Protests against the Defence Industry Expo (D.I.E) called

11 06 2011

So those that know anything about South Australia will know that the Premier Mike Rann has been trying to brand the state “Australia’s Defence State” or something along those lines.  In short, we’re the place that builds the stuff our government uses to blow other parts of the world up.  Kudos to us.

Anyway.

Protests have been called for the 28th against an expo being put on by the Defence Industry to pimp their explosives to a series of international partners.  Adelaide Indymedia has published this background info for those interested:

According to the Defence Industry Expo’s own website: (www.defenceandindustry.gov.au) the Australian Government plans to replace 80 percent of its “war fighting” assets by 2020. This constitutes an “investment” of $150bn of taxpayers money.

While they brand this as “Defence” spending, the Australian Defence Force (ADF) has been fighting US wars that have nothing to do with the “defence” of Australia and its people.

In South Australia, tens of millions of dollars have been spent by the Rann Government to attract military industries to set up shop.

Weapons manufacturers will be concentrated in a walled precinct beside the Port River. Powerful US weapons manufacturers are even involved in “partnerships” with local public schools.

Is this how we imagined our future?

Left Unity has other ideas. We think taxpayers money should be spent on the creation of renewable industries and essential services like health, education, public transport and the like.

Why are thousands of public sector jobs being cut and services slashed while millions are being spent on the manufacture of weapons that are ultimately used to kill people in other parts of the world?

These weapons are being bought to help shore up the self-interested global military strategy of the United States. This course has caused people around the world, including Australians, needless suffering and loss in places like Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

It’s time we said No! to the “Defence State”.

You can find the facebook event page here.


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Categories : Politics

Racism, the Media and the non-existant “Gang of 49”

25 04 2010

While doing some unrelated research, I stumbled upon this article which reported on a protest undertaken by Indigenous People on the steps of Parliament house at the time when the “Gang of 49” was being painted as the greatest scourge to white, middle class Adelaidean populations.  Of course, there never was a “Gang of 49” and the mainstream media pretty much fabricated and overplayed all stories relating to said gang.  The most moving aspect of the article is not its content but the comments section below.  I’ve chosen a select few to be reproduced here;

“To you Michael Atkinson, what is ‘pure evil’ is the fact that the ancestors of the alleged “gang of 49″ were massacred for their country (land, water, minerals) by the colonists.

Today, your “south australia” is still a penal colony and for this reason the sovereign people of these many lands are still being marginalised by the so called “australian government” for the same ongoing reasons….minerals for your crown. Our minerals and our lands.

When did the Kaurna people cede their land to you and your business acquaintances, willingly and without harrassment??? When did any of us… NEVER!!

No wonder some our young people are turning to crime. It seems to be their only way out of a miserable life that they have being locked into since “colonialism” entered our lands.

The deeds you mention, pale in comparison to your own Snowtown murders of innocent pensioners.

When the human rights of aboriginal people is truly addressed by an independent body and ourselves and the past acknowledged and acted upon, maybe our young people will have a reason to feel proud and start turning their lives around. But you don’t want it this way. We are billionaires with a refugee problem because the colonial system only exists to exploit our minerals, therefore the colonists have a PROBLEM in admitting and accepting their own legal faults to their own people.

Theft is hardly something for any politician to be pointing a finger at.

This last effort to project and incite rasicm before the hopeful re-election of this or any political party is very clear to all. What gang of 49? Who did the head-count?” – Isobelle Dingaman


“I copied this from another thread and it pretty much sums up the current politicians. The discussion so far has produced many facts. These ageing politician-colonists are on borrowed time. East Germany’s socialist government also crumbled and fell, amongst it’s lies and ideals.

Those natives who think they are enjoying all of the fringe benefits of this white society are selling the bigger picture short. Any of you on a government paypacket needs to reassess his or her dependency and whether or not you are just making a difference to “yourself” and how you appear to fit in, OR do you really care about your heritage which is being slipped out from underneath you. AND you are slipping out from underneath your cousins, but in particular the state wards. Do you care about these vicitims of the system? Or do you care more about how they could make you look? You are all a meal ticket for these colonists and they thrive on the fact you want to look respectable. Are you disassociating yourselves from the state wards here? It’s not clear.

Take a look at history and see what these colonists as you call them have, which belongs to you, yours and others including the state wards. What I see here is a lot of fish who are all caught nicely on the colonist’s hook.

