The Albanese government is enmeshing Australia into Trump’s nuclear war planning. Hamish McPherson says ALP members must fight back.
The Albanese government is in a headlong race to embrace AUKUS, the alliance with Trump’s USA and dangerous new levels of militarism.
The recent Arms Expo in Sydney displayed weaponry made by companies such as Elbit Systems and Rafael Advanced Defence Systems that are used by Israel to kill and main Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the West Bank.
While people of conscience protesting outside faced pepper spray, inside Defence Minister Richard Marles hailed the “beautiful, menacing and extremely cool” military equipment on display.
Also inside, with more pepper spray rhetoric, was Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy, who said the government made “no apology” for continuing to source military technology from Israel, “We make decisions in the national interest and will not apologise for ensuring the ADF has the best technology available,” he said.
That’s the ‘best technology’ made by Israel’s leading military company and supplier to the Israeli Defence Forces committing genocide in Gaza. In September this year the Australian government signed a deal to purchase $20 million worth of missiles for infantry vehicles from Elbit Systems. On top of the $917 million contract already awarded to Elbit to build the overall “iron fist” defence systems for the infantry vehicles.
Professor Donald Rothwell, an expert in international law at the Australian National University, told Guardian Australia that Israeli defence companies like Elbit Systems were “directly implicated in Israel’s alleged acts of genocide in Gaza … As such, Australia should not be engaged in any trade that supports that type of activity.”
But why would these ministers care about matters of war crimes and international law – when we can have such “beautiful, menacing and extremely cool” weaponry?
Marles and Conroy were recently in Washington where they signed a deal with the US Department of War and Lockheed Martin Corporation to co-produce long range guided missiles with a maximum firing range of over 500 kilometres.
The Albanese government is investing of up to $21 billion over the next decade to establish a Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance (GWEO) Enterprise, including a joint AUS-US office in Huntsville, Alabama to co-ordinate the missile production. That’s because, according to the ministerial press release, the deal “also recognises the Australian government’s objective to manufacture guided weapons that could be integrated into the US-led global supply chain”.
Not content to be investing billions in destructive conventional weaponry, Marles and Albanese are also trashing Labor’s long held anti-nuclear policy stance. Marles let it be known on the recent ABC Four Corners that Australia won’t be signing the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
This flouts the unanimous decision of the 2018 National Conference that commits the ALP to sign the Treaty in government, a resolution moved by Albanese himself and seconded by Marles.
Evidently times have changed, with AUKUS we are now ‘All the way’ with Donald J Trump and the US war machine. As so often on matters of state, the ALP leadership undemocratically pulls rank on the party and membership.
As Marles diplomatically describes the middle finger: “What’s really clear is that the conference understands that this is a decision of government … a decision of Labor in government.”
The reasons for this shift are deeply troubling. As reported by the ABC’s Angus Grigg:
Anxious that President Donald Trump will abandon the region, Australia is looking for ways to accommodate the US alliance.
That will see the US nuclear-capable B-52 bombers rotating through Tindal air base south of Darwin. In addition, US Virginia-class submarines docking at HMAS Stirling near Perth could, in the future, be carrying nuclear weapons.
Shamefully, under a Labor government, Australia is becoming a base for the US nuclear weapons arsenal for use in a potential future war with China.
That clearly makes Australia more of a nuclear target.
The capitalist world order is highly unstable, with rising Great Power tensions between the US and China, and the return of nuclear brinkmanship.
In a sign of the rising danger, Trump has instructed the Pentagon to start “immediately” testing nuclear weapons, for the first time since 1992.
Ignoring both party policy and community opinion, sections of the Australian government and military state are in favour of Australia joining the ‘elite’ club of nuclear nations via the AUKUS agreement. In their distorted militarist world view, it’s a win to be hosting US nuclear capable forces, and to be acquiring our own nuclear powered submarine fleet.
Our rulers are deluded and leading us ever closer to the danger of a devastating war.
ALP members must rebel
Within the Labor Party there should be outcry about this open shift to nuclear militarism. As party activists we should fight to bring the MPs and Ministers under the firm democratic control of the party membership, to implement the objectives, platform and policies as determined by National Conferences.
According to the Constitutional Objectives of the Australian Labor Party it stands for, “maintenance of world peace; an independent Australian position in world affairs; the recognition of the right of all nations to self-determination and independence; regional and international agreement for arms control and disarmament” (ALP Constitution 5-u).
None of these objectives are met by buying weaponry from Israeli companies arming the genocide, pouring billions into building long-range cruise missiles or hosting US nuclear weapons in our ports and airfields.
Despite relentless government and media commentary about the supposed threat posed by China and need for AUKUS, the public largely remains sceptical or unsure. Recent polling by the Australia Institute of 1500 people found a sharp decline in public trust in the US alliance since the second Trump presidency began.
Questioned about the US alliance only 32 percent favoured a ‘closer alliance’, while 46 percent favour a ‘more independent’ foreign policy.
In relation to AUKUS, while 41 percent think it is in ‘Australia’s interests’, a full 59 percent either disagree or are unsure. The government has not won a clear social licence for the AUKUS policy and provides ample space for us to make the case against and build opposition to the militarist agenda.
The Albanese government is also facing rising opposition from within the labour movement. Labor Against War is stepping up its struggle within the party against AUKUS and militarism in the lead up to the National Conference next year.
Union activists are organising union coalitions for peace. The residents and unions of Wollongong and Port Kembla are fighting the prospect of being an east coast nuclear submarine base. Hundreds protested against the weapons expo in Sydney.
For while politicians and generals plan for and declare wars, its always working-class people on all sides that pay the price. That’s why we’re working across the labour movement and civil society to build a confident new anti-war movement to stop this madness.
Hamish McPherson
Labor Against War (Victorian Convener)
ALP members should join other party members in Labor Against War, which is organising the fightback against the leadership’s mad militarism
Join LAW by clicking this link or scanning the QR code below.
