The anti-nuclear protest movement was succeeded with the passing of the 1987 Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament & Arms Control Act. The seeds for this piece of legislation were set in the 1950’s with the newly formed Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).  This along with the increasing fear that nuclear war would cause the wipe out of all life on Earth, through events such as the Cold War, French testing in the Pacific and the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima encouraged more people to support nuclear disarmament and other peace movement aims.  

In 1959 New Zealand, responding to rising public concern following British hydrogen bomb tests in Australia and the Pacific, voted in the United Nations to condemn nuclear testing. Around this time the CND implored the New Zealand government to declare to the world that they would not attempt to acquire nuclear weapons and to withdraw from groups such as ANZUS with nuclear ties.

Anti-Nuclear protest in New Zealand began after a string of frequent and persistent nuclear testing in the Pacific. The most prolific of these testers in terms of testing in the Pacific, were the French and groups such as the CND protested against the French frequently. For instance one of the most significant test was on the Mururoa Atoll, and many more events were protested against also.