Arms supermarket to the world

by Tom Pearson

Australia is on the way to becoming the arms supermarket to the world. 
Defence Minister John Moore last year signalled that the Howard Government 
would implement policies which would result in the development of 
"significant Australian defence industries". By that he meant the global 
arms monopolies would be given more access to the country's scientific and 
industrial infrastructure for the production of weaponry and the technology 
to operate it.

In June last year a policy for expanding the arms industry in Australia was 
announced by Defence, Science and Personnel Minister, Bronwyn Bishop.

Its main aims are the wider integration of industry into defence by 
"establishing new ways to involve Australian industry across the spectrum 
of defence business", and increasing Australian arms exports. This will 
usher in a "cultural change" for the creation of one corporate "team" — 
"Team Australia".

Said Bishop at the time: "This is a policy soundly based on commercial 
realities as it is on strategic imperatives."

A couple of months after Bishop's announcement, Robin Southwell, head of 
the military aircraft division of British Aerospace, backed the policy 
announcements.

Speaking at Farnborough International 1998, the world's biggest arms 
bazaar, Southwell — former head of British Aerospace in Australia — said, 
"There are 80,000 people out there [in Australia] not working in the sector 
that could be. There are $1.6 billion in exports not being made".

British Aerospace, Lockheed Martin, General Electric, Boeing, Daimler 
Chrysler Aerospace: these big fish in the arms business and their hundreds 
of minnows, such as Tenix Defence Systems and Vision Abell, see the future 
of this wide brown land as a gigantic production house for the global trade 
in the tools of destruction, anchored strategically in the Asia-Pacific 
region.

The major arms manufacturers have plans for an arms industry in Australia 
initially exporting $2 billion per year.

So it was last week that Minister Moore announced the establishment of a 
new Federal Government advisory body, the Defence and Industry Advisory 
Council (DIAC).

"It will be the Government's peak consultative body for the defence 
industry and will advise me and the Government on key strategic issues 
related to defence policy for industry", said Moore.

During its first year DIAC will "oversee acquisition, reform, industry 
structure and partnering".

DIAC members include representatives from British Aerospace Australia, 
Boeing Australia and Thomson Marconi Radar as well as Tenix, Vision Abell 
and Ansett Australia. John Moore will chair and there are also 
representatives from the military and the Department of Defence.

There is a string of these military advisory groups comprised of government 
and industry members — the Capability Development Advisory Forum, the 
Industry Policy Consultative Forum, the Contracting Consultative Forum, the 
Commercial Support Program Consultative Forum, the Defence Exporters' 
Council, the Defence Acquisition Organisation and now DIAC.

So, while the Howard Government is taking the razor to every public service 
and has set its sights on completely dismembering organisations such as the 
ABC and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, there is 
plenty of taxpayers' money being poured into corporate consultative bodies 
looking at ways of expanding the military industrial complex and maximising 
the profits of the world's biggest arms corporations.

In addition Australia, as Southwell points out, already has more military 
scientists and engineers than all of South-East Asia. And as Andrew Johnson 
of Tenix Defence Systems put it: "The task we have set ourselves is to make 
sure we have created a business sustainable in the long term. You are going 
to see a lot more concentration in Australia."