Despite very wintry conditions, around 150 people attended the inaugural Peace Symposium in Katoomba on Saturday 2^nd August 2025. The event was jointly hosted by the Blue Mountains Peace Collective and Blue Mountains Council’s Planetary Health Initiative.¹

Session 1 (10.00am and 11.00am)

The morning session began with Dharag resident, Uncle Chris Tobin, providing an Acknowledgment of Country.

This was followed by three speakers:

• Japanese journalist Harumi Hayakawa
• Jennifer Scott from Rotary
• Rowe Morrow from the Quakers.

Speakers variously reflected on the devastating impacts of the US nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6^th and 9^th August 1945, together with accounts of actions they and their organisations have undertaken to promote social justice and peace in recent  times.

Session 2 (11.05am and 12.30pm)

The next session began with the screening of Indonesia Calling. This 1946 documentary was directed by Joris Ivens and produced by the Waterside Workers’ Federation, now the Maritime Union of Australia.

It depicts the actions of trade union seamen and waterside workers who refused to service Dutch ships that contained arms and ammunition destined for Indonesia to suppress the country’s independence movement. This effective boycott was known as the ‘Black Armada’.

This was followed by an interview with sixteen-year-old HART Youth Ambassador, Matilda Emmerich, who discussed the experience of having her oil painting banned by the Hawkesbury Show. Entitled ‘Where Hope Sits’ and encompassing a poem she wrote within the frame, it conveys a message of hope in a time of global uncertainty. The painting was ultimately rejected by the show’s organisers on the questionable grounds of being a ‘security concern’.

In addition, Catherine Dobbie from the Blue Mountains Peace Collective (BMPC) and Lis Bastian from the Planetary Health Initiative reflected on the goals and key peace strategies of their respective organisations.²

Next on the program was a conversation with Bruce Cornwell, founding member of the BMPC which was formed in 2023. Bruce recounted the reasons for establishing the collective and discussed many of its peace actions undertaken subsequently.

Session 3 (2.00pm and 3.30pm)

Following a lunch break and rousing performances by the Ecopella Choir and the Bearded Ladies Community Choir, the afternoon session focused on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and need for the Albanese Labor government to sign and ratify it without further delay.

This session coincided with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons’ (ICAN) ‘Week of Action for Abolition’ from 3rd to 9th August. The week’s activities aimed to remember the 80th anniversaries of the US nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and called for the abolition of these weapons of mass destruction.

Speakers during this session included:

• Local Mayor Mark Greenhill
• Robert Tickner from ICAN
• Indonesian Ambassador Dr Siswo Pramono
• Susan Templeman MP, Federal Member for Macquarie.

Robert Tickner

In his address, Robert Tickner referred to the breakthrough that has resulted from the creation of the TPNW and noted that it has the potential to change the world for the better.

He recalled that it was Anthony Albanese who successfully sought a commitment from the Labor Party in 2018 to endorse the TPNW. Opinion polls since have found that over 70% of Australians believe the Federal government should sign and ratify the Treaty.

Robert Tickner noted that as Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese now has the opportunity to honour the Labor Party’s commitment to the Nuclear Ban Treaty:

This is an unforgiving issue. You either sign (the Treaty) or you don’t. If you sign it, you become a Labor legend, you go down in history, you take an enormous constructive step towards a more independent foreign policy for Australia. You leave a legacy for future generations and you’ve got that footprint of history that you have changed the country and … the world for the better. So that’s how high the stakes are.

It was acknowledged that there were challenges in mapping a clear pathway towards the signing of the TPNW, including the current incompatibility between the terms of the Treaty and US facilities in Australia such as Pine Gap, as well as the AUKUS pact. Nevertheless, it was Robert Tickner’s view that these challenges could be successfully addressed by top level government negotiations with the US administration.

Such a view is debatable. For example, Peter Cronau, in an article entitled ‘Pine Gap’s secret expansion’, cites Richard Tanter’s claim that the development of three new satellite antennas at Pine Gap indicates “a greater Australian involvement with US nuclear war fighting planning and operations”. The primary purpose of the new antennas is believed to be the hunting and targeting of Chinese nuclear missile silos.³

But Pine Gap also pays a role in co-ordinating other US military operations. For example, it has been asserted that Pine Gap has provided intelligence to the US for use by the Israel Defense Forces and that the surveillance facility aided US strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities in June this year.⁴

In a media release dated 22^nd June 2025, ICAN condemned these illegal US strikes for greatly elevating global risk and called on Prime Minister Albanese and Foreign Minister Wong to also condemn them.⁵

These examples indicate that Pine Gap plays a crucial role in co-ordinating US military operations around the globe, both nuclear and non-nuclear.  Endeavouring to neutralise Pine Gap’s contribution to US nuclear war fighting planning and operations is not only insufficient, but is very likely to be met with stiff resistance from the US administration.

