Page 3910 - Week 10 - Thursday, 20 September 2018

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(b) sign the ICAN Parliamentary Pledge in support of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons; and

My motion welcomes to Canberra representatives of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, or ICAN. Members who drove across Commonwealth Avenue Bridge this morning will have noticed ICAN’s flags flying as they renew representations to the Australian parliament on this critical global issue. The flying of those flags marks the end of ICAN’s Nobel peace ride, a ride that started in Melbourne on 2 September and arrived in the nation’s capital today some 656 kilometres and 18 days later.

The peace ride has no doubt been an epic journey for ICAN, but its purpose is to draw support for a far longer journey, one begun but not yet finished. I think all of us in this place can recognise and admire a determined and organised movement like ICAN. I am pleased to stand here and speak for ACT Labor members in offering our support for their work. Indeed, our recent branch conference passed a resolution in support of this campaign. I have been advised by the secretary of Unions ACT, Alex White, that Unions ACT are also in support of this campaign.

We offer our support to this movement. I would like to draw attention to the influence that ICAN has already had in pursuing denuclearisation in our world. As the motion notes, many years of determined work and advocacy helped enable passage of the United Nation’s Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons last year.

Australia puts great trust in the rules-based global order overseen by the UN and other democratic institutions. It is through no small amount of luck that since the Second World War nuclear weapons have not been used in conflict. Labor holds the strong belief that maintaining the central role of institutions is key to this continuing.

We know, however, that gaining the agreement of the world at the UN is no mean feat and the significance of ICAN’s achievement has been acknowledged with the highest honours. In 2017, ICAN was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequence of any use of nuclear weapons and their groundbreaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons.

In the seven decades since their first use, nuclear weapons have been vastly more advanced. The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are estimated to have killed more than 200,000 people. It is deeply worrying that today’s nuclear weapons are 100 times more powerful.

If a nuclear attack happened today or in the future, the damage would extend far beyond immediate and massive loss of life. There would be dramatic environmental and climate changes that would last for decades. Because of this indiscriminate destructive power, their very existence presents an ongoing risk to human life and our planet.

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