Pacific Peace Network

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Australia is a country geographically placed in the South Asia Pacific region of the world. First Nations Peoples have lived and cared for the land for over 60 thousand years.  Europeans began to arrive with the British first fleet and now Australia has over 25M people from across the world sharing this land with the original peoples.  The SEA and Pacific have known war and war preparations for many years but most intensively during the 2nd WW, the Pacific War is where nuclear weapons were first used as an act of war in Japan. Following WW2 the Pacific was used to test nuclear weapons leading to terrible contamination of people and lands across the Pacific including remote aboriginal lands in Australia.

Today we see the arms race and militarisation of countries around the world and in the Western Pacific including Australia where US military forces and capacity to go to war are now expanding

The Pacific Peace Network formed in 2019 stands on the shoulders of the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific organisation formed during the 1970’s to oppose the nuclear tests. Representatives from Guahan, Jeju, ROK, Japan, Okinawa, Northern Marianas, Vanuatu, Philippines, Hawaii, USA, Australia and New Zealand have held a range of events and actions over the past 3 years focused on military activity and exercises rehearsing for war.

Sign the petition calling for neutrality in the Pacific – and listen to a podcast on this

Report from Pacific Peace Conference 2nd August 2025 in Brisbane.
    
Program of Conference and video of each panel session

8.45am Open with Brisbane Combined Unions Choir
9.00am Welcome to Country-Wayne Wharton

9.10am Panel 1:  Threats to Global Peace
Dr Alison Broinowski – World Beyond War
Remah Naji – Palestine Justice and Peace
Senator David Shoebridge – Greens Foreign Affairs, Peace & Nuclear Disarmament

1030 am Panel 2:  Pacific Peace and a Secure Future for All
Mere Tuilau Fiji – Peace and anti-nuclear activist
Ralph Regenvanu – Vanuatu Minister for Climate Change
Wayne Wharton ‘Uncle Coco’ – Indigenous Pacific peace solidarity

1130 pm  Panel 3 Nuclear Matters! 80 Years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki Nuclear Attacks
Prof Marianne Hanson – Co-chair of ICAN Australia
Donna Weeks – Emeritus Professor, Musashino University, Tokyo, member Australian Peace and Security Forum APSF
Sheila Babuata – Former Northern Mariana Legislature in the House of Representatives

130 pm Panel 4:  Regional War Preparations: Talisman Sabre AUKUS and the Force Posture Agreements
Elliot Darcy – Labor Against War
Alexia Fuentes– Secretary General of BAYAN Australia- Philippines multi-sectoral campaign centre for peaceful independence
Dr Amy McQuire – Senior Lecturer at the Carumba Institute QUT and proud Darumbal and South Sea Islander woman

230 pm pm Plenary- Building an ‘Ocean of Peace’
Workshop Facilitators – Prof Winnifred Louis & Dr Hema Preya Selvanathan – University of Qld School of Psychology, Social Change Lab.
4pm End

Opening/Panel 1   and Panel 2
 

Panel 3   and Panel 4
 

Plenary session

 

PAST EVENTS:

Pacific Peace Tour and Conference, August 2023


Conference delegates in Brisbane

From July 28th to the 4th August 2023, a delegation of Pacific Peace activists participated in a one-day conference in Brisbane then went on to speak at events in Sydney Canberra and Darwin. The peace delegation visit coincided with the largest ever US led Talisman Sabre exercise in Australia with over 30 thousand troops participating. The so-called exercise is held in the Central Queensland Shoalwater Bay designated military training precinct.

This is not the first time that activists from around the Pacific have campaigned against Talisman Sabre. In 2007, for example, a Peace Convergence that actually travelled to the Shoalwater Bay area was convened when people from a range of Pacific States gathered to witness US and Australian troops training for war. As with the 2023 Speaking Tour, participants were able also to share their own experiences of war and the presence of US bases in their countries.

The tour began when Pacific Peace Speaking Tour delegates, Monaeka Flores from Guahan (Guam), Shinako Oyakawa from Ryukyu (Okinawa)and Arama Rata (Aotearoa), were welcomed for lunch and a sharing of experiences on Friday 29 June by staff from the Qld Nurses and Midwives Union.

This was followed… to read  further, Download a report of activities across Australia during August 2023

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