TV Channel

Mr. Peter Mullins, CEO of Greenpeace Australia and the Pacific, is tasked with advancing the organisation's interests across a vast region encompassing some 22 countries in the North and South Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and Antarctica. I am uncertain what governments one finds in Antarctica, but if you can find one there, good for you. His staff addresses a diverse array of environmental problems across this gigantic part of the world. He has previously served in diplomatic posts in New Zealand and India with the Department of Foreign Affairs and also ran the Rural Lands Protection Board, the largest rural organisation in New South Wales. To bring us the tremendous, pioneering work of Greenpeace Australia, we welcome Peter Mullins. Thank you. Thank you for seriously inviting Greenpeace to join you today. The topic is serious. If I take you back to comments about half an hour ago, there was a statement that peace is our birthright. It is accepted immediately and seriously that this is the birthright of an individual and of a community. What I would like to do today is lead you—perhaps in my mind to complete the circle; in your mind it might be a dance on the wild side—but I believe, and I come from an organisation that believes wholeheartedly, that peace is also the birthright of this planet. So, in talking to you today, I want to talk about the peace in Greenpeace. I think and hope I will show you that this peace bears a very important message resonating closely with what you have discussed. Greenpeace is an organisation that bases its actions on the Quaker principle of bearing witness and on the principle of non-violent direct action. Bearing witness is a form of passive resistance that registers opposition to unconscionable activities by simply being present, which leads us to some fairly inhospitable parts of the world. Non-violent direct action is based on the Indian notion of ahiṃsā, a word containing the notions of non-harming and love embracing all creation. That is where you see us appearing before governments and businesses, either exposing or, hopefully, embarrassing them. We use these principles to address the greatest environmental threats facing the planet: climate change, over-exploitation of our oceans, deforestation, toxic pollution, radioactive contamination, and genetic modification of our food supply. I am pleased we addressed the last one in the previous panel. Greenpeace began 32 years ago—it is not a young organisation—by opposing nuclear weapons of war, and we have continued our opposition to war and support for disarmament. Those are our credentials. I would like to pause for a minute and reflect personally. When we think back over history, what are the enduring images of war? Are they images of glory and vanquish? Celebrations of a job well done? From a historical perspective, the answer is no. What endures, for me at least, are images of fields of white crosses, the atomic cloud over Hiroshima, that pitiful child fleeing her village in Vietnam, covered in napalm, of whole communities destroyed. These are memories of pain and suffering. When preparing for today, I wondered why we remember these as the most vivid images of war. The quick conclusion is that in our souls, there is a simple explanation: we do not see war and its suffering as qualities of a truly civilised society. We see ourselves, quite rightly, as a community of compassionate human beings. Peace is our natural state, a point many speakers today have addressed with greater authority. Peace abides in our hearts; it simply sits there. We do not remember the glory of war. Our psyches are etched with memories of suffering and destruction. The link and the closing of the circle I bring to you is this: we remember destruction on a human level, and for Greenpeace, we remember vividly the destruction at the environmental level. The message I bring is that it is increasingly impossible to separate the two. Destruction of one is destruction of the other. Reflect on Vietnam: the landmines left behind made the natural environment deceitful and treacherous. The use of Agent Orange contaminated not only the victims sprayed but also the people who sprayed it, and certainly the land it hit. Consider the 1991 Gulf War, where a different element emerged: large-scale environmental damage was used as a weapon. Between six and eight million barrels of oil were deliberately poured into the Persian Gulf, creating an oil slick almost the size of Sydney—a massive area that polluted the Gulf for years and destroyed vast coastlines. You recall the images of the Kuwaiti oil wells set on fire. Sixty-seven million tonnes of oil went up in smoke, and it was the smoke—sooty, full of gases and aggressive chemicals—that caused the damage, floating for months and settling on innocent, unprepared communities, somewhat like Chernobyl. Wars cause massive human suffering and contaminate the planet on which we live. Our survival becomes intricately interwoven with the survival of our planet. To maintain a good quality of life, the health of our environment and, more importantly, our guardianship of it, is paramount. Reflecting on this, it struck me—perhaps due to diplomatic cynicism—that we must never forget that any one of several nations now has the capacity to threaten both the future of humankind and all life on this planet. My question is whether this is a power nations should have. I believe there is a fairly open and clear answer. Peace resonates with individuals and crosses cultural boundaries. There is an obvious global demand for peace, and millions are marching worldwide to voice it. So, what does this mean for Australia? What is an Australian view of peace, and how do we articulate it? This issue has been raised but not debated in the last six to nine months. Is it inconsistent that our Prime Minister maintains he is a man of peace while unilaterally attacking another country in the face of a divided community? Why are our elected representatives so silent? What do we stand for as a nation regarding peace? Secondly, how do we as a nation demonstrate to others our commitment to peace? Do we have a defence force or an attack force? Do we need military forces whose mandate is limited to defence and peacekeeping? Do we lead the world's nations in strengthening the UN into the body it needs to be? I remind you that the UN was established after World War II to ensure such conflicts never happen again. To my mind, the UN was founded to ensure peace, not to manage war. Australia was a founding member of that charter, and we need to live up to that obligation. In Greenpeace's view, an appropriate moral leadership position for Australia—and leadership is what is needed now—is for Australia to withdraw from this war and resume negotiations for peace and disarmament. My organisation feels this strongly. We began in a wooden boat in Canada in 1971, sailing off to prevent underwater nuclear testing by the US on a spot over a fault line in the middle of a wildlife sanctuary. Our efforts succeeded. As the song says, from little things, big things grow. Perhaps we should thank the US for giving Greenpeace the reason to grow as it did. So, amidst the turmoil between nations and communities caused by the current war, I stand here today to tell you that Greenpeace will remain true to our twin principles of bearing witness and non-violence. We will do our best to be protectors of the peace because our planet depends on it. I conclude by asking that, as an organisation working worldwide, you will support us as we will support you across cultures to work towards developing a green and peaceful future. Thank you. Recording location: Australia, Sydney, World Peace Forum 2003