Australia's Nuclear Test Legacy and the TPNW Debate

Maxine Goodwin was just a teenager in 1981 when her father succumbed to cancer, but a deathbed conversation has remained with her ever since.

"He told us that he had been in an airplane that had made contact with a radioactive cloud," she said.

Decades earlier, Ms Goodwin's father was a radio mechanic in the Royal Australian Air Force.

He was stationed at Onslow in Western Australia, a sleepy town that would become the staging area of several British nuclear tests carried out in the 1950s and 60s.

Operation Hurricane was the first.

"His role was to service the Dakota aircraft and, according to his records, he was responsible for servicing 'special equipment' for tests," Ms Goodwin said.

The Air Force deployed two C-47 Dakota aircraft to support the operation, both of which were sent into the sky the day after detonation to conduct radiation surveys.

On the return flight, archival records show one of the planes encountered intense radioactivity after passing through a contaminated cloud at 10,000 feet.

"He didn't give us much detail, he just told us he was in a plane and that was all we knew," Ms Goodwin said.

Her father stayed silent about his role at Onslow for two decades.

But when he was diagnosed with lymphoma at age 41, Ms Goodwin's family wondered if there might be more to his illness than just poor fortune.

"I really think that is the cause of his cancer because there is no family history and he was servicing aircraft exposed to radiation and, according to his testimony, he was in the plane that made contact with the cloud the day after the test," she said.

Nuclear legacy

Several studies have been commissioned into cancer and mortality rates among Australian participants in British nuclear tests.

In 2006 the University of Adelaide found Australian nuclear test participants had cancer rates 23 per cent higher than the general population but could not establish if it was caused by radiation exposure from the tests.

Ms Goodwin will never know the truth, but her family's experience mirrors that of many impacted by Cold War nuclear testing across the Pacific.

In Fiji, thyroid cancer and leukaemia have been reported among survivors and descendants of soldiers who took part in nuclear tests on Christmas Island in the 1950s as part of the British military.

It is a similar story in the Marshall Islands, where the US carried out 67 nuclear tests across Bikini and Enewetak Atolls, the first of which took place exactly 80 years ago last week.

Now a group of Pacific anti-nuclear activists have joined an Australian delegation on a joint mission to prevent nuclear arms from returning to the Pacific.

Reverend James Bhagwan, General Secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches, led the group of Pacific anti-nuclear activists to Parliament House.

Their mission, to urge the Australian government to sign the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), was a commitment Labor made before winning office but has yet to fulfil.

Supporters say an Australian signature would ensure nuclear weapons cannot be facilitated, stored, manufactured or deployed from Australian soil.

Critics, however, argue it could undermine Australia's alliance with the United States, whose nuclear deterrent capabilities forms part of the government's security policy.

Broken promises

More than 120 nations adopted the TPNW at the UN General Assembly in 2017.

In 2018, Anthony Albanese, while in opposition, implored the Labor Party to pass a resolution in support of a treaty banning nuclear weapons, labelling the issue the "most important struggle for the human race".

"Labor in government will sign and ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons," he told party faithful at the ALP National Conference.

The resolution was passed unanimously. But after four years in office the government is yet to put pen to paper.

Co-founder of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Dave Sweeney, said Australia's relationship with the US has been the biggest stumbling block.

"Washington does not want any constraints by anybody on how it deploys its forces anywhere in the world, and this treaty would do that," he said.

Mr Sweeney said Australia plays a small but crucial role in the US's nuclear weapons capabilities through defence facilities at Pine Gap and North West Cape, which provide early warning communications and targeting information.

The treaty could also complicate Australia's place under America's "nuclear umbrella", which offers protection by deterring attacks on the US and its allies through its nuclear capabilities.

But Mr Sweeney said that should not stop Australia from signing the treaty.

He said Thailand and the Philippines were both pivotal parts of American strategy and "both of those nations have signed and ratified the TPNW".

"They have US bases, they have US military engagements, but they've drawn the line at nuclear weapons," he said.

Mr Sweeney believes Australia should do the same and is applying pressure on the government ahead of the ALP National Conference later this month.

But the cries may fall on deaf ears.

Maintaining the status quo

When asked last week during parliamentary Question Time whether the government would sign the treaty, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said it held concerns around the treaty's enforcement measures and the fact that no nuclear weapon state had signed up to it.

The government also worried it might undermine the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a different pact entirely.

The NPT has been around since the 1960s and is one of the world's largest treaties.

Its three pillars aim to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and advance nuclear disarmament among its 191 member states.

Critics question its effectiveness, arguing some nuclear-armed countries are building up their arsenals, not reducing them.

But Mr Marles said compared to the peak in the 1980s, there are now 20 per cent less nuclear warheads in the world, and the NPT was to thank for it.

Experts agree.

Former diplomat and a non-resident senior fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Jane Hardy, said the NPT is still the world's most effective framework for limiting the spread of nuclear weapons.

"Many decades of the build up of nuclear technology has not seen any nuclear catastrophes really apart from Chernobyl, so I do believe non-proliferation does work," she said.

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Furthermore, she said the NPT allows Australia to state its position around the idea of prohibition of nuclear weapons without complicating its relations with the US by signing a new treaty.

She rejected the suggestion that Australia's reliance on the US nuclear umbrella meant it could one day be involved in deploying American nuclear weapons.

"I think it's a fantasy to think the US would ever want us to mobilise a nuclear weapon on their behalf," she said.

"I don't think they'd ever ask and I don't think we would have the conversation."