Explaining Australasian Angst: Australia,New Zealand and French Nuclear Testing

1 Together Australia and New Zealand are sometimes referred to as Australasia, although the term has fallen largely into disuse in recent years.

2 G. Blainey, The Tyranny of Distance: How Distance Shaped Australia's History (Melbourne: Sun Books, 1966).

3 R. Thakur, `The Last Bang before a Total Ban: French Nuclear Testing in the Pacific', Working Paper no. 159, (Canberra: Peace Research Centre, Australian National University, September 1995), p. 4.

4 R. Hughes, The Fatal Shore (London: Collins Harvall, 1987), p. 88.

5 K. Sinclair, A History of New Zealand (Auckland: Penguin Books (NZ), 1988), pp. 66-67.

6 S. Henningham, France and the South Pacific: A Contemporary History (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992), preface.

7 Cited in Thakur, p. 32.

8 For summaries of nuclear testing in the region see Radioactive Heaven and Earth: The Health and Environmental Effects of Nuclear Weapons Testing in, on, and above the Earth, Report of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War International Commission To Investigate the Health and Environmental Effects of Nuclear Weapons Production and the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (New York: Apex Press, 1991).

9 International Court of Justice, Application Instituting Proceedings on Behalf of Australia against the French Republic, Australian Department of Foreign Affairs, Canberra, 1972, p. 3. Hypocritically, however, the same Australian government was seriously considering the use of nuclear explosives in civil engineering projects in Australia as late as 6 years after this protest. See T. Findlay, Nuclear Dynamite: The Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Fiasco (Sydney: Brassey's Australia, 1990), pp. 156-157.

10 Henningham, p. 226.

11 See E. Arnett, `Nuclear Testing: What's at Stake?', Life & Peace Review, December 1995 (forthcoming).

12 The French would claim that limiting their test series to just eight and agreeing to stop altogether thereafter was showing `utmost restraint'.

13 See G. Evans and B. Grant, Australia's Foreign Relations in the World of the 1990s (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1992), pp. 40-41 and D. McKinnon, `Striking the Right Balance: UN Peacekeeping in the Former Soviet Union', New Zealand International Review, vol. 19, no. 3, May-June 1994, p. 6.

14 Henningham, p. 218.

15 See T. Findlay, `World Public Opinion on Nuclear Testing: A Snapshot', Working Paper no. 112 (Canberra: Peace Research Centre, Australian National University), December. 1991, pp. 8-9.

16 See T. Findlay, `Disarming Cooperation: The Role of Australia and New Zealand in Disarmament and Arms Control', Working Paper no. 114 (Canberra: Peace Research Centre, Australian National University), January 1992.

17 See D. Lange, Nuclear Free - The New Zealand Way (Auckland: Penguin Books (NZ), 1990).