PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS

Mr MATT SMITH (Leichhardt) (19:16): 'For now I am death, destroyer of worlds.' Robert Oppenheimer understood the potential, the damage and the fear that his research and invention could create. I am old enough to remember the French testing at Mururoa Atoll in the late 1990s. I remember watching the underground video footage, grainy as it was back then, then—boom!—watching the entire ocean convulse.

There was the fear and the confusion, the belief that we'd been past all of this and the enduring question: why? That was the question that I asked tucked away in south-east Victoria, safe and unable to be touched. Why?

It's a question that I'm sure goes through many of your minds every day. Why? So I rise to speak today to recognise this sombre and important anniversary, and to begin by acknowledging everyone who has suffered real and lasting harm from the nuclear testing that we're talking about here today.

There's no denying the human toll and the cultural toll—what that means to traditional fishing rights and traditional lands. Important things that had been there, cultural touchstones that had been around for generations, were erased for no gain, for no reason. I acknowledge that loss, that suffering and the cultural, emotional and physical pain that so many of you must be suffering.

Marking anniversaries like this is important. If you do not remember the past, you are doomed to repeat it. They will serve as a reminder of what can never be allowed to happen again in the future.

And, hopefully, they provide time for those who need to grieve, mourn and heal and to understand that we, in this place, try to facilitate that as best we can. I know that over the next month there'll be many vigils and commemorations, some out the front on Wednesday morning. And I know that there are dedicated residents from the Far North who have come here to attend this vigil.

The South Pacific and the Far North have a very, very close relationship, an honoured relationship—from the trade that has gone back thousands of years to the work that continues to be done in training and in health. July will mark the 80th anniversary of the first nuclear test detonation at the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Between 1946 and 1996, the US, the UK and France detonated over 315 nuclear devices, almost one a day for an entire year.

They started above ground with the mushroom cloud that is now ingrained so much in the collective memory—everyone knows what that means and what it brings—and they finished underground, perhaps to try to hide that arresting visceral visual from the rest of the world. I also wish to acknowledge that this was not just the Pacific and that testing occurred here in Australia as well at Maralinga, Emu Field and the Monte Bello Islands.

We need to keep talking about this. We need to make this a part of our collective consciousness—1996 is not long ago; I still listen to music from the nineties. If we're not able to tell the truth about these events, both from the recent past and from the more distant past, then we betray everyone who suffered and we leave behind those who had everything taken from them.

This included forced removal of communities. Once you're removed from a place that your ancestors have called home, you lose that spiritual connection as well. The ancestors need to be present.

There can be no greater devastation than a nuclear weapon upon ancestral land. It changes everything, right down to the molecular DNA. We know what radiation sickness does.

We've seen it. We saw it firsthand when nuclear weapons were used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This didn't have to happen, but it did.

It is now on us to remember and ensure that this never happens again. My thoughts are with you all. Thank you for attending.