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International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) is a non-partisan federation of national medical groups in 63 countries, representing doctors, medical students, other health workers, and concerned people who share the common goal of creating a more peaceful and secure world free from the threat of nuclear annihilation. The organization's headquarters is in Malden, Massachusetts. IPPNW was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985.
The Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs is an international organization that brings together scholars and public figures to work toward reducing the danger of armed conflict and to seek solutions to global security threats. It was founded in 1957 by Joseph Rotblat and Bertrand Russell in Pugwash, Nova Scotia, Canada, following the release of the Russell–Einstein Manifesto in 1955.
Gareth John Evans AC, QC, is an Australian politician, international policymaker, academic and barrister. He represented the Australian Labor Party in the Senate and House of Representatives from 1978 to 1999, serving as a Cabinet Minister in the Hawke and Keating governments from 1983 to 1996 as Attorney-General, Minister for Resources and Energy, Minister for Transport and Communications and most prominently, from 1988 to 1996, as Minister for Foreign Affairs. He was Leader of the Government in the Senate from 1993 to 1996, Deputy Leader of the Opposition from 1996 to 1998, and remains one of the two longest-serving federal Cabinet Ministers in Labor Party history.
Helen Mary Caldicott is an Australian physician, author, and anti-nuclear advocate who has founded several associations dedicated to opposing the use of nuclear power, depleted uranium munitions, nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons proliferation, and military action in general.
Zygmunt Edward "Ziggy" Switkowski,, is a Polish Australian business executive and nuclear physicist. His most public role was as the chief executive officer of Australia's largest telecommunications company Telstra from 1999 to 2004. During his tenure, he oversaw the privatisation of the then government-owned corporation through a series of public tranche sales. Currently, he is the chairman of both NBN Co and Suncorp, a director of Healthscope, Oil Search and Tabcorp and the Chancellor of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.
Emeritus Professor Stuart Rees AM is an Australian academic, human rights activist and author who is the founder of the Sydney Peace Foundation and Emeritus Professor at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney in Australia.
The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement that opposes various nuclear technologies. Some direct action groups, environmental movements, and professional organisations have identified themselves with the movement at the local, national, or international level. Major anti-nuclear groups include Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Peace Action and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. The initial objective of the movement was nuclear disarmament, though since the late 1960s opposition has included the use of nuclear power. Many anti-nuclear groups oppose both nuclear power and nuclear weapons. The formation of green parties in the 1970s and 1980s was often a direct result of anti-nuclear politics.
A nuclear fuel bank is reserve of low enriched uranium (LEU) for countries that need a backup source of LEU to fuel their nuclear reactors. Countries that do have enrichment technology would donate enriched fuel to a "bank", from which countries not possessing enrichment technology would obtain fuel for their power reactors.
Australia does not possess weapons of mass destruction, although it has participated in extensive research into nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in the past.
The Campaign Against Nuclear Energy (CANE) was established in Perth, Western Australia on 14 February 1976 by Friends of the Earth (FOE). It included Peter Brotherton, John Carlin, Mike Thomas and Barrie Machin. CANE was a non-profit grass roots organisation whose aim was to stop the establishment of a nuclear power plant in Western Australia (WA) and to halt uranium mining. The organisation operated out of the Environment Centre in Wellington Street, Perth. The Whitlam Federal government in 1974 had dedicated about A$7,000 per state to set up Regional Environment Centres. Perth's Environment Centre housed other groups including the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Conservation Council of Western Australia, Friends of the Earth, and the Campaign to Save Native Forests. A CANE group was also established in Adelaide, South Australia.
The World Nuclear Association is the international organization that promotes nuclear power and supports the companies that comprise the global nuclear industry. Its members come from all parts of the nuclear fuel cycle, including uranium mining, uranium conversion, uranium enrichment, nuclear fuel fabrication, plant manufacture, transport, and the disposition of used nuclear fuel as well as electricity generation itself.
The Australian Peace Prize was an annual award presented from 2006 to 2009 to an Australian citizen or resident, or to a group based in Australia, for outstanding contributions towards peace. It was awarded by the Peace Organisation of Australia. The first prize was awarded in 2006 to Dr Helen Caldicott. The most recent prize was awarded in 2009.
Kakadu National Park, located in the Northern Territory of Australia, possesses within its boundaries a number of large uranium deposits. The uranium is legally owned by the Australian Government, and is sold internationally, having a large effect on the Australian economy. The mining has been controversial, due to the widespread publicity regarding the potential danger of nuclear power and uranium mining, as well as because of objections by some indigenous groups. This controversy is significant because it involves a number of important political issues in Australia: Native Title, the environment, and Federal-State-Territory relations.
Priscilla "Scilla" Elworthy is a peace builder, and the founder of the Oxford Research Group, a non-governmental organisation she set up in 1982 to develop effective dialogue between nuclear weapons policy-makers worldwide and their critics, for which she was nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize. She served as its executive director from 1982 until 2003, when she left that role to set up Peace Direct, a charity supporting local peace-builders in conflict areas. In 2003 she was awarded the Niwano Peace Prize. From 2005 she was adviser to Peter Gabriel, Desmond Tutu and Richard Branson in setting up The Elders. She is a member of the World Future Council and in 2012 co-founded Rising Women Rising World, a community of women on all continents who take responsibility for building a world that works for all.
Kevin Buzzacott, often referred to as Uncle Kev as an Aboriginal elder, is an Indigenous Australian from the Arabunna nation in northern South Australia. He has campaigned widely for cultural recognition, justice and land rights for Aboriginal people, and has initiated and led numerous campaigns including against uranium mining at Olympic Dam, South Australia on Kokatha land, and the exploitation of the water from the Great Artesian Basin.
Nuclear weapons testing, uranium mining and export, and nuclear power have often been the subject of public debate in Australia, and the anti-nuclear movement in Australia has a long history. Its origins date back to the 1972–73 debate over French nuclear testing in the Pacific and the 1976–77 debate about uranium mining in Australia.
Anti-nuclear organizations may oppose uranium mining, nuclear power, and/or nuclear weapons. Anti-nuclear groups have undertaken public protests and acts of civil disobedience which have included occupations of nuclear plant sites. Some of the most influential groups in the anti-nuclear movement have had members who were elite scientists, including several Nobel Laureates and many nuclear physicists.
The prospect of nuclear power in Australia has been a topic of public debate since the 1950s. Australia has never had a nuclear power station. Australia hosts 33% of the world's uranium deposits and is the world's third largest producer of uranium after Kazakhstan and Canada.
Eric Henry Stoneley Burhop, was an Australian physicist and humanitarian.
Anthony 'Tony' David Owen is an economist and academic, currently employed as Emeritus Professor in Energy Economics at University College London Australia. He was appointed to the position in July 2013, and was previously Academic Director of the School of Energy and Resources at its campus in Adelaide, Australia. He also held the Santos Chair in Energy Resources at the time. He previously held positions at Curtin University of Technology and the University of New South Wales, and worked as a consultant and visiting appointee in North America, Europe and Asia. In 2007 he chaired the Inquiry into Electricity Supply in New South Wales. Owen wrote a book entitled The economics of uranium, which was published by Praeger in 1985. Since then, Owen has written periodically on the possibility of nuclear power in Australia, including for the Committee for Economic Development of Australia in 2011. His academic papers have featured in peer-reviewed journals such as Energy Policy, Economic Record, Agenda and the Journal of Nuclear Research and Development. He also edited the book The Economics of Climate Change with Nick Hanley which was published by Routledge, London in 2004.
