Following on from the Mount Isa City Council decision to sign a letter to the federal government expressing support for a nuclear weapons ban, a government department has responded saying it could not support the treaty.
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In February Mount Isa became the first council in Queensland to officially endorse the ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) Cities Appeal and advised the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the endorsement.
ICAN is trying to lobby the Australian government to sign and ratify the UN Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and February's decision saw Mount Isa sign an appeal letter to the federal government to sign the Total Nuclear Weapons Ban at the UN.
However in Council's correspondence report at its June meeting, it tabled a letter from Doug Trappett, director of Arms Control Policy Section at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade which said the government believed the TPNW did not advance the cause of nuclear disarmament.
"One reason for this is that the TPNW fails to engage any state in possession of nuclear weapons," Mr Trappett wrote to Council.
"Without involving these states and acknowledging their security perspectives, the TPNW cannot offer a practical path to effective disarmament."
Mr Trappett also said the TPNW also failed to advance commitments made under existing nuclear non-proliferation arrangements around safeguards, verifications and enforcement.
He said it risked undermining the near universal Treaty of the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) by "creating ambiguity and confusion through parallel obligations and deepening divisions" between nuclear and non-nuclear states.
He thanked Mount Isa City Council for "promoting awareness of the humanitarian and environmental consequences of nuclear weapons".
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Derek Barry
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