A better strategy in the interests of promoting peace and an independent Australian foreign policy would be to negotiate the closure of Pine Gap and other US military facilities around the nation.

Dr Siswo Pramono

Dr Siswo Pramono stated in his speech that Indonesia had signed the TPNW two years ago and ratified the Treaty in September 2024.

He noted that Indonesia has actively supported the Chemical Weapons Convention which entered into force on 29^th April 1997.

However, in comparison with chemical weapons, he emphasised that nuclear weapons have the potential of not only annihilating attackers and defenders and their allies alike, but they also have the potential of causing a global humanitarian crisis.

In today’s uncertain world, the outbreak of hostilities between nuclear states leading to a nuclear holocaust is not unthinkable, as attested by the Doomsday Clock.⁶  As a result, any national security policy or security alliance based on the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction, or the balance of nuclear terror, is decidedly irrational.

No genuine peace, Dr Pramono stressed, can be based on terror.

In this context, he indicated his full support for ICAN’s ongoing campaign to abolish nuclear weapons and for the Australian government to sign and ratify the TPNW.

Susan Templeman

In her address, Susan Templeman noted that the Albanese government had yet to sign and ratify the TPNW despite the Labor Party’s commitment to do so and majority support for the Treaty by the Australian public.

According to Susan Templeman, a  couple of impediments, apparently, were standing in the way. One was the “non-engagement in this treaty by countries who do have nuclear weapons” while the second related to verification.

On the first, Susan Templeman said that it was “all very well (for) the rest of us (to say), hey, you guys should do this but if the guys who have (nuclear weapons) aren’t as keen to do it, then that’s a challenge.”  On the second, Templeman asked: “How do you work out if people have really done what they’ve said they’re going to do?”

In response to the first “impediment”, it should be noted that so far 94 states have signed the TPNW while, of these, 73 states have proceeded to ratify it. Obviously, these states saw no impediment to endorsing the TPNW. Rather their endorsement was seen as critical to the nine nuclear weapons states ultimately abandoning their suicidal defense policies based on these weapons of mass destruction which are an existential threat to humanity’s survival.

On the issue of verification, it is the case that the TPNW already includes a framework for verifying the elimination of nuclear weapons programs, which is a key distinction from previous treaties.

Under the TPNW, states must agree to undergo verification by a “competent international authority,” and a State Party that has nuclear weapons must negotiate a time-bound plan for their irreversible destruction. Verification under the TPNW relies on established safeguards agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and includes mechanisms to ensure the complete dismantling of nuclear weapon stockpiles and associated programs.

The real reason for the failure of the Albanese government to sign the TPNW was actually mentioned by Susan Templeman during her speech, namely that there has to be a willingness to tackle issues such as Pine Gap’s incompatibility with the terms of the TPNW and that “they are challenging conversations to have with a longtime partner.”

So, it is a lack of willingness to tackle such issues with the United States that is currently holding back Australia from signing the TNPW.  And given the Albanese government’s misguided involvement with AUKUS, having such “challenging discussions” has become even less likely.

Templeman’s response to questions on the Labor government’s failure to sanction Israel for its ongoing genocide in Gaza was equally unenlightening. Here the inconsistency between placing sanctions on Russia soon after its invasion of Ukraine, while failing to sanction Israel for its atrocities and ethnic cleansing in Gaza was simply ignored. Blatant double standards in this regard, it seems, are to be tolerated.

At the conclusion of the final session, organisers urged participants to attend the pro-Palestinian March for Humanity across the Sydney Harbour Bridge the following day.

Videos and audio recordings
Links to the presentations are provided below:

• Chris Tobin
• Harumi Hayakawa
• Jennifer Scott
• Rowe Morrow
• Lis Bastian
• Catherine Dobbie
• Bruce Cornwell (audio)
• Robert Tickner
• Dr Siswo Pramono
• Susan Templeman MP
• Susan Templeman MP (Q&A).

Notes
1. A copy of the Symposium’s program can be accessed here.
2. Blue Mountains Peace Collective, Newsletter, Jun 15, 2025.
3. Peter Cronau, ‘Pine Gap’s secret expansion’, ICAN Australia, Jun 15, 2024.
4. Ben Doherty and Dan Jervis-Bardy, ‘Involvement in US strikes on Iran could make Australia a target, experts warn as government tight-lipped on Pine Gap’, The Guardian, Jun 23, 2025.
5. ICAN Australia, Media Release: US attacks on nuclear sites are a dangerous escalation — Australia must not assist, News, Jun 22, 2025.
6. Science and Security Board, ‘Closer than ever: It is now 89 seconds to midnight’, 2025 Doomsday Clock Statement, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Jan 28, 2025.