This lady below is very smart. She worked it out. How many are still in there saying the right words, but not making the difference? Puppets for the colonists helping the colonists to assimilate YOU. And yes, the target is your land hence your forgetfulness. You think you need to be “acceptable” and “blend in”. You don’t. You need to BE who you are or continually expect to have these rallies.

This or any government wants power over YOUR land even by default. Default being assimilation and the death of your elders and you believing that they are YOUR government. They aren’t !!!

“Grotesque amounts of money” that have not produced a single house.

Natasha Robinson | August 15, 2009

ABORIGINAL politician Alison Anderson yesterday labelled the $672 million indigenous housing program the biggest scandal she had seen in her political career, as Labor narrowly avoided being thrown from power in the Northern Territory.
…”I dreamed that I could help change things for Aboriginal people in the bush,” said the member for the central Australian seat of MacDonnell.

“I believed the Labor Party cared about Aboriginal issues, that Labor was the party for the Aboriginal cause. After four years in the system, I know I was wrong.

“Labor lives on the Aboriginal vote, it talks constantly about Aboriginal people, but what it’s really good at is spending Aboriginal money.” ” – Gerard Reiper

“I live in Adelaide and didn’t now anything about this rally. So much for the mainstream media and what passes for freedom of the press. Looks like the press has the freedom to make certain people and issues invisible.

A month or so ago, a house in Elizabeth occupied by an Aboriginal family was the subject of a home invasion by white supremacists who beat up the father of the house in front of his family. The mother and the children were also threatened. Not only wasn’t this on the front page of the Advertiser, it wasn’t in there at all!

Many thanks again to CPRT for the courage to report on this.” – Mike


“Could it be Mike that the Adelaide media are all embarrassed by their obliging assistance in generating what could be called malicious racism, for want on no real news to report?

On checking their stories to date it’s all alleged, suspected and “not exactly”. There is no hard evidence of an organised gang. And like Klynton says, if they were so organised, why are they getting caught.

It seems we have discovered the source of racism (not that we didn’t know) for as Isabelle points out, nothing could top the Snow Town premeditated, gruesome murders.

Then there’s the Canning Stock Route massacres and other sordid undealt with criminal offences against the first people of this country. Since when was it a crime to be here first?

No other race of people is treated with such contempt, particularly on their own soil and generally they don’t belong to an “alleged” gang to be kept at the bottom of the pile.

The majority of Australians are no longer buying into this racism generated by a failed or perhaps ambitious system. It sounds like a coverup to me, or perhaps Custer’s Last Stand.

ADELAIDE NOW: “suspected” members of the Gang of 49
ADELAIDE NOW: THE “alleged” ringleader of last week’s Gang of 49
ADELAIDE NOW: the latest crime wave by the “so-called” Gang of 49
ABC: It’s “not exactly” a gang of 49
TOPIX: the “so-called” Gang of 49
SIMON BLAKE: The people that believe that “the Gang of 49 is a myth”
KLYNTON WANGANEEN: we have to deal with the “fallacies” of a “GANG of 49”

So, who “so-called” this the Gang of 49?
Is it any wonder the City media have buried their head in shame? How can they back peddle now??” – Anthony G

Though it seems the media have found a new way of portraying First Nations people as the greatest threat to white colonial society.

…

These same experts – including police who sparked the gang name in January 2007 when then assistant commissioner Gary Burns revealed Operation Mandrake was monitoring a group of 49 primarily Aboriginal offenders held responsible for hundreds of crimes – now are backing away from the name “Gang of 49”.

This is despite the term’s broad use at the highest levels of our government and social-justice system, including by Social Inclusion Commissioner Monsignor David Cappo.

Members of the street gangs, primarily formed for street fighting, have a formal initiation, which generally involves bashing someone or “taking a hiding” themselves, and actively recruit new members.

Some gangs also recognise their membership with the use of American-style gothic gang tattoos.

Police spokeswoman Shelay Boothey said police were not aware of these gangs being linked to criminal activity.

“There is no evidence of the existence of any organised indigenous criminal gang structures,” Ms Boothey said.

And yet…

James Cook University researcher Laura Swanson, who last year spent four weeks mixing with 10 known Gang of 49 offenders, told a national criminology conference the young offenders were “amused” by the media attention given to the Gang of 49 and enjoyed the notoriety.

Ms Swanson said the gangs copied American gangs such as the “Crips,” “Bloods” and “Latin Kings”, adopting their image, music, clothing and language.

Some offend as a necessity – to gain peer approval and build self esteem, even collecting newspaper reports on themselves in a form of competition to see who can get the most coverage with their crimes.

