YouSaid · the spoken record

Alexander Downer

lines on the record
162
first
1996-09-24
most recent
2005-09-24
sittings or episodes
7
sources
un-general-debate

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

  1. “The Commission also recommends three reinforcing steps: action to prevent further horizontal proliferation; developing verification arrangements for a nuclear- weapon-free world; and the cessation of the production of fissile material for nuclear-explosive purposes. The Commission placed particular emphasis on the importance of effective verification in the achievement and maintenance of a nuclear-weapons-free world. Having at last, after 33 years, met the challenge of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, the international community must now push on with further practical and realistic measures on nuclear-arms control and disarmament. As already indicated, one such measure is the negotiation of a convention under which it would be agreed that there will be no further manufacturing of weapons-grade fissile material.”

    1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)

  2. “The Australian Government will take it forward by circulating it today in this Hall, will present it to the Secretary-General tomorrow and introduce it to the Conference on Disarmament in January. The Canberra Commission report recommends a political commitment by the nuclear-weapon States to the elimination of nuclear weapons. That is the first and central requirement. The report then sets out six immediate steps: taking nuclear forces off alert; removal of warheads from delivery vehicles; ending the deployment of non-strategic nuclear weapons; ending nuclear testing; initiating negotiations further to reduce United States and Russian nuclear arsenals; and an agreement among the nuclear- weapon States on reciprocal no-first-use undertakings and of a non-use undertaking by them in relation to the non-nuclear-weapon States.”

    1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)

  3. “We must now keep up the positive momentum generated by the adoption of the Treaty. This brings me to the second task: developing new ideas. Because building institutions and strengthening international instruments will not be enough, the international community must also develop imaginative new ways of guiding the world into the next century. The Australian Government established the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons to address the questions of whether a nuclear-weapon-free world is feasible and, if so, the measures which could be taken to attain that objective. I am delighted to confirm that the Commission has more than met Australia’s expectations. Its report will make a major contribution to international thinking and discussion on nuclear disarmament.”

    1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)

  4. “This Treaty was wanted and needed, but it has also helped change the international climate. We can now reasonably hope and expect that nuclear testing will not be part of the future to be faced by succeeding generations. In a world with a mixed history on controlling the development and spread of destructive weaponry, that is something of which we can all be proud. The Treaty must become universal. We urge all those countries that have not yet done so to sign and ratify the Treaty as soon as possible so that it can be fully implemented as quickly as possible. There is no merit in the argument that says that, because there is more to be done in nuclear-arms control and disarmament, we should in some way scorn or reject a Treaty that bans all nuclear explosions forever. This ban has intrinsic value.”

    1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)

  5. “As we pursue these priorities in the multilateral system, we should keep firmly in mind that progress in regional security, particularly in regions of weapons- proliferation concern, will make a crucial contribution. The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty is of course the immediate priority. Its adoption by the General Assembly and its opening for signature on 24 September 9 were major milestones for the international community. The Treaty is a product of our times. It flows from a long and commonly held global concern. Its death was something the international community simply could not allow. Australia was therefore prepared to take the lead in bringing the Treaty to the General Assembly. The overwhelming support for the resolution demonstrated the strength of international feeling against nuclear testing.”

    1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)

  6. “These priorities for international cooperation are to make the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and its enhanced review process operate more effectively; to strengthen the International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards; to achieve an early start for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons; to reach early agreement on effective verification machinery for the Biological Weapons Convention; to pursue the goal of a global ban on anti-personnel landmines in conjunction with a global approach to the problem of demining; and to achieve a ban on the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons.”

    1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)

  7. “In Australia’s view, two tasks are fundamental: first, building and strengthening international institutions and instruments; and secondly, developing new thinking in arms control and disarmament so as to push the international agenda forward in constructive and realistic ways. To achieve progress with institutions and instruments, Members of the United Nations need to work together on at least six priorities.”

    1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)

  8. “Whether by paying its financial contributions in full and on time, by providing personnel to peacekeeping operations or through its contributions to development programmes, Australia has been determined to see the United Nations succeed. I commit Australia today to continuing such involvement in the work of the United Nations. At present, a window of opportunity in arms control and disarmament is open to us. If we do not take it soon, it will close. Large and sophisticated nuclear and conventional arsenals continue to exist. In a number of regions, suspicions remain close to the surface. The risks of the spread of weapons of mass destruction have, in certain respects, increased.”

    1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)

  9. “It is for these reasons — the nature of the opportunities we have before us, the problems we face and the unique role and capability of the United Nations — that we must keep last year’s promise of a United Nations fit for the challenges of the twenty-first century. Australia’s particular commitment to the United Nations is founded on the belief, articulated as far back as the 1950s by the then Foreign Minister, Richard Casey, that the United Nations represents the practical effort of the Governments and peoples of the world to attain the high goals to which they are pledged through the United Nations Charter: international peace and security and the economic and social advancement of all peoples. Australia has contributed readily to achieving those goals.”

    1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)

  10. “Our dynamic times have presented us with new problems. Such problems include the major non-military threats to security: the clandestine arms trade, the narcotics trade, HIV/AIDS, the need to stabilize the rate of growth of the world’s population and major threats to the environment. The elemental characteristics of such non-military threats to security are that they cannot be defeated by weapons. They cross state boundaries and they can affect whole populations. These characteristics lead to one central conclusion, that is, action on these problems must be the subject of international cooperation. Multilateral cooperation can, does and must take many forms. But the role of the United Nations is unique because of its universality and because of the rules we find in the Charter of the United Nations.”

    1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)

  11. “The landscape that was revealed at the end of the cold war, just a little over five years ago, has many new features, some of which are still not clear. What is clear, however, is that we face new challenges and that we have new opportunities that few of us would have imagined five years ago. The most compelling of these opportunities is to take future steps in nuclear-arms control and disarmament. The possibility of taking such steps is surely a principal outcome of the end of the cold war. This was firmly underlined last Tuesday when, in a single day, 67 countries signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. That number, only a week later, is now nearly 100. But beyond this achievement lies another major opportunity, which is to turn our national and international attention to enhancing human security in all its aspects.”

    1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)

  12. “I should like to extend warm congratulations to Mr. Razali on his election as President of the General Assembly. As a close neighbour of Malaysia, Australia will confidently rely on his experience and sound judgement as he presides over this important session of the Assembly. I feel greatly honoured to be leading for the first time the Australian delegation to a session of the General Assembly. A year ago, when the Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations, it made an important promise: to give to the twenty-first century a United Nations that would serve effectively the peoples in whose name it was established. We must keep that promise, but to do so we 8 will need a clear view of contemporary circumstances and of those which we can see unfolding into the twenty-first century.”

    1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)