British Nuclear Testing in Australia

[1938 Observer]

Re: British Nuclear Testing in Australia

And then there's the problem of getting it there.

Hugh

Hugh,

Exactly right, protests will surely abound.....................the shipments wold have to arrive by sea..........................protests on the wharves about unloading/safety.............special wage allowances................and that is only to land it [hopefully safely].

Then we will have the logistical problem of moving the shipments vast distances to a "Safe" ??? containment facility.......protests along the way which will require large security escorts....................I just wonder how carefully this scheme has been studied..................or.........has the thought of mega $$$$$$'s clouded political judgement................as usual.


Gordon.

[1938 Observer]

Re: British Nuclear Testing in Australia

New generations of Australian families suffering deformities and early deaths because of ‘genetic transfer’

March 10, 20164:41pm
"News.cm.au"


EXCLUSIVE

PEOPLE who worked at Australian atomic bomb test sites claim they have produced generations of children with severe deformities and suffered a high number of stillbirths.

Documents obtained exclusively by news.com.au show hundreds of children and grandchildren of veterans exposed to radiation were born with shocking illnesses including tumours, Down syndrome, cleft palates, cerebral palsy, autism, missing bones and heart disease.

One veteran, who was posted to the Maralinga nuclear test site in South Australia in the 1950s as part of the British Nuclear Test (BNT) program, says the radiation contaminated his sperm and is to blame for the death of a child he never got to know.

But he is not alone, with the documents detailing a litany of miscarriages and stillbirths that has allegedly passed the devastation from generation to generation.

Australian ex-servicemen and their families originally made submissions to a Federal Government review in 2003 over deaths and disabilities they believe were caused by exposure to radiation from nuclear testing in South Australia and Western Australia in the 1950s and 60s.

The submissions were later compiled to use in a class action against the British Ministry of Defence, but the case was not allowed to proceed because it was deemed impossible to prove radiation caused their illnesses.

The Department of Veterans’ Affairs told news.com.au it had not received any reports about Australian descendants of BNT veterans who suffered deformities, abnormalities, illness or death as a result of suspected genetic transfers.

The documents provided to news.com.au reveal that about 100 of the soldiers’ descendants, born as recently as the 1990s, suffered health complications suspected by the families to have been caused by genetic transfers.

“Daughter Stephanie SEVERELY disabled — born with MISSING vertebrae and confined to wheelchair for her entire life,” one entry read.

“Daryl — deformities, back, extra bone, lower back missing bones, deformed jaw, undescended testicles,” another read.

“Birth deformities (neck fusion) ... no anus,” others said.

In many cases, siblings each suffered unique medical problems.

“Gregory — visual abnormalities; Graeme — reduplication of large bowel; Stephen — dental deformities,” one submission read.

Another submission revealed that “all three daughters (of one veteran suffered) numerous cases — ovarian tumours, lymphoma, breast cancer secondaries in bones, 14 inches (35cm) of bowel removed”.

Some of the veterans’ grandchildren were also affected, with reports of one young boy who lost his leg to cancer and another who was born with a cleft palate, according to the submissions.

Many of the descendants died early deaths.

“Son died aged 36 from non-Hodgkins Lymphoma,” one entry read.

“Wife delivered stillborn 1958, daughter Kay delivered stillborn September 2007,” another wrote.

“Son — terminal stomach cancer, dead at 47 years old, both daughters severe Endometriosis, hysterectomy, miscarriage,” another entry revealed.

“… daughter Maree died 24 hours after birth, cause unknown,” another said.


A great deal more of this article is available at the link below



http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/hea...a00bc2fcbcbea4

[1938 Observer]

Re: British Nuclear Testing in Australia

Adelaide ponders value of nuclear waste dump
from "Nikkie"--ASIAN REVIEW. March 31, 2016 2:00 pm JST
. GEOFF HISCOCK, Contributing writer




SYDNEY -- South Australia's dark history as a nuclear test site more than half a century ago is coming to the fore again as its citizens ponder the value of becoming an international dump for high-level nuclear waste.

The state, which has the highest unemployment rate among Australia's six states and two territories, will decide by the end of this year if it wants to set up a nuclear waste storage facility in its arid and sparsely populated outback country -- a move that potentially could generate 257 billion Australian dollars of revenue over a 70-year period and create thousands of jobs.

