Maxine Godley

Green Guardian Champion

I know many of you will have forgotten this little piece of history: in the 1960s atmospheric nuclear tests were conducted in Mururoa Atoll, and across Australia we were all affected. I remember in Melbourne a lot of my thick hair falling out on the floor as I brushed it. I rang my Mother in WA, she told me the hairdressers said it was happening everywhere as the nuclear effects washed over our country… and you can bet hair loss was only a small part of what happened to our population. Nearly 200 French tests took place.

In 1985, the shock of the sinking of the Greenpeace flagship ‘Rainbow Warrior’ in Auckland, with loss of life. The ship was proceeding to protest more Mururoa nuclear testing. But I watched and I learned,

“YOU CAN’T SINK A RAINBOW.”

In September 1986, Ian Cohen, a Greenpeace activist, rode on the bow wave of a US nuclear-powered warship entering Sydney Harbour as a protest against the nuclear arms race. The action, which involved Cohen on a borrowed surfboard, aimed to deliver a non-violent message against nuclear weapons and the presence of a US fleet, including six vessels capable of carrying nuclear weapons, in Sydney Harbour.

Greenpeace emphasised that their actions were carefully planned and not those of hooligans, highlighting their opposition to violence as a way of resolving conflict. This protest was part of a larger series of demonstrations against the presence of nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed warships in Sydney Harbour during the 1980s. 

I have supported Greenpeace ever since because I want this planet to survive and be liveable for our new generations. Your work is unceasing and you do it on behalf of us all. You give our poor battered planet a voice. That is why Greenpeace is the first on the list in my will. I want to leave something behind for what is most important to me, our planet.

25 years as a rural firefighter ensures that I always have my eyes on the climate — and the environment.