Police have Operation Mandrake at the ready for the next wave of offending, but now face a much more sinister, dangerous and unpredictable enemy than first thought.

Police cannot be sure when they will strike, who will initiate the assault because of the scattering of this loosely linked network of criminals.

There is no Gang of 49 ringleader to monitor and shut down.

There is no pattern to their crimes.

There are many young Aborigines eager to join the ranks of their jailed heroes who terrorised shop keepers, bar staff, bakers and bankers with their brash, reckless onslaught which has logged more than 1000 offences over six years.

“While the Gang of 49 is a group largely consisting of indigenous males who are connected by kinship ties, it does not have an organised structure, actively recruit members or have an identifiable leadership,” Ms Swanson told the Australia and New Zealand Critical Criminology Conference, held at Monash University.

“This is complicated further by their interactions with other gangs that do fit more closely with conventional understandings.

“While there does appear to be evidence that formalised gangs do exist, the Gang of 49 has been elevated to a highly questionable gang status.

“For the Gang of 49, there is no identifiable leadership, criminal activity is sporadic and spontaneous and the `members’, while connected by kinship, live in suburbs all over the city of Adelaide.

“There is no apparent specific rationale other than opportunistic crime and while there is an engagement with criminal activity, again, it is opportunistic rather than planned and structured.”

The cells – which international terror expert Marc Sageman says appear to be similar in their establishment and operations to terrorist organisations – can be characterised by the nature of their crimes.

These cells are experts in their specialist fields of crime and are motivated by different rewards. Some have perfected the art of car theft and desire the adrenalin rush of a car chase, now going to the extreme of stalking victims with high-performance cars to steal.

Other clans want to party and strike at bottle shops for their bounty, while those groups wanting ready cash generally hit unsuspecting members of the public on the streets and in their cars.

The most established of the cells has progressed to armed robbery with larger cash loads in mind.

So, in summary, there is no “Gang of 49” but the “Gang of 49” is a loose confederation of degenerate young, black, Aboriginal terrorists out to terrorise suburbia and murder respectable white folk in their sleep, who we don’t know when will attack, but we know they exist and they’ll be out to get us. /sarcasm

Yeah, sure, there ain’t no racism in these parts.


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Categories : Politics

Expression

6 03 2010

A teenager has been arrested for listening to rap music in his card with the Windows down, while waiting for his mother.

Arrested for listening to explicit rap

A TEENAGER has been arrested for listening to what police deemed to be offensive rap music.

In what could be a legal test case, Nathan Michael Wilkie, 19, faces one charge of offensive behaviour after police arrested him while he was listening to music by underground rapper Kid Selzy on his car stereo.

Wilkie was parked outside a supermarket in Timboon, near Warrnambool, waiting for his mother, when he was arrested.

The Warrnambool Magistrates Court heard Wilkie was listening to rap with explicit lyrics such as “shut your f . . . . . . mouth bitch, f. . . motherf. . . . .”

The court was told the arresting officers found the music offensive and derogatory to females.

Mr Wilkie allegedly told officers: “You’re a joke, go do some real police work”.

The teenager is believed to be the first person charged under Australian law with offensive behaviour for listening to music.

Wilkie plans to plead not guilty when his case continues on June 11.

In a statement, Wilkie said he was thankful to have the support of Kid Selzy, who planned to attend the June hearing.

“As Selzy said, `I know what I mean and the people who buy it know what I mean, and that’s what really matters’,” Wilkie said.

“I have lost two of my best mates in the last couple of years in tragic circumstances and I feel that listening to his music relates to life.”

Kid Selzy, who gave his real name only as Jack, said he was astounded at the arrest. “It’s a joke that some kid’s been arrested for doing something that’s not illegal,” he said.

“It’s not illegal to have your windows down or to buy a CD. It seems to be a waste of taxpayers’ dollars. If profanity’s not your thing, don’t listen.”

And South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson, gets his Christian religious crazy on, yet again.

A GROUP that says video games and violence are like smoking and lung cancer has received tens of thousands of dollars in funding from SA Attorney-General and outspoken R18+ game critic Michael Atkinson.

An expert from the Australian Council on Children and the Media this week told a TV news program the link between violent games and youth violence was stronger than tobacco and cancer.

“It’s much greater than the effect of smoking on lung cancer,” psychologist Dr Wayne Warburton said.

It’s the strongest claim yet in the war of words over video game ratings which has heated up after a call for public input on the issue that drew 55,000 submissions.

