakers at the rally included Resistance member Sam Lazzaro, who welcomed the large number of young people at the protest, and a former World Health Organisation doctor, Glen Healey-Hood, who visited Tahiti in 1990 and said, "It's the newborn, the coming generation, who will be affected most. Nuclear testing will affect the next 400 generations."

Other speakers at the demonstration included Trevor Richardson from the CFMEU, Brisbane deputy mayor John Campbell, Aboriginal leader Maureen Watson, visiting Chilean activist Miriam Ortega, postwar Hiroshima military veteran Tom McHenry and a high school student who will visit France as part of delegation sponsored by the Queensland Teachers Union.

Stuart Loasby reports from Perth that 9000 people turned out for Hiroshima Day on August 6. During the march, one of the biggest in Perth for years, a "die-in" re-enactment was held. Chants against radiation, uranium mining and exports, and Senator Evans were heard throughout.

Speakers at the rally included Aboriginal playwright Jack Davis, Tony Cooke from the WA Trades and Labour Council, Corinne Glenn from the Secondary School Students Anti-Nuclear Coalition (SSSANC) and Sister Veronica Brady.

The event was well supported by WA left trade unionists, who organised numerous union banners, flags and contingents, as well as by young people, secondary school students in particular.

From Adelaide, Philippa Stanford relates that 6000 people took to the streets on August 6 in a spirited march which focused on Australia's uranium exports.

Speakers called on the federal government to suspend all uranium sales to France. Former premier Don Dunstan recalled the devastation of Maralinga by the British nuclear tests there in the 1950s.

Local performer Mary Heath, reflecting the sentiment of the crowd, called on the government to redirect its military expenditure into the provision of better social services.

In response to the large numbers of young people wanting to organise ongoing anti-nuclear actions in Adelaide, Resistance launched a Secondary Students Anti-Nuclear Network at the rally.

In a mobilisation three times the size of the Bastille Day rally last month and despite miserable weather, 15,000-20,000 people joined a rally and march in Melbourne on August 6, according to Ishara Wishart and Lachlan Anderson.

Martin Ferguson of the ACTU and Leigh Hubbard, secretary of Victorian Trades Hall Council, both spoke of current trade union bans on French mail, communications and shipping.

"Sixty per cent of French people are against the testing, and areas like unemployment, health and education are yet to be properly addressed by the Chirac government", said Ferguson. Hubbard, pointing out Australia's central role in the nuclear fuel cycle, said that the stand against nuclear testing must be linked with the demand of no uranium exports to achieve a nuclear-free Pacific.

Colleen Hartland, Hazardous Materials Action Group activist, likened the nuclear industry to the petrochemical industry in its contempt for democracy in planning and the public's right to know what actually goes on.

"It is inevitable that uranium mined in Australia will end up being used for military purposes," said anti-uranium campaigner Dave Sweeney. Other speakers included Olive Davis from the Cook Islands and a member of Physicians Against Nuclear War.

In preparation for the possibility that the French government does resume nuclear testing in the Pacific sometime in September, anti-nuclear campaign committees in most cities are planning emergency protest actions at preset times and places on the day that the first test takes place. For details, contact the Resistance Centre in your city, listed on page 2.

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