Those opposing the dump include environmental organizations, traditional Aboriginal custodians of the land and the Australian Greens political party, with Greens Senator Robert Simms deriding the dump's economics as "pure fantasy."

South Australia's outback encompasses vast desert areas, salt-crusted dry lakes that occasionally fill with water after storms, and grasslands and low ranges dotted with mining sites. Entry to much of the area is restricted, either for defense reasons or because it is an Aboriginal reserve.

Australia has no nuclear power industry of its own, but is the world's second largest exporter of uranium -- behind Kazakhstan -- to nuclear power station operators in Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Europe and the U.S.

To read the full article just go to the link............... http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Econ...ear-waste-dump




NOTE: The "Nikkie Review" also contains other interesting articles..........[check header at top of page]

[1938 Observer]

Re: British Nuclear Testing in Australia

The secret destruction of Australia’s Hiroshima






Emma Reynolds,news.com.au@emmareyn


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WHEN nuclear explosions tore through Australia’s vast, arid centre, some people living there didn’t even know it was coming.

It devastated the country for miles around, annihilating every bird, tree and animal in its path.

Even today, the effects of our very own Hiroshima are still felt by the families it ripped apart, and those suffering horrific health problems as a result.

The British military detonated seven nuclear bombs in remote Maralinga, around 800km north-west of Adelaide, plus two at Emu Fields and three off the coast near Karratha, Western Australia.

They also staged hundreds of minor trials investigating the impact of non-nuclear explosions on atomic weapons, involving tanks, gun, mannequins in uniforms and even tethered goats. In many ways, these smaller tests were equally dangerous, spraying plutonium in all directions.

Yet most Australians know very little about the blasts that shattered communities, and the dramatic story now buried under layers of dust.

Archie Barton was just a child when the nuclear testing took place between 1956 and 1963, stretching across a huge now uninhabitable 120km of land where he and thousands of others lived.


“He was taken away from his mother,” his stepson Steve Harrison tells news.com.au. “He was part of the Stolen Generations. He grew up in homes around Australia, and led a very rough life.

“Before my mum, he was a full-blown alcoholic. He wanted to go back to his birthplace.





“With his brother, he fought a battle with the British government to come back to clean up the area.

“He came into my life at a very young age. I was 14. I knew him as a strong, proud Aboriginal black man. He ended up getting an OBE.”


Go to the link for balance of text and imagery. http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/rea...a297c2a348a8e1

********************

This subject has been touched on many times over the years however I doubt if the Politicians ever take any interest in it; other than prior to elections when they make promises.......and then forget them.

Australians who were engaged in the tests are named as "PARTICIPANTS", to us the word "Veteran" is not the done thing, they may have to spend money on those who are left:angry:

In a few years time I expect they will all be upstanding {With Hands on Hearts} singing the praise of "The Last Man Standing' :shocked::unimpressed:

[1938 Observer]

Re: British Nuclear Testing in Australia

Sixty years on, the Maralinga bomb tests remind us not to put security over safety




It is September 27, 1956. At a dusty site called One Tree, in the northern reaches of the 3,200-square-kilometre Maralinga atomic weapons test range in outback South Australia, the winds have finally died down and the countdown begins.

The site has been on alert for more than two weeks, but the weather has constantly interfered with the plans. Finally, Professor Sir William Penney, head of the UK Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, can wait no longer. He gives the final, definitive go-ahead




The military personnel, scientists, technicians and media – as well as the “indoctrinee force” of officers positioned close to the blast zone and required to report back on the effects of an atomic bomb up close – tense in readiness.

And so, at 5pm, Operation Buffalo begins. The 15-kilotonne atomic device, the same explosive strength as the weapon dropped on Hiroshima 11 years earlier (although totally different in design), is bolted to a 30-metre steel tower. The device is a plutonium warhead that will test Britain’s “Red Beard” tactical nuclear weapon.


The count reaches its finale – three… two… one… FLASH! – and all present turn their backs. When given the order to turn back again, they see an awesome, rising fireball. Then Maralinga’s first mushroom cloud begins to bloom over the plain – by October the following year, there will have been six more.

RAF and RAAF aircraft prepare to fly through the billowing cloud to gather samples. The cloud rises much higher than predicted and, despite the delay, the winds are still unsuitable for atmospheric nuclear testing. The radioactive cloud heads due east, towards populated areas on Australia’s east coast.

