During the 1950s and 60s, the British carried out testing of 12 nuclear bombs which were comparable to the one dropped on Hiroshima at Maralinga and Emu Field in South Australia, and Monte Bello in Western Australia.
Some Australians say that there are still high levels of radiation around the area which are having an effect on locals.
Sue Coleman-Haseldine claims that in the area where she grew up in Kokatha, radiation poisoning is still giving people cancer and leading to serious birth defects.
Ms Coleman-Haseldine told News.co.au: “Australia is totally radioactive.
“There’re so many deaths from different cancers. Myself and my granddaughter don’t have thyroids as they’ve been removed. The defects in newborn babies are heartbreaking.
“If you ask one of the young ones [in her South Australian community], ‘What do you think you’ll die from?’ they’ll say ‘cancer’ because that’s what everyone else dies from. The Government is doing nothing at all. They don’t want to know.
“As people of Australia, we all need to join forces — everybody: black, white and brindle — and shame the government to sign this treaty to ban nuclear weapons.”
As a result of the claims, the Australian International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has called for a global ban on nuclear weapons, particularly in the current political climate.
ICAN’s Asia-Pacific director Tim Wright said: “In many ways the world is more dangerous today than it was back then.
“The question for the Australian public is, ‘Do you feel safer knowing that President Trump has his finger on the trigger for 7000 nuclear weapons or does that make you feel less safe?’
“I think most people would conclude it makes them feel less safe.”
ICAN’s executive director Beatrice Fihn said when accepting the Nobel Peace Prize recently: “We have a choice; the end of nuclear weapons or the end of us.”