2024

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March and Rally

Saturday August 3

1 pm meet at Sydney Town Hall Square and March to
the Defence Dept at 310 Pitt St

2023

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HIROSHIMA NEVER AGAIN!

2022 Statement

In 1945 the USA dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, killing about 212,000 men, women and children.

With the threat of environmental crisis, nuclear weapons are the greatest immediate danger confronting our species.

The only defence is to ban all nuclear weapons.

Nuclear weapons continue to threaten the survival of humanity. The existence of nearly 13,000 weapons, ready to be launched without warning, pose an imminent threat to all.

The former Morrison Government opened the door for nuclear proliferation by agreeing to buy nuclear powered submarines. Australia must repudiate the AUKUS pact and replace it with a nonaligned and independent foreign policy.

Some in the US and Australian Governments are planning for a war against China. We must reverse this drive to war and adopt the policy of our Pacific neighbours of ‘peace to all and hostility to none.’

Australia must sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

Our gathering in Town Hall Square on 6 August, the anniversary of the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, demands that the Albanese Government sign the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

The TPNW prohibits nations from developing, testing, producing, manufacturing, transferring, possessing, stockpiling, using or threatening to use nuclear weapons, or allowing nuclear weapons to be stationed on their territory. It also prohibits them from assisting, encouraging or inducing anyone to engage in any of these activities.

Nations are also obliged to provide assistance to all victims of the use and testing of nuclear weapons and to take measures for the remediation of contaminated environments.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says: “More than 13,000 nuclear weapons are being held in arsenals across the globe. In a world rife with geopolitical tensions and mistrust, this is a recipe for annihilation.”

The Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty in June declared: “We will not rest until the last state has joined the Treaty, the last warhead has been dismantled and destroyed and nuclear weapons have been totally eliminated from the Earth.”

The TPNW powerfully demonstrates that nuclear weapons are unacceptable.

The overwhelming majority of the world’s nations have adopted the TPNW, recognising its humanitarian basis and the moral, ethical and security imperatives which inspired and motivated its creation

The Australian Government must sign the TPNW and assist Australian and Pacific communities harmed by the testing of nuclear weapons.

2019 Hiroshima Day Statement

The past is known:

On August 6, 1945, in the Japanese city of Hiroshima, 140,000 men, women and children were incinerated by an atomic bomb dropped by the United States. Three days later on August 9 in Nagasaki, at least 74,000 men, women and children were killed by a second atomic blast. Thousands have suffered and died since as the result of the 2 bombs.

The present contains both danger and hope:

We live with nuclear weapons that continue to threaten the survival of humanity.   Trillions are spent upgrading and maintaining the world’s nuclear arsenals while the basic needs of billions of people in the world are not met.
The US military budget is now over $US437 billion every year. This is larger than the whole Australian economy. Yet global poverty and inequality are getting worse and millions of people die of hunger and disease.
Australia is directly involved through the US bases here, especially Pine Gap near Alice Springs. Pine Gap is essential to the US nuclear war fighting strategy. This makes Australia a nuclear target and makes our country complicit in US nuclear attacks.

Despite all this there is hope:

The people of the world have spoken out against nuclear war. The result of this work is the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons which was adopted by the United Nations on 7 July 2017.

Hiroshima residents are calling on all nations to sign the treaty, so future generations do not have to face the pain and suffering that these inhumane weapons caused their forebears.

Australia is refusing to sign the treaty because it is frightened of offending the US.  We must insist that our government sign the treaty.

50 years ago a man walked on the moon.  We are clever enough to land a person on the moon – surely we are clever enough to save our planet from annihilation. We can ban nuclear weapons for good!

Its time to ban the bomb!

 

2018 announcement for Aug 6 

Hiroshima Day 73^rd Anniversary

August 6^th 1945 at 8.10 am Hiroshima time the first atomic bomb was dropped in anger on this Japanese city and August 9 another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.  Almost instantly over 200,000 were killed by this most violent of weapons.  For 73 years the people of the world and Australia have been calling for the destruction of this most horrible weapon.  In 2018 there is still a long way to go!

There have been recent victories with the UN decision to sponsor a ban nuclear weapons treaty which was passed by 120 countries (Australia voted NO).  In September of 2017 the number of countries that had ratified the treaty was 59.

The other victory was the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Melbourne inspired group ‘International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons’ (ICAN).  The Australian Government has failed to acknowledge the great work of ICAN Australia and its success on the international stage.  Contrast that with the praise (well deserved) heaped on the Australian divers who rescued the boys in the Thai cave recently.

As dawn breaks on August 6 2018 we still need to get Australia to sign the treaty and have us come out from the US nuclear umbrella and fight for a world free of nuclear weapons.  Nuclear exchanges are still a possibility in many parts of the globe and we still need to have nuclear disarmament.

The Sydney Hiroshima Rally will held on Sat Aug 11 at 11 am Town Hall Square.