A spokesman for Mr Atkinson told news.com.au his department provided an annual grant to the council under its trading name Young Media Australia.

The grant is to support a project called “Know Before You Go” that offers parents information about which films are suitable for children.

Relevance, you may ask?  Well this ties into the whole attitude of Australian instititutions towards censorship and expression.


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Categories : Politics

“AbortSA.com”

25 02 2010

Looming elections always bring the crazies out of the walls and especially so in Adelaide, notorious for its quiet, rigid, conservatism.  No one else seems to epitomise the more… extreme end of that conservatism than Trevor Grace, self-proclaimed saviour to the ‘unborn’, ‘pro-life’ fanatic who runs the website AbortSA.com.  The website uses bad science, scare tactics and horrific imagery in order to denounce ‘Abortionists’ and implicitly defame any woman who has sought and/or undergone an abortion.  Reading the section on ‘Rape and Abortion’ is so condescending and infuriating but when Mr Grace finally comes to make his point we are provided with the following nugget of wisdom;

“Practically, there are numerous legal problems with rape exception clause in an anti-abortion law; in that rape and incest pregnancies are easy to fake and hard to prove. After considering this problem and the statistics, a New Zealand commission in 1977 (on contraception, abortion and sterilisation) which suggested a significant liberalisation of New Zealand’s abortion law, recommended against allowing abortion for rape because the incidence of such pregnancies was too low, and the likelihood of false reports too high, to warrant a rape exception.

The appropriate response to rape and incest pregnancy is not abortion, but counselling, support and creative caring, to minimise the damage done by the crime rather than adding the evil of taking life to the crime of rape.“

Not even sure if I can be bothered explaining why this is, how should we say, ‘bullshit’.  Any talk of ‘minimising’ the ‘harm’ caused by rape is absurd, and especially when, like Mr Grace, you want the woman to give up her life, her time, her youth, her money, her freedom to give birth to, raise and care for the baby of the man who assaulted and raped you.  But then Mr Grace wouldn’t really understand, since he can’t get pregnant if someone decided to force themselves on him.

Anyway, there you have it.  Debunk, ridicule and insult at your leisure.


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Categories : Politics

4 11 2009

As posted originally on Slackbastard.org.  I strongly suggest following the links and even checking out some of the other stuff on his site to understand these people.

White supremacist group operating in Adelaide…

    • …and Brisbane, and Melbourne, and Sydney, and Perth…

      Above : Australian band ‘Open Season’ play a right ‘orrible song called ‘Australian National Socialist’. Open Season played Melbourne on September 12; the band is scheduled to play next year on the Gold Coast (a few days before Adolf Hitler’s birthday), along with Melbourne band ‘Ravenous’ and, apparently, a foreign group of neo-Nazi string-pluckers, tub-thumpers and warblers. Oh yeah: some of Open Season’s other song titles include ‘Kill the Poofs’ and ‘Nigger Hunt’, which suggests — and I admit that I could be wrong — that the boys may harbour some degree of hostility towards homosexuals and blacks…

White supremacist group operating in Adelaide
Sam Rodrigues
The Advertiser
November 3, 2009

AS racial tensions in Adelaide escalate, a white supremacist group is planning family fun days and using music to lure young people to its cause.

[See : Adelaide : City of Churches (And White Power), October 13, 2009.]

The South Australian chapter of “white racialist” group Blood and Honour Australia will hold a Christmas barbecue for like-minded people this month, in a “family-friendly environment”.

The group is promoting the event as its “white Xmas”.

The like-minded apparently excludes Asians, Africans, Indians, Jews, Arabs and other racial groups, as well as those with partners from these groups.

The national group, linked to international chapters, promotes music as the “powerful medium” of white resistance.

“We hold regular gigs around Australia for all those interested to attend and subsequently help a strong resistance grow,” its website said. “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”

Social Inclusion Commissioner Monsignor David Cappo has highlighted racism as a growing issue.

YouTube clips linked to Blood and Honour Australia feature violent clashes and highlight anti-Australia protests overseas – apparently to justify vilifying ethnic groups.

“In these dark times it’s our children’s future that is paramount and ultimately that’s what we’re all working for,” the website said. The group also holds regular “community building functions”.

Forums on its website and others linked to it have drawn comment on the stabbing death of Sudanese father Akol “Alex” Akok, 25, at suburban Ottoway last month. A spokesman for acting state Multicultural Affairs Minister Paul Holloway said he was reluctant to comment and give publicity to any such group.

