Friends of the Earth Adelaide has sent a letter to Prime Minister Albanese calling on the Australian government to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Labor’s National Platform commits to doing so, but the Labor government has not done so yet. We intend to follow up our letter to the Prime Minister with letters to other Labor MPs in the lead up to the ALP National Conference in Adelaide (23-25 July 2026). The text of our letter is copied below.
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The Hon Anthony Albanese, MP
Prime Minister
Parliament House
CANBERRA ACT 2600
Dear Mr Albanese
A lot has changed since you told delegates to the 2018 ALP National Conference that “The struggle for nuclear disarmament is the most important struggle for the human race” and that “Labor in government will sign and ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.”
Since then, the world has been plunged into chaos by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Israel’s disproportionate response to Hamas’ terror attack and the expansion of war in the Middle East to involve the whole region. The international ‘rules-based order’ is unravelling and genocide is being ‘normalised’, as Israel continues its obliteration of Gaza and the United States and Israel seek, in contravention of international law, to bomb Iran into oblivion.
What has not changed since 2018 is that the struggle for nuclear disarmament (along with the struggle to respond to climate change) is still the most important struggle for the human race. With the expiration of the New START treaty, the last nuclear arms treaty between the US and Russia, the remaining restrictions on nuclear arms racing have been removed. In view of this and other dangerous developments, analysts at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock, which measures the likelihood of catastrophic nuclear war and other planetary-destroying scenarios, shifted the clock’s hands from 89 to 85 seconds to midnight, indicating that they believe we are the closest we have ever been to a nuclear disaster.
The disintegration of the rules-based order and the ending of constraints on nuclear weapons represent existential threats to Australia and the world. Continuing to rely for our security, as if nothing has changed, on one of the chief agents of the dismantling of the post-World War II international order is not in Australia’s best interests. As Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said at the World Economic Forum in Davos,
“It seems that every day we’re reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry. That the rules-based order is fading. That the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.
“This aphorism of Thucydides is presented as inevitable — as the natural logic of international relations reasserting itself. And faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along. To accommodate. To avoid trouble. To hope that compliance will buy safety.
“It won’t.”
His words couldn’t have resonated more if he had actually named Australia. For too long Australia has been engaged in what Mr Carney called “the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination”.
Prime Minister Carney called for middle powers to respond by acting together. He emphasised the importance of “honesty”, of “naming reality”, and of middle powers “liv[ing] the truth”.
The reality for Australia is that it can no longer rely on the United States to be its great protector. Another truth is that relying on the United States’ nuclear weapons for our security makes us less safe, because, as you have publicly acknowledged, nuclear weapons are “an existential risk to all humanity”. Their use would, as stated in the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), have “catastrophic humanitarian consequences”.
Becoming a middle power which chooses to “live the truth”, Australia should declare that it will not consent to the use of inhumane nuclear weapons in its defence. The Australian government should take action in accordance with this truth by signing and ratifying the TPNW. We are encouraged that Australia sent observers to Meetings of States Parties to the TPNW. Now it is time to take the next step by signing and ratifying the Treaty.
In so doing, Australia will show the way for other countries that have hitherto depended on the nuclear umbrella. You said in 2018, “Progress always requires leadership.” Signing and ratifying the TPNW will demonstrate leadership befitting of a middle power. Australia would begin to “live the truth” of the new international reality and begin the process of reclaiming the sovereignty that has been ceded by successive governments.
Philip White 14 March 2026
Convenor
Friends of the Earth Adelaide
