Who we are
ICAN AUSTRALIA
We are leading the movement for Australia to end its disarmament doublespeak by signing and ratifying the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. We are proudly independent, non-partisan and funded by donations from our community of supporters.
While our organisation is made up of a voluntary board, ambassadors and a small staff team, the success of the campaign rests on a broad-based movement for change involving a diversity of people and groups. Everyone has something to contribute.
AMBASSADORS
A Kokatha woman who lives in Ceduna in South Australia, Sue Coleman-Haseldine is a nuclear test survivor and outspoken advocate of Aboriginal culture and environmental protection. She was a child at Koonibba Mission when the British carried out nuclear testing at Emu Field and Maralinga in the 1950s and 60s. In 2014, she travelled overseas for the first time to tell 150 governments about the effects of nuclear testing on Aboriginal land, culture and people at the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons. Sue is a Co-President of the Australian Nuclear Free Alliance and was awarded the South Australian Premier’s award for excellence in Indigenous leadership in 2007 and the 2018 Jill Hudson Award for environmental protection. Sue participated in a national speaking tour, ‘Black Mist White Rain’, highlighting the humanitarian impacts of nuclear testing, in April 2016. She delivered a statement during the UN nuclear weapons ban treaty negotiating conference at the United Nations in March 2017 and attended the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony for ICAN in Oslo in December that year. Karina Lester is a Yankunytjatjara-Anangu woman who grew up on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands (APY Lands) in South Australia. Her father, the late Yankunytjatjara elder Yami Lester, was blinded by the ‘black mist’ fallout from the Totem 1 nuclear test at Emu Field in 1953. The Lester family has been a stalwart of nuclear resistance for decades. Karina works with the University of Adelaide’s Mobile Language Team as the Aboriginal Co-Manager and Language Worker, co-hosting the Nganampa Wangka radio show on Radio Adelaide about South Australian Aboriginal languages. Karina attended the 2015 World Nuclear Victims Forum in Hiroshima, Japan and spoke about the consequences of British nuclear testing on her family and Aboriginal people more broadly. Along with her sister, Kunmanara Lester, she travelled with the national Black Mist White Rain speaking tour in April 2016, highlighting the humanitarian impacts of nuclear testing in Australia and the Pacific. Karina and Kunmanara spoke at the women’s marches to “ban the bomb” in New York and Sydney, respectively, in June 2017. Karina delivered an Indigenous statement to the negotiating conference for the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons on behalf of 35 First Nations organisations. The statement helped to enshrine the rights of victims and impacted environments in the final agreement, as well as recognising the disproportionate impacts of nuclear weapon activities on Indigenous people worldwide.
Sue Coleman-Haseldine
Karina Lester
BOARD

Dr Margaret Beavis (Co-Chair)
Margie Beavis is a former general practitioner with a strong interest in public health. She teaches at Melbourne University and is the immediate past president of the Medical Association for Prevention of War. She is convenor of Quit Nukes, a joint campaign of ICAN Australia and MAPW, working with Australian superannuation funds to be nuclear weapons-free.
STAFF

Gem Romuld, Director
Gem Romuld is the Director for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Australia, advocating for the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. ICAN was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for its role in achieving the treaty. In 2021 Gem was awarded a Peace Woman award by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Australia.
Gem has worked with Australians for War Powers Reform and produced radio programs for 3CR Radio and the Community Radio Network. She has degrees in Communications and Law from the University of Technology, Sydney. Gem has been a multi-disciplinary campaigner for over a decade, and is dedicated to growing our collective power to build a better world. She is based on Dharawal land in Wollongong.
Email: gem@icanw.org