Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate—

(a)

notes that:

(i)

1800 nuclear physicists, including many Nobel Laureates, have joined in a petition opposing the ‘new US nuclear weapons policies that open the door to the use of nuclear weapons on situations such as Iran’s’,

(ii)

petitioners note that the policy of the United States of America (US) did, until recently and since WWII, consider nuclear weapons to be weapons of last resort to be used only when the survival of the nation or of an allied nation was at stake, or at most, in cases of extreme military necessity,

(iii)

the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons to destroy underground installations as being considered by the Bush Administration against Iran is ‘a major and dangerous shift in the rationale for’ the use of ‘nuclear weapons’, and

(iv)

petitioners argue that ‘using or even merely threatening to use a nuclear weapon preemptively against a non-nuclear adversary tells the 182 non-nuclear-weapon countries signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that their adherence to the treaty offers them no protection against a nuclear attack by a nuclear nation. Many are thus likely to abandon the treaty, and the nuclear non-proliferation framework will be damaged even further than it already has, with disastrous consequences for the security of the United States and the world’;

(b)

agrees with petitioners that the US Administration should announce publicly that it is taking the nuclear option off the table in the case of all non-nuclear adversaries, present and future; and

(c)

urges the Government to make representation to the Bush Administration calling for such a commitment.

Question negatived.