Client State: Australia the “51st state of the US” for deadly weapons production
Australia is licensed to produce “unguided dumb missiles” which explode shrapnel, killing all soft targets within 50m of the blast, and causing lethal harm to those within a 150m blast radius. Farah Abdurahman confronts the shroud of secrecy over weapons sales to Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of Israel.
In the same week that the Australian prime minister, along with a number of senior parliamentarians were referred to the International Criminal Court for complicity in genocide, negotiations to make Australia the quasi 51st US state for weapons production gains momentum.
According to the New York Times, Australia is on the verge of producing thousands of GMLRS guided missiles – the multiple launch rocket system that can hit targets from more than 80kms away with 90kgs of explosives.
The weapons will be produced at the Mulwalla explosives factory in NSW.
Australia is already licensed to produce M107 155mm artillery shells which are unguided dumb missiles with poor accuracy. They are designed to explode shrapnel, killing all soft targets within 50m of the blast, and causing lethal harm to those within a 150m blast radius.
In August 2023, prior to the assault on Gaza, Israel bought $60 million worth of 155mm shells produced by Elbit systems, the same arms manufacturer based on occupied Palestinian land in Haifa, and whose bombs are currently raining down on Gaza.
Last December, Greens Senator David Shoebridge acquired documents under the Freedom of Information Act, which detailed Australia’s Future Fund had invested almost half a million dollars directly into Elbit systems, despite it being formerly blacklisted due to ethical concerns relating to activities in the occupied Palestinian territories.
“This investment is in addition to the hundreds of millions that Future Fund has invested in its broad aerospace and defence portfolio such as Boeing, BAE Systems, Thales, Lockheed Martin and Rheinmetall AG who are all producing weapons currently employed in the genocide on Gaza,” Shoebridge said.
In total, the FOI document revealed that Future Fund had invested more than $650M in 30 ‘Aerospace and Defence’ companies as of October 31, 2023.
This includes:
$71.3M in Lockheed Martin, manufacturer of the F-35 fighter jets that Israel uses in the bombing of Gaza;
$43M in Northrop Grumman Corp, which produces artillery and mortar systems and battle tanks;
$3.5M in Thales, a manufacturer of assault rifles, sophisticated surveillance, and weapons control systems; and
$72.4M to RTX Corporation (formerly Raytheon), which produces Patriot Missiles used by the Israel Defence Force.
“There has been an ongoing push by the Coalition and Labor for at least a decade to make Australia one of the top tier global leaders in weapons export,” Shoebridge said.
“Australian leaders openly wanting to become the 51st US state for the purpose of arms production is concerning, to say the least. I doubt there has been full consideration made to the international legal ramifications of being part of the US military-industrial complex and its supply chains.
“It is implicit in the US that by accepting any transfer of military tech to Australia that we will have to follow them into a military conflict with China. If there was any question about our loyalty in willingness to follow the US in such conflicts, we would be denied access to these military exports.”
Complete surrender
This move demonstrates a complete surrender of our sovereignty and removes any capacity we have to form an independent military policy and foreign policy.
Senator Shoebridge said the move to produce US arms on Australian soil provided a loophole for the US government to bypass its own stringent congressional reporting and review processes around weapons exports.
In February 2023, incumbent US President Joe Biden signed the National Security Memorandum on the United States Conventional Arms Transfer Policy.
Under Section 2: United States Conventional Arms Transfer Policy Scope and Objective, the document states that the CAT Policy must support the following US foreign policy and national security objectives:
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