Melissa Parke, executive director of International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), will be visiting Parliament House in Canberra this week to urge the Albanese Labor government to sign and ratify the United Nation’s Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), also known as the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty.
Melissa was appointed to her current role with ICAN on 1st September 2023. Prior to this, she was a UN human rights lawyer and Labor member for the federal seat of Fremantle from 2007 to 2016. In 2013, she was Minister for International Development in the second Rudd government until Labor’s electoral defeat later that year. Melissa also served as ambassador for ICAN Australia from 2017.
ICAN played a pivotal role in having the TPNW adopted by the United Nations on 7th July 2017. Subsequently, the TPNW opened for signature on 20th September 2017, and entered into force on 22th January 2021. Currently 93 nations have signed the TPNW, while 70 nations have proceeded to ratify it.
Melissa and ICAN Australia representatives have arranged a full week of meetings with federal parliamentarians – including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Foreign Minister Penny Wong and the Parliamentary Friends of the TPNW – to discuss Australia’s role in ending nuclear weapons.
In addition, they will be delivering a joint ICAN/Australian Conservation Foundation petition, urging the Prime Minister to keep his promise to sign the TPNW. The petition gathered over 11,000 signatures.
In ICAN’s publicity, Melissa said that she planned to hand over the petition, as well as a copy of ICAN’s report ‘History is Calling’, to PM Albanese on Monday this week.
She emphasised that the signing of the TPNW “will be something very positive for Australia and the region and it needs to happen now.”
Updates
For updates on the week of meetings in Canberra, follow ICAN Australia on social media via:
– Facebook
– X (formerly Twitter)
– Instagram
More information
– Melissa Parke’s message can be viewed here.
– ICAN’s report ‘History is Calling’ can be downloaded here.
– Details of the ALP’s commitment to sign and ratify the TPNW when in government can be accessed here.
– Opportunities to actively support ICAN’s campaign can be found here.
Interview
– Jon Letman, ‘ICAN’s new leader stresses the humanitarian and environmental costs of nuclear weapons’, Outrider, Sep 19, 2023.
Article
– Cat Woods, ‘Australia’s nuclear future and the legal ramifications of ratifying TPNW’, LSJ Online, Feb 15, 2024.