Count the Nuclear Weapons Money at Parliament

On 24 October, the United Nations Association of New Zealand raised awareness of the massive amount of money that is allocated towards nuclear weapons by hosting an event at Parliament. This event was a part of the wider Count the Nuclear Weapons Money campaign organised by Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament.

Louisa Wall MP (Labour, PNND Deputy Chair), David Carter MP (National, former Speaker) and Jan Tinetti (Labour) all participated in the counting action. In total, $367 million was counted out and allocated towards the Sustainable Development Goals, as a part of the $1 trillion total being counted in New York.

The global nuclear weapons budget for the next 10 years is 1 trillion dollars. The manual counting of this sum aims to signify just how significant that amount really is, and how much good could be done by allocating the money instead towards the sustainable development goals (SDG). Counters were given the opportunity to choose which SDG they would like to allocate their amounts to. Notably, Quality Education (Goal 4), Gender Equality (Goal 5), and Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions (Goal 16) were allocated the most at this counting.

The United Nations Association of New Zealand would like to thank the following people for their help in organising this event:

• Alyn Ware (PNND Global Coordinator, UNANZ Special Officer Peace and Security)
• Liz Remmerswaal (World Beyond War)
• Barry Coates (Founder and CEO Mindful Money)
• Deidra McMenamin
• Fe Day

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