Police could not say if they were monitoring the group, or its website. The group did not respond to interview requests yesterday.

Blood and Honour South Australian Section did not respond to email requests from The Advertiser for comment yesterday.

Melbourne media reported this weekend on a meeting of the group attended by members from across the country, particularly Adelaide, describing it as “resembling a scene from Romper Stomper”.

Of course, anyone interested in finding out more about Blood & Honour Australia could do worse than examine their forum, hacked and uploaded onto Wikileaks in March. 76 members of the forum nominated Australia as their place of residence. See also : Nicole Hanley : For Blood & Honour, April 6, 2009.

Now I just gotta find out if there’s counter-demonstrations being organised in this fair city of mine.


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Categories : Politics

Newspaper Anaesthesia

24 05 2009

I don’t usually know what to expect from the local newspapers.  The general consensus among everyone seems to be that they are not worth the read, particularly due to their bias, lack of understanding and that naughty little habit of standing up to demand from the powers that be some new element of a fascist police state.  Yet, even with this in mind, I persisted in performing the same ritual as thousands of other South Australian’s on a Sunday morning and cracked open the Sunday Mail.

Somewhere between the articles concerning truancy, which made the front page, calls for the police to saturate Hindley street and a badly written editorial towards the end that lamented the rise of video games with a sort of ‘back-in-my-day’ feel (written by someone who could not have been more than 20).

The two pieces devoted to truancy alone completely missed the point.  I have high standards, I admit, but the grasp of the fundamental issue by each article’s author was non-existent.  I like a little more from my newspapers than the logic behind, ‘kids missing school is bad, we need the strong arm of the law to deal with it, or create some statutory mechanism to punish truants by making it more difficult to get a license’.  Of course this all sounds well and good, with the obvious fact that it’s completely wrong.  The reason for most truancy, is that the current formulation of ‘school’, is a prison.  Where else in the world must a person be forced to spend their time in a place where the routine is dictated to them from on high, where they must ask permission to do so much as piss and where guards with dogs and guns patrol the perimeter.  Perhaps it can simply be said that so many kids of high school age are truants because they don’t want to be there.  Even the teachers, many of whom are intelligent, bright people and actually give a damn about these kids, often don’t want to be at school and must not only put up with a similar domination by the powers that be, but are themselves forced to run their classes like a concentration camp.  In many cases, that fact that many kids don’t want to be there impacts negatively on the kids that do, leading to all the bullying problems, and even, the problems our society is facing in regards to teen drinking.

But, the argument goes, that education is a right and the kids are missing out on the prospects for better employment or higher education and so on and so forth.  The problem here arises where a right is something that an individual may or may not choose to exercise.  A child not attending school isn’t the violation of that right, so long as the opportunity is there.  As for the whole ‘jeopardising’ the child’s prospects, it is in my experience and the experience of others who I talked to that kids who do not want to be in school, generally aren’t looking to be a astro-physicist, let alone want to spend another 3 years of their lives in university.

As for younger children, primary schooling becomes more a case of baby-sitting.  Experts will often say this time of a child’s life is critical and that they need schooling and so on.  But in the end primary school achieves nothing.  Children from the ages of 5-9 are taught to colour inside the lines and make pretty creations out of paper, card and so on.  The thing about primary school is that it’s about socialising with others and learning the basics of reading, writing and math.  Unfortunately, it’s not like kids miss much when they don’t attend.

There also leaves something to be desired when a writer demands that statutory offences be applied to truants; it stands to reason that if you want to help them avoid a life of crime, it doesn’t help to introduce them to the criminal justice system for ‘wagging’ school at 12.

After truancy, came a massive article discussing the need for more police on Hindley street to curb the violence or whatever.   Now, it’s been said before and it needs to be said again, Hindley street is the only street in Adelaide with real character; there are people there from all walks of life come to frolic and on occasion, vomit.  The street has its nay-sayers that love to point out all that bad that is frequent there, but as in the words of comedian Dylan Moran, ‘so is everything else, including sex, coffee and conversation.’  Still, the nay-sayers go on and, in their mind, the only solution to the decadence of Hindley street is to saturate the place with police in a manner truly reminiscent of Singapore.  Unfortunately, the downside to this isn’t mentioned; that if there isn’t stuff going on to arrest people for and there a whole bunch of paid, bored police, saturating Hindley street, stuff gets created… once again, reminiscent of Singapore.  Just without the bribes.

