When the first British nuclear test explosion in South Australia on 15 October, 1953 shook the ground, an oily radioactive black mist spread fear and acute radiation sickness among the people living at Wallatinna, Yami Lester was just a young boy.
"I have been waiting for this day for seven decades and I am overjoyed that it has finally arrived,” said Setsuko Thurlow, a Hiroshima survivor, back in July when a new treaty banning nuclear weapons was agreed at the United Nations in New York. “This is the beginning of the end of nuclear weapons.”
ReachTEL conducted a survey of 1,669 residents across Australia on behalf of Greenpeace Australia Pacific. The survey on Australian’s attitudes towards nuclear weapons was conducted during the night of 13 September 2017.
On this International Day Against Nuclear Tests, Bunny McDiarmid, Executive Director of Greenpeace International, reflects on 46 years of fighting against nuclear weapons.
“I’m here at the U.N. asking for an abolition of nuclear weapons,” said Toshiki Fujimori, a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, to diplomats from more than 120 countries gathered at the UN general assembly on 27 March.
“Nobody in any country deserves seeing the same hell again.”
In early December, the nations of the world are poised to take an historic step forward on nuclear weapons. Yet most Australians still haven’t heard about what’s happening, even though Australia is an important part of this story – which is set to get even bigger in the months ahead.
When a Greenpeace investigation found that nuclear waste returning to Australia by ship from France has been classified as high-level waste by French authorities, contradicting Australia’s claims over its radioactivity, we knew we had to act.
