- The Guardian
- Issue #2201
Bevan Ramsden. Photo: Supplied
It is with great sadness that we share the news that Bevan Ramsden passed away on 27 July 2026.
Bevan was an integral member of IPAN, a mainstay of the organisation from when he joined in 2015, and the editor of our monthly publication, Voice. He was a husband, father, grandfather, mentor and friend to many.
Others knew him through the movement for Australian independence, through his writing, his radio broadcasts, his workshops, or by having the fine print of the Force Posture Agreement patiently explained by a man who had read every clause.
For more than sixty years, Bevan dedicated himself to the pursuit of an independent, peaceful and sustainable Australia, free from US domination. Right to the end of his life, he remained as active and committed as ever. Days before his passing, he spoke at IPAN’s National Conference, ‘Time to Break Free from the US.’ Humorous as ever, he negotiated for more time on the stage, shared poetry, and he honoured those whose work he built his own upon.
Bevan was optimistic in his last week. Friends say he believed this conference represented the culmination of decades of work and struggle for Australia’s independence and peace. It brought together ideas, campaigns and people he had spent a lifetime helping to build.
Born in Thornbury, Melbourne, in 1939, Bevan travelled to Zambia as an Australian Volunteer Abroad. The two years he spent there, witnessing first-hand the enduring legacies of colonialism, racism, and struggles for national independence, profoundly shaped his political outlook and set the direction of the rest of his life. Returning to an Australia at war, Bevan threw himself into the growing movement against the Vietnam War and conscription.
As a Sunday school teacher and active member of the Doncaster Methodist Church, he sought to encourage discussion of Australia’s role in Vietnam within their church community. When those efforts were repeatedly resisted by church leaders, Bevan eventually left organised religion. Throughout his life he continued to work alongside people of every faith and background in pursuit of peace, justice, and human dignity.
Bevan became one of the leading organisers of the Diamond Valley Moratorium Group. When Dr Jim Cairns was asked in Federal Parliament whether communists were directing the Vietnam Moratorium Campaign, he replied that the motion to hold the Moratorium march had been moved by “Bevan Ramsden, a Sunday school teacher.”
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Bevan was arrested several times for opposing conscription and Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War, on one occasion spending several days in Melbourne’s Pentridge Prison. During the 1970s he also became active in the Australian Independence Movement, campaigning against US military installations such as Pine Gap and North West Cape, while advocating for an Australia free from foreign military, economic and cultural domination.
Bevan was instrumental in the founding of Melbourne community radio station, 3CR in 1976 using a second-hand transmitter purchased from the local fire brigade for $200 and salvaged studio equipment from ABC Adelaide. Fifty years later, he was still behind the microphone, presenting a regular program with his friend Andrew Fullerton.
His commitment to grassroots organising extended well beyond the peace movement. He worked as a telecommunications engineer, taught electrical engineering at TAFE, and was a proud member of the NSW Teachers Federation.
He played a leading role in the United Melbourne Freeway Action Group, helping mobilise community opposition to plans that would have transformed Melbourne with an extensive urban freeway network. Bevan also worked tirelessly opposing AUKUS and nuclear submarines. He was one of the initiators and a founding member of the Australian Anti-AUKUS Coalition established in March 2022.
Whatever the issue, Bevan believed that lasting change came when ordinary people organised together. That conviction never left him. He remained an active organiser throughout his life, generously sharing his knowledge at IPAN conferences. In everything he did, Bevan sought to make the world more peaceful, more democratic and more humane.
