Tom Uren, a Labor minister in the 1970s and long-time anti-nuclear campaigner, says he hopes disarmament can happen despite scepticism about the Prime Minister's plan.
"I think there's concerns by major nations around the world that something should be done about proliferation and not only that, but the question of disarmament.
"Whilst there's nuclear weapons in this world, there's always that fear of that threat.
"I'm really pleased and very proud that as new Prime Minister, he has taken the initiative. It gives me great hope.''
Mr Uren says he hopes Australia and Japan can help make a difference to the nuclear disarmament debate.
"Because, after all, Japan is the only nation where a nuclear weapon has been dropped on them, exploded on them."'
The World War II veteran was a prisoner of war at Omuta - about 80 kilometres from Nagasaki - when the US dropped its second atom bomb in August 1945.
"I saw the discolouration of the sky and that never left me, that crimson colour that ... I didn't see the mushroom cloud ... I saw the crimson sky," Mr Uren said.
"Now, like every other prisoner of war, I was just glad, we didn't know what it was at the time, and I was glad that the war was over.
"But as I've lived and worked on anti-nuclear questions and understood the nuclear industry, I really do believe the dropping of a nuclear weapon on Japan was a crime against humanity."
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