Between September 11–13, the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC) will host a weapons bazaar that ought to be called “The Merchants of Death”.
The times for these merchants are positively bullish, given that total global military expenditure exceeded US$2.4 trillion last year, an increase of 6.8% in real terms from 2022.
The introductory note to the event is mildly innocuous. “The Land Forces 2024 International Land Defence Exposition is the premier platform for interaction between defence, industry and government of all levels, to meet, to do business and discuss the opportunities and challenges facing the global land defence markets.”
The website goes on to describe the Land Defence Exposition as “the premier gateway to the land defence markets of Australia and the region, and a platform for interaction with major prime contractors from the United States and Europe”.
At the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre in 2022, the event attracted 20,000 attendees, 810 “exhibitor organisations” from 25 countries, and ran 40 conferences, symposia and presentations.
From 30 nations, came 159 defence, government, industry and scientific delegations.
Land Forces 2024 is instructive as to how the military-industrial complex manifests. Featured background reading for the event involves, for instance, news about cultivating budding militarists. Where better to start than in school?
From August 6, much approval is shown for the $5.1 million Federation Funding Agreement between the Australian government and the state governments of South Australia and West Australia to deliver “the Schools Pathways Program (SPP)” as part of the Australian government’s Defence Industry Development Strategy.
The program offers school children a chance to taste the pungent trimmings of industrial militarism: visits to military facilities, “project-based learning” and presentations.
Rather cynically, the SPP co-opts the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) aspect of government policy, carving up a direct link between school study and the defence industry.
“We need more young Australians studying STEM subjects in schools and developing skills for our future workforce,” insisted education minister Jason Clare. It is hard to disagree with that, but why weapons?
There is much discontent about the Land Forces exposition.
Victorian Greens MP Ellen Sandell and federal MP for Melbourne Adam Bandt wrote to Premier Jacinta Allan asking her to call off the arms event.
The party noted that such companies as Elbit Systems “and others that are currently fuelling … Israel’s genocide in Palestine, where 40,000 people have now been killed — will showcase and sell their products there”.
Allan icily dismissed such demands.
Disrupt Land Forces, which boasts 50 different activist collectives, has been preparing.
Defence Connect reported as early as June 4 that groups, including Wage Peace — Disrupt War and Whistleblowers, Activists & Communities Alliance, were planning to rally against the Land Force exposition.
The usual mix of carnival, activism and harrying have been planned over a week, with the goal of ultimately encircling the MCEC to halt proceedings.
Ahead of the event, the Victorian Labor government, the event’s sponsor, has mobilised 1800 more police officers from the regional areas.
Victorian police minister, Anthony Carbines, did his best to set the mood. “If you are not going to abide by the law, if you’re not going to protest peacefully, if you’re not going to show respect and decency, then you’ll be met with the full force of the law.”
Let’s hope the police observe those same standards.
Warmongering press outlets, the Herald Sun being a stalwart, warn of the “risks” that “Australia’s protest capital” will again be “held hostage to disruption and confrontation”, given the diversion of police.
Its August 15 editorial demonises the protesters, swallowing the optimistic incitements on the website of Disrupt Land Forces.
The editorial notes the concerns of unnamed senior police fretting about “the potential chaos outside MCEC at South Wharf and across central Melbourne”, the context for police to mount “one of the biggest security operations since the anti-vaccine/anti-lockdown protests at the height of Covid in 2021–21 or the World Economic Forum chaos in 2000”.
Were it up to these editors, protesters would do better to stay at home and let the Victorian economy, arms and all, hum along.
The merchants of death could then go about negotiating the mechanics of murder in broad daylight; Victoria’s government would get its blood fill; and Melbournians could turn a blind eye to what oils the mechanics of global conflict.
The protests will, hopefully, shock the city into recognition that the arms trade is global, nefarious and indifferent as to the casualty count.
[Binoy Kampmark lectures at RMIT University.]