The recent brutal suppression of protests against the Land Forces Expo in Melbourne shows Albanese’s Labor government is deadly serious about preparing for war on China and ramping up arms manufacturing in Australia.
Land Forces saw weapons companies like US-based Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman as well as Israeli firms Elbit, Rafael and IAI (Israel Aerospace Industries), all responsible for making the killing machines used in Gaza, spruik their products to governments—including our own.
The Australian Army was a key supporter of Land Forces and representatives from every state and territory government were present.
A report in June from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (APSI), a thinktank funded by the Department of Defence, tells Albanese that, “if you want peace, prepare for war”.
Preparing for war on China
Labor is raising defence spending by an average of 6.6 per cent a year over the next decade, reaching $100 billion annually by 2033-34.
Projected defence spending between now and 2035 will total an astronomical figure of $764 billion, with more than $58 billion being spent on the initial cost of acquiring nuclear submarines over the next ten years.
Ramping up the production of missiles locally is another one of the government’s targets.
As The Sydney Morning Herald explains, this is part of the government’s grandly titled Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance Enterprise (GWOE), spending around $21 billion over the next decade “to develop a sovereign ability to produce, maintain, repair and overhaul high-priority weapons”.
Labor also hopes to make money exporting them, selling weapons to murderous regimes from Israel to Indonesia, and from Saudi Arabia to the United States.
Albanese has pledged $850 million to start making long range strike missiles at a factory near Newcastle within three years, in a partnership with Norwegian defence giant Kongsberg.
These naval strike missiles and joint strike missiles have a range of over 275 kilometres and will be the first of their kind built outside of Norway. The government is spending another $142 million to buy joint strike missiles produced overseas to arrive next year.
Genocide profiteers Lockheed Martin are also partnering with Albanese’s government to start making guided multiple launch rocket systems (GMLRS) in Australia from next year.
GMLRS are missile systems often mounted on trucks that can fire rockets in quick succession against targets 70 kilometres or more away. Ukraine has used them strike targets accurately within metres.
Lockheed Martin Australia and Thales Australia have also signed an agreement that could lead to collaborating on manufacturing solid rocket motors for the Australian market, which are essential for GMLRS missile systems and other missiles.
The government has committed $22 million for rocket motor manufacturing and is seeking an industry partner.
Missile stocks
However, Labor’s plans for missile production rely heavily on US information sharing and technical assistance, and access to global supply chains.
Anxious war-hawks based at Sydney University’s US Studies Centre writing for The Strategist argue that “both Australia and the United States need this partnership to deliver.
“US officials have described efforts with Australia to build collective defence production capacity as a blueprint for similar initiatives with other partners.”
The war in Ukraine and Israel’s genocide in Gaza—and now its assault on Lebanon—have depleted US missile stocks and put a strain on production, sounding alarm bells among US policymakers.
Moreover, The Strategist reports that war games modelled by US think tank CSIS predicts that the US would “exhaust stocks of key long-range missiles less than one week into a war to defend Taiwan”.
Defence Minister Richard Marles also wants to maintain and repair more US equipment in Australia and celebrated that “last year, Sikorsky Australia in Nowra conducted the first-ever deep maintenance activity on a US Navy MH-60R Seahawk ‘Romeo’ helicopter”.
The US ruling class is willing to unite with Australia to increase both countries’ military capacity for war on China, and to ensure that key allies like Israel have enough missiles to set the Middle East afire.
Labor is fully committing to the drive to war on China and is anxious to develop the arms industry needed for the task.
By deepening collaboration and interoperability with the US, the Australian ruling class is seeking to show that it can be relied upon to produce enough munitions not just for Australia, but to supplement the US too.
We need to oppose Australia’s growing arms industry and the drive to war on China, and to stop weapons and weapons parts being sent to Israel as it continues to commit genocide in Gaza and provoke regional war.
By Luke Ottavi
