Sue Wareham

  • Let’s face it, Australia goes to war far too easily (Canberra Times Nov 15, 2020)

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  • Government must stop militarising our biggest challenges

    Proposed legislation to enable the PM to declare a national emergency and call in the troops appears to be yet another example of the government’s dangerous tendency to militarise our biggest challenges, including climate change.

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  • SUE WAREHAM. Roadmaps on the two biggest threats ready to go

    Our security lies in our capacity to work together for the common good, rather than in weapons that terrify other humans. Roadmaps to address our two biggest threats, nuclear weapons and climate change, are ready to go. We’re not waiting for a vaccine, but simply for governments, including our own, to learn that increasingly alarming warnings require urgent action. (more…)

  • SUE WAREHAM. Prioritising Health

    Global military spending continues to rise. Critical health goals could be achieved for a fraction of what we spend on wars. Focussing funding on health rather than military spending, globally and in Australia, would create more jobs, healthier communities, and budgetary savings. (more…)

  • SUE WAREHAM. Cancel RIMPAC and reorder our priorities

    The failure to cancel RIMPAC or the slowness in doing so – whichever turns out to be the case – demands a reordering of our priorities to place healthcare before warfare. A call from the Australian government to our troops to “#StayAtHome” is long overdue. (more…)

  • SUE WAREHAM. Healthcare Not Warfare

    Australia should support the UN Secretary General’s call for a global ceasefire. There are steps that our nation could take in the very short term and beyond to prioritise healthcare over warfare. We are spending vast sums on equipping ourselves for the next war while our frontline health workers struggle to find enough face masks to protect themselves and others. As even greater health threats loom, this is unsustainable. (more…)

  • AWM redevelopment – Green lights all the way despite widespread opposition

    Due process has been missing in action with the proposed Australian War Memorial demolition and expansion. Wide-ranging and serious concerns from many people have been dismissed, as AWM Director Dr Brendan Nelson continues to be given green lights in his quest to have the Memorial display yet more of the machinery of warfare. One wonders whether that’s the sort of commemoration the World War 1 diggers would have wanted. (more…)

  • SUE WAREHAM. Abbott – a natural fit for a war memorial sliding from commemoration to propaganda

    People who have the power to set the direction of national cultural institutions need to reflect appropriate values. The appointment of Tony Abbott to the Council of the Australian War Memorial reminds us of just how much the Memorial has lost touch with the values of many Australians. A man whose public life has been divisive and polarising seems a very poor choice for an institution that should unite people across political and ideological divides, but a natural fit for an institution that is sliding towards grandiosity and propaganda. (more…)

  • SUE WAREHAM. Nuclear weapons must be rejected

    Professor Hugh White’s recent suggestion that Australia might need to consider nuclear weapons is highly provocative and dangerous. He is helping to legitimise these instruments of terror, and gives credence to the deeply flawed notion of nuclear “deterrence”. Australia must instead support global efforts for nuclear weapons elimination, especially the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. (more…)

  • SUE WAREHAM. How the Australian War Memorial has lost its way.

    In a submission to the Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories inquiry into Canberra’s national institutions Sue Wareham ,on behalf of the Medical Association for Prevention of War (MAPW) calls for major changes at the AWM

    The submission notes that the inquiry’s purpose is to report on strategies that Canberra’s national institutions are using to “maintain viability and relevance to sustainably grow their profile, visitor numbers, and revenue”. Extracts below  from this submission by MAPW call for new forms of public engagement and audience participation.   (more…)

  • SUE WAREHAM. Honouring the war dead means learning from the horror.

    This Anzac Day, as on every other, we will hear of the horrors of war to which many of our service people have been exposed, horrors that certainly call into question any notion of us assuming the title “homo sapiens”.  We will “honour the fallen” and utter the hallowed words “lest we forget”, as we carefully forget every lesson that the last century and more of bloodshed could teach us. (more…)

  • SUE WAREHAM. Parliamentary debate on going to war is long overdue.

    This week marks the 15th anniversary, on March 20, of one of Australia’s most disastrous foreign policy decisions – our involvement in the invasion of Iraq. To characterise this as “our” involvement, however, does a great disservice to the millions of Australians who were vehemently opposed to the decision that was made by just one person, prime minister John Howard. The clear wishes of the people on this most significant of all decisions were ignored, and our elected representatives in parliament were not consulted. The situation was not an emergency and Iraq posed no threat to Australia. There was every opportunity for the exhaustive scrutiny of Howard’s plan that was critically needed. But it did not happen. (more…)

  • SUE WAREHAM. PM Turnbull’s ‘jobs’ argument for war profiteering is a sham.

    PM Turnbull’s push to make Australia a major weapons exporter puts paid to any pretence we might have of being a peace-loving nation.  And his claim that it’s all about jobs is a sham.  War profiteering is one of the least effective ways to create jobs.  (more…)

  • SUE WAREHAM. Open letter: Parliament, not ministers, must decide Australia’s response to a Korean war

    The possibility of war between the United States and North Korea – particularly a war triggered by one too many provocative moves by an unpredictable leader, leading to miscalculation or misinterpretation – continues to threaten millions of people. The consequences of any such war, even a “conventional” one, would be dire. (more…)

  • The Australian War Memorial and weapons manufacturers

    The peace of the world for future generations is anathema to the interests of those who profit from warfare. As we commemorate again the “war to end all wars”, and every war since, one can only wonder what the diggers would have thought, as we allow the industry that profits from the cruelty of wars to bask in the reflected glory of those who suffer it.   (more…)

  • SUE WAREHAM. How independent is the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

    ASPI’s oft-repeated claim of independence – immunity from the influence of the corporations who help fund the organisation – does strike one as rather naive for experts who might otherwise be seen as “hard-headed realists” in a tough world. Corporations are, after all, accountable to their shareholders to whom they must demonstrate that funds are spent in pursuit of profits. How then, could these corporations justify granting sponsorships to an organisation in which they have zero influence?  (more…)

  • SUE WAREHAM. Why is Australia not fully behind efforts to prohibit nuclear weapons?

     It’s about time for some good news. Heaven knows, we need it after 2016’s litany of human failures to find peace between ourselves and with our struggling planet. But as a Christmas gift of historic proportions, the UN – which is to say its member states – has taken the most promising action in decades to lead us towards the elimination of the world’s worst weapons. Late on December 23 in New York, the UN General Assembly resolved by a strong majority to begin talks in March on a treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons.

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