Australia drops opposition to treaty banning nuclear weapons at UN vote

Penny Wong has said the government supports the new treaty’s ‘ambition of a world without nuclear weapons’. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP

Australia has dropped its opposition to a landmark treaty banning nuclear weapons in a vote at the United Nations in New York on Saturday.

While Australia was yet to actually join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the shift in its voting position to “abstain” after five years of “no” is seen by campaigners as a sign of progress given the former Coalition government repeatedly sided with the United States against it.