Byron Shire Council will write to the Australian Government informing it that Council has joined the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons ‘Cities Appeal’.
Councillor Cate Coorey moved the Notice of Motion at the Ordinary meeting on 27 August 2020, in an acknowledgement of the victims and survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
“This year marks the 75th anniversary of the bombings and it’s a time for everyone to reflect on the threat of nuclear weapons and joining this international campaign is a symbolic way for Byron Shire Council to show it supports nuclear disarmament and the elimination of these abhorrent weapons,” Cr Coorey said.
“Nuclear weapons are a very real and present threat and Council will now add its voice to 27 other councils across Australia that have already endorsed the appeal.” she said.
“We will now be writing to the Australian Foreign Minister, Senator the Hon. Marise Payne, calling for the Government to sign and ratify the United Nations’ Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
“We will also write to our local State and Federal MPs, Tamara Smith and Justine Elliott and the Hon. Ben Franklin, asking them to support the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and to encourage the Australian Government to sign the Treaty.
“Nuclear disarmament is Council business because civilians, cities and towns are the targets of weapons of mass destruction,” Cr Coorey said.
In endorsing the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons ‘Cities Appeal’ Byron Shire Council makes the following public statement:
Our Shire is concerned about the grave threat that nuclear weapons pose to communities throughout the world.
We firmly believe that our residents have the right to live in a world free from this threat. Any use of nuclear weapons, whether deliberate or accidental, would have catastrophic, far-reaching and long-lasting consequences for people and the environment.
Therefore we warmly welcome the adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons by the United Nations in 2017, and we call on our national government to sign and ratify it without delay.
“Our world is not equipped for a single nuclear detonation and I am proud that Byron Shire Council has added its voice to this international campaign,” Cr Coorey said.