While it may be better of me to avoid bringing attention to the small editorial towards back of the ‘news’ section of the paper, I’m going to do so anyway.  On principle.  The piece, as I said earlier, is the poorly written opinion of someone in their 20’s getting a head start on the nostalgia that plagues the elderly, conservative mindset — the kind of people that propose national service as a solution to all the country’s problems.  Basically, ‘video games are bad’ is the battle cry and the author laments the decline in plastic lego blocks and Barbie dolls, even though I suppose the author is ‘concerned’ about global warming and a reduction in lego blocks and Barbie dolls might does the planets ecology a little good, what with all that oil be used to create little plastic blocks and unrealistic representations of woman-hood.  There was also included a comment made by a researcher at Adelaide university claiming that video games do not stimulate the imagination; and he would be right save for the existence of entire genres of games designed, specifically, to stimulate the player’s imagination such as RPG’s, Simulations (Sims2 and Life, for example, as well as the entire Sid Meier portfolio) and even those dastardly strategy games.  Don’t even get me started on how playing video games has lead many people into programming or anohter area of the IT industry, where they have to be creative problems solvers.

So we come to our conclusion and my justification for spending 935 or so words ranting about the quality of material in a newspaper.  My reason is because these are the people who have control over what is discussed over coffee at breakfast tables and in cafes, but more importantly, the scope of that conversation.  It is all too often portrayed that the only solution to our problems lies in the hands of the state, to be paid for by sacrificing what liberty we have for greater restrictions — a process which will only end moments before we realise we have hung ourselves from the rafters with the red tape we demanded.


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Categories : Politics

Would you look at that…

2 05 2009

As I was about to call it a night, I happened to chance upon this little article tucked away that details the security plans for the Australian armed forces.  Given that I’ve already posted tonight, I thought I’d give you another dose of lovin’ by bringing the article to the attention of any wayward travellers that happen upon it.  To summarise the article, it basically states that the Australian Defence Force is going to be pumped up with millions of dollars more to increase its strength in the coming decades as American power and influence recede.

Joy.

This should come as no surprise to any Adelaidean with a conscience; South Australia is the go-to state for defence force research, manufacturing and construction.  We’re basically the ones contributing the most to all the bombing and shelling going on overseas.  However, try telling some people that maybe having all this defence spending in one state is not such a good idea.  Never mind that it’s totally immoral as it feeds of the death of other people and the destruction of their livelihoods.  Some may even be offended if you were to put forward the proposition that choosing drug dealing as an occupation would be morally preferable to manufacturing warships.  After all, defence spending creates jobs — though it could very well be argued that so does drug dealing.  In a way.

And yes I will probably wind up getting in the shit somewhere down the line for those statements.

But more to the point, here are some of my favourite extracts from the article.

It details the purchase of a massive list of military hardware expected to cost more than $100 billion. The weapons include a new generation of very long range submarines to provide “strategic strike” with cruise missiles and 100 state-of-the-art Joint Strike Fighters.

…

The plans outlined in the white paper will change the Australian Defence Force from a broadly defensive organisation with a bit of everything to a much more focused force able to launch damaging attacks vast distances from home.

…

The oceans closer to home will be protected by a new class of warships, Offshore Combatant Vessels. They will be used for border security, to protect offshore resources, to carry out hydrographic and environmental research and potentially, to clear anti-shipping mines.

The ADF is likely to get seven large unmanned patrol planes — probably the US-built Global Hawk — capable of staying airborne for days at a time and covering huge areas in search of terrorists, enemy forces and smugglers of people and drugs.

Australia’s agencies will also be given the resources they need to engage in cyber warfare — defending Australia’s computer systems against sabotage and attacking an enemy’s computer systems to cause economic chaos. Intelligence gathering resources also get a big boost.

And here’s the kicker.

By 2030 Australia’s annual defence spending is likely to have jumped from its present $22 billion to nearly $40 billion.

To help pay for it’s new equipment, the ADF has been told to find internal savings of $20 billion.

That would be enough to cover the $16 billion cost of the strike fighters and some of the submarines at $3 billion each…

Stimulating the economy by militarising it after a recession?  Not like that hasn’t been tried before.  Sure, it will create jobs, but one wonders whether the benefit derive from building new toys for the military may not have been better allocated by leaving the money in people’s pockets.  At least then they will decide for themselves where the money should go and society would see an overall benefit as positive investments are made; as opposed to negative investments whose primary function is to destroy and all to often go up in smoke themselves.

And last, but certainly not least, I wonder whose paying for this all?


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