Power struggle

So began the most damaging chapter in the history of British nuclear weapons testing in Australia. The UK had carried out atomic tests in 1952 and 1956 at the Monte Bello Islands off Western Australia, and in 1953 at Emu Field north of Maralinga.

The British had requested and were granted a huge chunk of South Australia to create a “permanent” atomic weapons test site, after finding the conditions at Monte Bello and Emu Field too remote and unworkable. Australia’s then prime minister, Robert Menzies, was all too happy to oblige. Back in September 1950 in a phone call with his British counterpart, Clement Attlee, he had said yes to nuclear testing without even referring the issue to his cabinet.
THE BIG PICTURE Security was tight at Maralinga but it did not prevent health problems for those who witnessed the tests.
Menzies was not entirely blinded by his well-known anglophilia; he also saw advantages for Australia in granting Britain’s request. He was seeking assurances of security in a post-Hiroshima, nuclear-armed world and he believed that working with the UK would provide guarantees of at least British protection, and probably US protection as well.

He was also exploring ways to power civilian Australia with atomic energy and – whisper it – even to buy an atomic bomb with an Australian flag on it (for more background, see here). While Australia had not been involved in developing either atomic weaponry or nuclear energy, she wanted in now. Menzies’ ambitions were such that he authorised offering more to the British than they requested.
Atomic Thunder: The Maralinga Story, by Elizabeth Tynan.
While Australia was preparing to sign the Maralinga agreement, the supply minister, Howard Beale, wrote in a top-secret 1954 cabinet document:

Although [the] UK had intimated that she was prepared to meet the full costs, Australia proposed that the principles of apportioning the expenses of the trial should be agreed whereby the cost of Australian personnel engaged on the preparation of the site, and of materials and equipment which could be recovered after the tests, should fall to Australia’s account.


Menzies was not entirely blinded by his well-known anglophilia; he also saw advantages for Australia in granting Britain’s request. He was seeking assurances of security in a post-Hiroshima, nuclear-armed world and he believed that working with the UK would provide guarantees of at least British protection, and probably US protection as well.

He was also exploring ways to power civilian Australia with atomic energy and – whisper it – even to buy an atomic bomb with an Australian flag on it (for more background, see here). While Australia had not been involved in developing either atomic weaponry or nuclear energy, she wanted in now. Menzies’ ambitions were such that he authorised offering more to the British than they requested.


While Australia was preparing to sign the Maralinga agreement, the supply minister, Howard Beale, wrote in a top-secret 1954 cabinet document:

Although [the] UK had intimated that she was prepared to meet the full costs, Australia proposed that the principles of apportioning the expenses of the trial should be agreed whereby the cost of Australian personnel engaged on the preparation of the site, and of materials and equipment which could be recovered after the tests, should fall to Australia’s account.
A typical mushroom cloud rises over the atomic testing range at Maralinga in South Australia in 1956. Many Aboriginal people who lived near the site knew nothing of the tests or their dangers. Photo: The Argus
Beale said that he did not want Australia to be a mere “hewer of wood and drawer of water” for the British, but a respected partner of high (though maybe not equal) standing with access to the knowledge generated from the atomic tests.


That hope was forlorn and unrealised. Australia duly hewed the wood and drew the water at Maralinga, and stood by while Britain’s nuclear and military elite trashed a swathe of Australia’s landscape and then, in the mid-1960s, promptly left. Britain carried out a total of 12 major weapons tests in Australia: three at Monte Bello, two at Emu Field and seven at Maralinga. The British also conducted hundreds of so-called “minor trials”, including the highly damaging Vixen B radiological experiments, which scattered long-lived plutonium over a large area at Maralinga.


The British carried out two clean-up operations – Operation Hercules in 1964 and Operation Brumby in 1967 – both of which made the contamination problems worse.


Legacy of damage

The damage done to Indigenous people in the vicinity of all three test sites is immeasurable and included displacement, injury and death. Service personnel from several countries, but particularly Britain and Australia, also suffered – not least because of their continuing fight for the slightest recognition of the dangers they faced. Many of the injuries and deaths allegedly caused by the British tests have not been formally linked to the operation, a source of ongoing distress for those involved.

The cost of the clean-up exceeded A$100 million in the late 1990s. Britain paid less than half, and only after protracted pressure and negotiations.

