Fremantle mayor Brad Pettitt joined peace-loving locals to plant gingko biloba trees with a direct link to the August 1945 atomic attack on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

WE’RE two minutes from an apocalyptic midnight.

That was the bleak assessment from the atomic scientists monitoring the Doomsday Clock, who earlier this year set its deadly hands closer to a global catastrophe than ever before.

And with US president Donald Trump’s threats to withdraw from several nuclear arms treaties as a backdrop, there was an extra gravity to local ceremonies marking the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, says federal Labor MP Josh Wilson.

In June, he tabled a motion in Parliament calling on the Morrison government to step up Australia’s efforts to create a more peaceful world.

“In the last few years we have seen missile tests in North Korea, moves by the US and Russia towards hypersonic missiles and smaller so-called ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons, the likely collapse of the Open Skies treaty, and the prospect that the START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) agreement may not be renewed in February 21,” Mr Wilson said.

“Australia has a strong legacy of work in this space, and it is a tradition we should honour by taking-up again, with renewed creativity and commitment.”

Mr Wilson joined Cockburn mayor Logan Howlett and kids from 16 local primary schools to plant ornamental pear trees around Anning Park in South Lake and release a pair of doves.

In Fremantle two trees from seeds donated by the mayor of Hiroshima were planted in the city’s Peace Grove on the corner on Dick Lawrence Oval by mayor Brad Pettitt and about 25 peaceniks. The gingko biloba seeds came from a tree that survived the attack on Hiroshima.

by STEVE GRANT