Scott Ludlam, Guy Rundle, Felicity Ruby, Talei Mangioni, Dimity Hawkins, Clinton Fernandes, Jacob Grech & Dave Sweeney

Zoom link for event:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84554381489?pwd=WmRXVHpHeUtFRWhVRzB2QXAvbnFNUT09

Meeting ID: 845 5438 1489
Passcode: 214674

Australia plans to develop a new fleet of nuclear-powered submarines as part of the new AUKUS trilateral military pact between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. This has been described as an act of nuclear proliferation. The pact will increase the US military footprint and troop deployment in Australia, with these nuclear-powered submarines just the thin edge of the wedge. 

The Chinese government has already responded with the threat that Australia is now a nuclear target.

On Thursday 7 October 7.00 - 8.30pm Renegade Activists Action Force (RAAF) will host an online public forum for a national response to this issue, featuring former Western Australian Senator Scott Ludlam, author Guy Rundle, Professor of international and political studies at the University of New South Wales, Clinton Fernandes, ANU's Talei Luscia Mangioni, and long standing anti-nuclear campaigners Felicity 'Flick' Ruby, Dimity Hawkins, Jacob Grech and Dave Sweeney. Breakout rooms will enable you to share ideas for actions to resist AUKUS. 

A follow up online gathering will take place in the weeks following this event for groups to check in and share progress. 

This event is taking place on stolen Aboriginal land that was never ceded. Always was, always will be. This event is supported by 3CR Community Radio. Renegade Activists is an affiliate of IPAN - Independent and Peaceful Australia Network.

Guy Rundle is writer-at-large for Crikey. He has previously been the editor of Arena Magazine, producer of TV shows from Comedy Inc to future retro cult classic Vulture, the writer of four hit shows for the satirist Max Gillies, and the author of numerous books, including A Revolution in the Making: 3D Printing, Robotics and the Future, Down to the Crossroads: On the Trail of the 2008 Election, Clivosaurus: The Politics of Clive Palmer and Inland Empire: America at the End of the Obama Era.

Dimity Hawkins AM is an Australian activist and researcher and an advocate for a world free from nuclear weapons. Her research and activism are centred on the history of nuclear weapons testing, nuclear chain issues and the need to eliminate nuclear weapons. She works for nuclear justice, particularly in the region in which she lives. Dimity was a co-founder of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear weapons and is a PhD candidate at Swinburne University.

Clinton Fernandes is Professor of International and Political Studies at the University of New South Wales in Canberra. His most recent book is What Uncle Sam Wants: US Foreign Policy Objectives in Australia and Beyond (Palgrave, 2019).

Felicity Ruby is a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney undertaking research on surveillance and democracy. She was advisor to Scott Ludlam for his first six years in the Australian Senate. Prior to this she headed the UN Office for the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and was a policy advisor at the UN Development Fund for Women and at Greenpeace International.

Jacob Grech is a member of Renegade Activists, the organising body for the AIDEX '89 and '91 protests, and presents A Friday Rave on community radio 3CR.

Talei Mangioni is currently a PhD candidate at the School of Culture, History and Language. Talei was born and raised on Gadigal land of the Eora Nation and is of Fijian and Italian descent. Her current scholarship aims to chart the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement across Oceania through historical ethnography, weaving archival records and material objects with oral histories of activists and artists. Exploring these stories through creative works, she engages a trans-disciplinary praxis through film-making with an interest in speculative documentary.

Scott Ludlam is a former Australian politician. A member of the Australian Greens, he served in the Australian Senate from July 2008 to July 2017, and as Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens from 2015 to 2017. He has also worked as a filmmaker, artist and graphic designer. Full Circle, published in 2021, is his first book.

Dave Sweeney has been active in the uranium mining and nuclear debate for two decades through his work with the media, trade unions and environment groups on mining, resource and indigenous issues. He works as a national nuclear campaigner for the Australian Conservation Foundation and holds a vision of a nuclear free Australia that is positive about its future and honest about its past.