In 2025 ICAN Australia, which Quakers are a partner organisation, asked for a boost of advocacy ahead of the July 2026 ALP National Conference. The advocacy is to encourage the Government to act on Labor’s policy to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
In response to this request, a group of Quakers concerned about nuclear weapons formed in late 2025 under the auspices of the Quaker Peace & Legislative Committee (QPLC), and including links with Quakers Aotearoa and the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) Asia West Pacific. The group asked what would be the best Quaker contribution to this work. After a meeting for worship, the group discerned that the central Quaker contribution was to sponsor a visit to Australia of Pacific Christians to speak of their nuclear experience, thereby also building relationships
and understanding between us and our Pacific neighbours. The group also supported Friends to advocate to their local parliamentarians and others supported International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) in lobbying and at stalls at State Labor Conferences.
In early 2026, a total of $20,000 was granted from three Quaker funds to support an advocacy tour with the Pacific Conference of Churches – The Thanksgiving Fund; The Quaker Peace and Social Justice Fund; and the Victorian Quaker Fund.
This visit was described as transformational for the visitors, for ICAN and Quakers involved. For the Quaker working group, it was an experience in the Spirit showing us what to do, how to do it, and enabling us to do it. In this exercise we listened to our Pacific neighbours, and along with ICAN, we co-created. We sought to embody our goals of decolonisation and taking up a regional perspective in our witness. This was the first time that QPLC undertook such a venture — to oversee the tour program of an
outside group. It was a courageous step for QPLC and the working group, and a learning experience for us all in inter-cultural learning and engagement.
The Peace Pilgrimage built relationships and established friendships with the Pacific Conference of Churches, First Nations Peoples, the International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons, the National Council of Churches, the Victorian Council of Churches, members of the ALP., the Coalition, and the Greens, the Pasifika Community, ANU, and the staff at Silver Wattle. It has been said that we started with a project, and ended up with relationships.
The pilgrimage provided an opportunity for spiritual growth. It raised the issues of nuclear disarmament and demilitarisation, climate change, justice for First Nations Peoples, decolonisation of our spirituality. It provided the basis for further collaboration.