Decades later, we still don’t know the full extent of the effects suffered by service personnel and local communities. Despite years of legal wrangling, those communities' suffering has never been properly recognised or compensated.




Why did Australia allow it to happen? The answer is that Britain asserted its nuclear colonialism just as an anglophile prime minister took power in Australia, and after the United States made nuclear weapons research collaboration with other nations illegal, barring further joint weapons development with the UK.

Menzies’ political agenda emphasised national security and tapped into Cold War fears. While acting in what he thought were Australia’s interests (as well as allegiance to the mother country), he displayed a reckless disregard for the risks of letting loose huge quantities of radioactive material without adequate safeguards.

Six decades later, those atomic weapons tests still cast their shadow across Australia’s landscape. They stand as testament to the dangers of government decisions made without close scrutiny, and as a reminder – at a time when leaders are once again preoccupied with international security – not to let it happen again.

Liz Tynan will launch her book, Atomic Thunder: The Maralinga Story, on September 27. A travelling art exhibition, Black Mist Burnt Country, featuring art from the Maralinga lands, will open on the same day.

Liz Tynan, Senior Lecturer and Co-ordinator Research Student Academic Support, James Cook University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.



http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comm...25-gro9wj.html

[1938 Observer]

Re: British Nuclear Testing in Australia

I have covered Maralinga in quite a lot of detail..here will be 3 video's of the British tests at Monte Bellow.

Published on Jan 27, 2014


Atomic Bomb Explosion Test Footage - British scientists had been heavily involved in the US wartime Manhattan Project to develop a nuclear weapon. After the war, the United States, keen to maintain its monopoly of A-bomb weaponry and concerned about intelligence leaks, ended all nuclear co-operation with the British. As a consequence the Labour government authorised the development of a British bomb using the scientists that had been involved in the wartime research.

One aim of building a British bomb was to maintain the United Kingdom's influence in the world: a world in which the United States had the only such arsenal and the Soviet Union controlled most of Eastern Europe with the continent's largest army.

The explosion of the first Soviet bomb in 1949 seemed to justify the decision by the British to develop such a weapon. Three years later, the British detonated their first bomb in 'Operation Hurricane' on the Australian island of Trimoulle, part of the Monte Bello island group.

The warhead, exploded from the old British frigate HMS Plym, used British and Canadian plutonium. This was later developed into the 'Blue Danube' weapon carried on the active British nuclear force of RAF 'V-bombers'.

The decision to use the Monte Bellos as a test site, the treatment of aborigines in the area and compensation for those involved in the tests was explored by an Australian Royal Commission in 1986 [these records can be found in AB 40 in The National Archives' catalogue].

This film highlights the technological achievements of the group of British and émigré scientists involved.

This film made available courtesy the UK National Archives. .

CharlieDeanArchives - Archive footage from the 20th century making history come alive!

[1938 Observer]

Re: British Nuclear Testing in Australia

You will see just how clos this is to the Australian Mainland.:unimpressed::unimpressed:

[1938 Observer]

Re: British Nuclear Testing in Australia

For the location and a brief history of the Montebello Islands off the coast of Western Australia, including the: (a) 1622 wreck of the British East India Company ship, the Tryall; (b) the largest explosion in Australia; and (c) flourishing wildlife; see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montebel...

[1938 Observer]

Re: British Nuclear Testing in Australia

1950s nuclear tests: Monte Bello Islands


6 mins 11 secs
Date first broadcast: 14 October 1978

Subject: History
Year: 10
Discover what happened when British nuclear tests were carried out on Australian territory at the Monte Bello Islands, just 70 kilometres off the Western Australian coast. In 1947, Britain began to develop its own nuclear weapons and in the early 1950s the Australian Liberal-Country Party government led by Robert Menzies offered Australian sites for nuclear tests. Watch as extracts from ABC Four Corners explore the consequences.


Go to the link below to view this short video

http://splash.abc.net.au/home#!/medi...-bello-islands

[1938 Observer]

Re: British Nuclear Testing in Australia

Some more background on the aftermath..........................DECADES LATER. :shocked::angry:



Atom bomb veterans remember life-changing blast
PM By Brendan Trembath
Updated 3 Oct 2012, 10:28pm ABC


Sixty years since Britain tested its first atom bomb in Australia, those who witnessed the blast - many who now have cancer - have reunited to talk about how it changed their lives.


