Nuclear-free Brisbane campaign

Nuclear-free Brisbane campaign

By Jim McIlroy

BRISBANE — Hiroshima Day was the launching pad for a public campaign to call on the new Labor-controlled Brisbane City Council to declare the city nuclear free. Brisbane's previous nuclear-free status was revoked by the Atkinson Liberal administration in 1985.

At a rally in King George Square on August 3, the first round of petitions containing hundreds of signatures supporting the campaign were presented to deputy mayor John Campbell, who declared his personal endorsement of the proposal.

The rally followed an all-day display in the square depicting the horrors of the 1945 US atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

A march to the City Botanical Gardens then led to a further rally, with speakers and stalls from a variety of peace, environmental and community organisations.

Speakers included Australian Democrats state president John Woodley, former federal ALP minister Doug Everingham, anti-AIDEX campaigner Brendan Greenhill, and a representative of the supporters of peace activists Kieran O'Reilly and Moana Cole, recently jailed in the US.

From GLW issue 22