House debates
Wednesday, 22 March 2023
Questions without Notice
Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
3:05 pm
Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source
In the lead-up—it seems like a long time ago, I've got to say—to the San Diego announcement, we said publicly that myself and the defence minister and the foreign minister spoke to more than 60 world leaders and briefed them. We also had the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, secretary-general Grossi, in close liaison with us, the political leadership of this country, as well as our defence leadership to make sure that everything we were doing was completely in compliance with our commitments on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the NPT, but also that everything we had done was completely in accord with the Treaty of Rarotonga, which is very important for our Pacific island friends. We made sure that we got that right.
On the issue of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: Australia certainly has a view, very clearly, that a world without nuclear weapons would be a very good thing. We don't acquire them ourselves. We wish that they weren't there. What we will do, though, is work systematically and methodically through the issues in accordance with the commitments that were made in the national platform. (Time expired)
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