The 6th of August 1945 was a dark day for my country. The United States had just dropped an atomic bomb on my town of Hiroshima. I was just 13 years old. Around 80,000 people died that day. Had I not been sick at home that day, I would have been one of them. My school friends were not so lucky. I would learn later that 360 of them had died in the blast. - Junko Morimoto (Hiroshima Survivor)
This is probably news to most of us - but our tax dollars are actively being invested in the manufacture of nuclear weapons, and the submarines and fighter planes to deploy them.
The Future Fund, the government fund designed to invest Australians' tax dollars to ensure the future prosperity of Australia, invests in companies that manufacture nuclear weapons. The fund invests in companies like Honeywell International1 which is responsible for assembling nuclear weapons in the United States arsenal2.
Today, David Gonski is set to take office as the new Chair of the Future Fund. So far the Future Fund has gotten away with these unethical, immoral and possibly illegal investments because it has never had to defend them publicly. We can change that.
With Mr. Gonski taking office today, the media spotlight will be on the Fund. By putting your name to the campaign, we can make sure that on his first day on the job Gonski is bombarded with questions around this issue.
http://www.getup.org.au/stop-investing-in-nuclear-weapons
Junko’s story is a powerful reminder that we need to come together to eradicate nuclear weapons. Making sure that our tax dollars aren’t helping manufacture them is the most powerful first step we can take.
Thanks for standing up,
The GetUp team.
Notes
[1] 'Nuclear weapons and Australia’s Future Fund', International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. May 2011.
[2] 'U.S. Nuclear Weapons Research, Development, Testing, and Production, and Naval Nuclear Propulsion Facilities', Brookings Institute. 16 August, 2002.