AUDIO: Atom bomb veterans mark anniversary (PM)
The veterans are still seeking an apology from the Federal Government and appropriate health care for them and their children.

Official records say those serving on the HMAS Murchison on October 3, 1952, were 70 miles away when Britain successfully detonated an atomic bomb on the Monte Bello islands, off the coast of the Pilbara in Western Australia.

But to this day, many who were there say they were much closer.

Michael Rowe was on board the ship and remembers the moment the bomb went off.

"We were told to face east, which we did, and then we were told we could turn around and face west and we saw the first British atom bomb go off," he said.


Go to the link below for the full story and the audio........................


http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-0...-lives/4294276

[1938 Observer]

Re: British Nuclear Testing in Australia

At last, mind you it is only 50 to 60 years after the event [or so], The Oz government just had to wait till the numbers dwindled right down and most of the surviving participants are up around the 80 mark or older .


Budget 2017: Veterans exposed to radiation welcome Government decision to grant Gold Card access


Piesse)















































Members of the Ex-Services Atomic Survivors Association at the announcement in Mandurah, WA









Former Australian servicemen and women who were exposed to radiation from nuclear bombs have welcomed the Federal Government's decision to give them a veterans' Gold Card.

The Gold Card, which covers health costs, had not been available to those sent to Hiroshima in the 1940s and those who were at British test sites in Western Australia and South Australia.

But that is set to change, with $133 million allocated for survivors in the federal budget.

Speaking in Mandurah, the Member for Canning and former SAS captain, Andrew Hastie, said there was a high cancer rate among the RAN sailors sent to the Montebello Islands off the coast of Western Australia.


"These men worked on the islands only four years after the first atomic test with no protective gear," he said.

"Many were on [the] deck of their ships and fully exposed during a subsequent test, in very close proximity to the explosion.

"Of the surviving 51 members who have been surveyed, 43 per cent have had some kind of cancer. Of the 28 who have already passed on, 14 have died from cancer.

"This is a story of young Australians who answered their country's call during the period of national service — they served in dangerous and hazardous conditions in the Montebello Islands."


Read on at the link..... http://www.abc.net.au/news/story-str...cision/8504884

[1938 Observer]

Re: British Nuclear Testing in Australia

This a follow-on to the offshore tests conducted by the British............................



OPERATIONS HURRICANE AND MOSAIC



On 3 October 1952, a nuclear device with a reported yield
of 25 kilotons exploded just off Trimouille Island in the
Montebellos group some 130km off the Pilbara coast of
Western Australia. It was the first of several nuclear tests
conducted in Australian territory in the 1950s, and the first
ever conducted by the United Kingdom.
British planning for an atomic test began in 1949 and in
September 1950, an informal approach was made to
Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies regarding the
possibility of testing an atomic device in Australian
territory. In March 1951, the British government made a
formal request to Menzies to conduct the test, designated
Operation HURRICANE, at the Montebello Islands
although the final decision to conduct the test there was
not arrived at until that December.


HMAS Karangi had already made a preliminary survey of
the islands in November 1950 and HMAS Warrego (II)
conducted a more detailed survey in July and August
1951. Karangi and HMAS Koala laid moorings and placed
navigational aids in the area in early 1952 in anticipation
of the arrival of the RN/RAN fleet, designated Task Force
4 (TF4), assembled to conduct the test. The Australian
government announced the intention to test a British
nuclear device in Australia in February 1952.



A transit camp was established at Onslow on the Western
Australian coast for personnel and stores travelling to the
Montebellos. Construction work was carried out on
Trimouille Island by No 5 Airfield Construction Squadron,
RAAF, and a detachment of Royal Engineers, supported
by Karangi and HMAS Mildura. They built five reinforced
blockhouses and around 80 concrete foundations for
scientific instruments as well as piers, hardstands, roads
and towers. Submarine and shore cables were laid, and a
camp, station building and laboratories were erected on
Hermite Island some 5km south-west of the test site.
The RAN component of TF4 comprised a variety of ships
including the aircraft carrier HMAS Sydney (III), with 805
and 817 Squadrons embarked.



