Alfred is out on the day the Flame meets Gem Romuld at her office on Atchison Street.

Gem is the Australian director at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and Alfred is her nickname for the Nobel Peace Prize.

“We call it Alfred, after Alfred Nobel, of course,” Gem says. “He is going to some events in Melbourne, then he comes back to me – he has his own calendar.

“Especially since 2017 [when ICAN won the prize], Alfred’s been very popular. We’ve taken him all around the country, shown him to groups of students. We’ve taken him to Parliament. And we’ve also taken him into remote places and put this medal in the hands of people who have been really impacted by nuclear weapons, to show that there is some progress.

“It’s the only Nobel Peace Prize that’s been awarded to an Australian originating organisation, and no Australian person has received it either.”

ICAN was recognised for helping to bring about a Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty against the odds.

“It was a major effort of about a decade to get to the treaty being negotiated and concluded at the UN in 2017,” Gem says. “It’s a pretty big story.”

Gem works in a small shared office with a couple of desks, a bat poster and a bed for her co-worker’s dog. It’s in a warehouse where a giant disco ball glitters and flowers hang from the rafters. The complex is home to everyone from event organisers to podcasters to candle makers. It is exactly the kind of humble abode where you would not expect to find a Nobel prize.

But this is not the movies. And instead of averting catastrophe with a last-minute dive to prevent Dr Evil from hitting the flashing red button (always red), Gem is fighting to keep the next generation safe from nuclear destruction one painstaking day at a time. She writes letters, website content and information booklets. She lobbies politicians, holds strategy meetings with colleagues, talks to journalists. She goes to the post office to mail fundraising appeals.

It’s all part of getting the message out.

“From the beginning of ICAN, there was a sense that we needed to balance humour, horror and hope,” Gem says.

“Hope is essential. Not a vague fingers crossed, thoughts and prayers kind of hope, but hope that has a toolbox and a plan and is directed.

“I think of that as hope with teeth.”

From horror to humour

Making videos or social media posts provides an opportunity to introduce humour, she says.

“One video we made involved carting a fake nuclear missile around the streets of Melbourne all in white coveralls, there’s radiation suits and face masks … and sticking it in the dumpster – to a soundtrack of (Don’t Want Your) Nuclear Umbrella based off Rihanna’s famous song.

“We also have an action squad called the Treaty Enforcement Squad who get dressed up in red coveralls and go to sites where the treaty is being breached. And make a point of saying, this site is non-compliant.”

Australia is in breach of the treaty, Gem says.

“We haven’t yet signed up. However, we do have a new government now and the Labor Party has committed that they will sign and ratify the treaty.”

Gem hopes Labor – including prime minister Anthony Albanese who she met before the election but has only passed in the corridors of power since – will make good on past promises when the party meets for its national conference in August.

“We still have work to do.

“It can be hard work and it can be demoralising. Because the forces that we’re working against are very powerful and we’re trying to shift a status quo that has been entrenched for decades now.”

Gem’s heroes range from Indian author Arundhati Roy to Hiroshima survivor and ICAN campaigner Setsuko Thurlow. “There are also a couple of First Nations women from South Australia, Aunty Sue Coleman-Haseldine and Karina Lester. Aunty Sue’s a Kokatha elder and Karina Lester is a Yankunytjatjara-Anangu woman.

“They too have been really outspoken about how nuclear testing has affected their lives, harmed their families, poisoned their country. And yet they have the strength to keep going and to speak out.”

Time off saving the planet

Gem has worked at ICAN for 10 years. These days she has a new and powerful source of inspiration – a baby girl, eight months old, who recently attended one of her first protests in a pram.

“Parenting is a great distraction from the woeful things that are happening in the news,” Gem says. “Even though it feels consequential as well, because it’s a world that she’s inheriting. So it feels like there is an even greater responsibility now to try to curtail the harmful use [of nuclear weapons].”

To wind down after work, Gem reads – she loves creative non-fiction, biography and poetry.

“Right now I’m reading a Rebecca Solnit book called Orwell’s Roses.” She gardens (a crop of okra recently made a great addition to a curry). And she goes bushwalking with her partner and their baby in a backpack. “We’re juggling having a small baby, which is a wonderful antidote really, because she’s so joyful … and you must be really present.

“Enjoying all of the magnificent things that this planet still offers us I think is very grounding and a good balance to doing this work.

“I love the Mount Keira ring track. I love the Escarpment walk from Austinmer to Coalcliff.
I love the walks in the Royal [National Park]. I love even just walking around North Wollongong and swimming in the rock pool.

“But I also feel very strongly that action is the antidote to despair.”

Protests for peace

In response to the idea of a base for nuclear-powered submarines in Port Kembla, Gem recently became a founding member of Wollongong Against War And Nukes (WAWAN). “That group is more broadly concerned about the increase of weapons industries in the Illawarra,” she says.

A veteran of countless protests since her first experience at a Walk Against Warming march in Sydney about 15 years ago, Gem was one of the speakers at an anti-war rally outside a defence industry conference in Wollongong on April 4.

“That was a great protest. There was probably about 70 or 80 people there, lunchtime on a Tuesday outside the Novotel. We had a great crew of speakers. Some musicians, Food Not Bombs providing food. Just a really good feeling to it.”

WAWAN is an informal mix of students, NGO workers, uni lecturers and residents. “We fundraise amongst ourselves to pay for stickers and T-shirts.  We’re just starting out, it’s really grassroots.

“Wollongong has a really incredible peace history actually. There was the Dalfram Dispute at Port Kembla, the Pig Iron Bob Dispute. The council itself has been a nuclear-free zone for a long time. The councillors also passed a motion supporting the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty.

“I think the opposition to a nuclear submarine base is really only just getting started.”

On May 6, the annual May Day unions rally will move to Port Kembla for the first time and march down Wentworth Street. “We want to see the energy transition and the nuclear submarine base is inconsistent with that.”

Worried? A simple act can help

It won’t make material for a Hollywood action thriller, but this Mother’s Day, there is something simple that parents can do for their children and their grandchildren: check their super fund isn’t supporting nuclear weapons companies.

“That’s one very tangible action you can take,” Gem says.“Currently, most super funds in Australia do have investments in nuclear weapons producers.

“QuitNukes.org has a list of most of the major super funds, and it has the research on there showing what their policies are. Those super funds are really sensitive to reputational damage. So hearing from their members, they do clock it.”

More info: ICANw.org.au