Hiroshima Day to launch new anti-nuclear coalition

Hiroshima Day to launch new anti-nuclear coalition

MELBOURNE — At the August 6 rally here to commemorate the 55th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, unions, churches, environment, peace, ethnic and community groups will unite to launch the Coalition for A Nuclear Free Australia, with the express aim of ridding Australia of all aspects of the nuclear industry.

The coalition's founders hope to renew the anti-nuclear campaign in the city, which in the 1980s saw hundreds of thousands of protesters flood the streets. The coalition will initiate large-scale events, an educational campaign and the establishment of active local groups.

The coalition hopes to make uranium and nuclear policies a pivotal issue at the next federal election and has also said it will promote sustainable, alternative energies, indigenous peoples' rights and peace.

The coalition has arisen in direct response to a dramatic expansion of Australia's role in the nuclear cycle, including a proliferation of new uranium mines, a planned new nuclear waste dump, a new nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights and mooted government cooperation with the United States' "national missile defence" program, which could spark a new global arms race.

The need for such a coalition is likely to be underlined within weeks of its Hiroshima Day launch, as the Beverley uranium mine in South Australia will very shortly become fully operation. Beverley is the first new working uranium mine in 20 years.

The Hiroshima Day 2000 rally in Melbourne will meet at the GPO, Bourke Street Mall, on August 6 at 1.30pm. For more information about the coalition, call Scott Alderson 0413 700 669.

From GLW issue 414