HMA Ships Tobruk (I), Hawkesbury, Macquarie, Murchison, Shoalhaven and
Mildura carried out patrol work while the smaller vessels
Karangi, Koala, Limicola, Reserve, Wareen, MRL 252 and
MWL 251 performed useful work laying moorings,
marking channels and providing valuable logistic and
personnel support. Hawkesbury (I), in a position some 28
miles to the south-east of ground zero, became the
closest RAN unit to the detonation, where she conducted
security and safety patrols before and after the test.
Culgoa performed the duty of a weather ship for the main
force, specific meterological conditions being absolutely
essential for the conduct of both the HURRICANE and
MOSAIC tests. Some of these ships embarked national
servicemen undergoing training as part of their regular
sea training program. For many, it was their first time at
sea.



The remainder of the article and photographs ...go to the link


http://navyvic.net/associations/atom...re_02_2016.pdf

[1938 Observer]

Re: British Nuclear Testing in Australia


‘Every spear is important’: TARNANTHI’s Kulata Tjuta exhibition

October 5, 2017 by John Neylon



The story of Kulata Tjuta Project takes a dramatic twist in TARNANTHI 2017 with a remarkable installation at the Art Gallery of South Australia about the Maralinga atomic testing program and generations of people caught in the blast. John Neylon recently travelled to the APY Lands to meet the artists and to hear their stories.

“Every spear is important.” This is Peter Mungkuri speaking. He is one of the senior men associated with the Kulata Tjuta Project. He reminds us that re-establishing the practice of spear-making is far more than maintaining tradition for its own sake, or the art market.

The Project was formally established in 2010 at Tjala Arts in the Amata by a number of senior men as a means of cultural maintenance, teaching young Community men the skills of carving (wood) and (spear) production.



Full text and photographs at the link

http://adelaidereview.com.au/arts/vi...-islander-art/

[1938 Observer]

Re: British Nuclear Testing in Australia

ADVANCE WARNING NOTICE!!


Australia’s nuclear testing before the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne should be a red flag for Fukushima in 2020


The scheduling of Tokyo 2020 Olympic events at Fukushima is being seen as a public relations exercise to dampen fears over continuing radioactivity from the reactor explosion that followed the massive earthquake six years ago.

It brings to mind the British atomic bomb tests in Australia that continued until a month before the opening of the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne – despite the known dangers of fallout travelling from the testing site at Maralinga to cities in the east. And it reminds us of the collusion between scientists and politicians – British and Australian – to cover up the flawed decision-making that led to continued testing until the eve of the Games.


Read more: Sixty years on, the Maralinga bomb tests remind us not to put security over safety



FULL TEXT. https://theconversation.com/australi...-in-2020-85787

[1938 Observer]

Re: British Nuclear Testing in Australia

World spotlight shines on Maralinga horror


Source: AAP


1 DAY AGO


An Australian-born international group awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize hopes the federal government will sign on to a treaty to ban nuclear weapons.


Sue Coleman-Haseldine was a toddler crawling around in the dirt when the winds brought the black mist.

Her white nappies on the washing line were burnt.

It was in the 1950s when the British began testing nuclear weapons at Maralinga in the South Australian outback.

The legacy of the bombs dropped continues to haunt the 67-year-old Aboriginal grandmother.

"We weren't on ground zero at Maralinga, otherwise we would all be dead," she told AAP.

"I was born and grew up on a mission at Koonibba, but the winds came to us."

Ceduna, the main township before the Nullarbor, is the cancer capital of Australia, Ms Coleman-Haseldine says.

She's had her thyroid removed and will be on medication for the rest of her life.

Her 15-year-old granddaughter is also battling thyroid cancer.

There are birth defects and cancers right across the community.

"It's changed our genes," she said.

"These diseases weren't around before the bombs."

On December 10, Ms Coleman-Haseldine will be in Oslo for the Noble Peace Prize award ceremony.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) is being recognised for its work to achieve a treaty-based ban on nuclear weapons.

So far 122 countries have adopted the treaty, excluding Australia [:unimpressed::unimpressed::unimpressed:] and countries with nuclear weapons - the US, UK, Russia, China, France, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel.

Only three countries have ratified the treaty and 50 are needed for it to become international law.

ICAN is a grassroots movement that began in Carlton, Melbourne more than a decade ago.

In Norway, Ms Coleman-Haseldine will tell the story of her people and their contaminated land.

"You've got to keep the past alive to protect the future," she said.





Ms Coleman-Haseldine hopes Australia will reverse its opposition and sign the treaty.

The Turnbull government has ruled that out :angry::angry: but the Labor Party will debate the issue at its national conference next year.