Last June, the Group of Eight elite universities published a 168-page document detailing the potential for Australian universities to serve as a “strong foundation to turbocharging our efforts to support the AUKUS platform”.
AUKUS is a military agreement with the US and UK to supply Australia with nuclear-powered submarines as Australia gears up for war against China. Their cost of $368 billion includes funds for universities to develop the expertise required to operate them.
Universities are clamouring to present themselves as military research hubs to grab these funds. At the same time, they have been cutting back humanities courses and “streamlining” degrees, moving further towards being degree-factories serving the needs of capitalism.
As Melbourne University Deputy Vice-Chancellor (and former spy) Michael Wesley put it, “The Australian government has nominated defence as being paramount in the national interest. For a publicly funded institution to refuse to work on the security and safety of Australia and international stability would be a dereliction.”
Weapons company ties
Australian universities have supported military research for decades. ANU was established in large part to conduct nuclear weapons research. Universities have connections with weapons companies including Thales, Lockheed Martin and Boeing.
The Palestine movement has uncovered connections with companies which are directly involved in supplying the missiles and machinery for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
The University of Sydney (USyd) receives millions of dollars from the US and Australian military. Its Nanoscience Building hosts the Jericho Smart Sensing Laboratory, which develops nanotechnology for military aircraft and satellites that is then sold to companies like Thales. The company’s Australian chairperson, Belinda Hutchinson, was USyd Chancellor for more than a decade until last year. Thales has helped develop the Heron Combat Drones Israel uses to terrorise and slaughter Palestinians.
At the University of Technology Sydney a facility ominously named “The Vault” provides the “secure environment” necessary for cybersecurity and military research, as well as to facilitate “collaboration” between “private companies, academic institutions, and government entities”.
ANU was granted $500,000 by weapons company Safran to develop a pilot assistance system for helicopters. Safran provides Israel with battlefield targeting technology, as well as the mounted cameras and fingerprint scanners used to monitor Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
Academic ties to Israel
Australian universities also maintain academic ties to Israeli universities, offering joint PhD and exchange programs.
The University of Melbourne (UniMelb) runs a PhD program with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. HUJ’s main campus is on illegally occupied Palestinian land in East Jerusalem. It also maintains an on-campus military base that helps train Israeli personnel.
These exchange programs normalise and support the Israeli apartheid state.
Last year, a freedom of information request at USyd revealed a letter from the heads of Israeli universities to the heads of Australian universities which called for support for Israel in its “war on two fronts”—in Gaza, and for public opinion.
Last year Gaza solidarity encampments sprung up at universities across the country. The most significant was at UniMelb, where there was a concerted effort to win wide support among the student body.
This reached a peak in a ten-day occupation of the Arts West building, renamed “Mahmoud’s Hall” after a Palestinian student murdered by Israel who hoped to study at the university.
The movement will need to go much further to rid our campuses of all ties to Israel’s genocide.
University managements are now attacking the right to protest. There is an attempt to smear protests for Palestine as antisemitic. Pro-Palestine staff and students have faced disciplinary action, threatening to ban them from campus and suspend or expel them from university.
Many students will be rightly outraged by their universities’ complicity in an ongoing genocide. We must make sure they don’t get away with it.
By Maeve Larkins
