The South Australian Labor government is promoting its governance of the “Defence State”. Its website boasts that “seven major global weapons companies”, including BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin, are well established in SA.
At the same time, the SSN-AUKUS submarines are set to be built at the Osborne Naval Shipyard, on the Lefevre Peninsula, and Australia’s first operating missile factory has just begun production of Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System missiles at Port Wakefield.
A number of weapons companies, operating in SA, are manufacturing parts used to slaughter Palestinians in Gaza: BAE Systems at its Edinburgh Park facility manufactures vertical tail assemblies and titanium parts for F-35 jets; Levett Engineering in Elizabeth manufactures titanium parts and engine components for F-35/F-135 jets; and Rosebank Engineering at Wingfield has been manufacturing components for the F-35 since 2004.
Rosebank Engineering is a major supplier, providing, it says on its website, more than “150 components for the Landing Gear and Weapons Bay Systems on the aircraft”.
Because Peter Malinauskas’ government has a major hand in investing in, and attracting investment to these companies, through its defence agency Defence SA, it is complicit in the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Activists, along with Australia Friends of Palestine Association (AFOPA) and Amnesty International (AI), have been protesting against these weapons companies and the government’s complicity in genocide, since at least October 7, 2023.
AFOPA, working with AI, Independent MP Tammy Franks and SA-Best MP Connie Bonaras, tabled a motion in Parliament on November 26, calling on Labor to “review any exports of weapons and weapons components … which may be used by the Israeli Government to commit genocide and/or human rights abuses against the Palestinian people; “divest all public entities (including Funds SA) from any corporation which may be complicit in genocide and/or human rights abuses against the Palestinian people”; and to “end all current and future public investment and subsides for weapons or weapons components which may be used by the Israeli Government to commit genocide and/or human rights abuses against the Palestinian people”.
About 20 activists, including AFOPA members, organised an action outside Parliament to support the motion. They then went inside to hear the debate.
Franks, Bonaras and Independent Jing Lee spoke in favour of it. However, SA Labor frontbench MPs were noticeably absent, and the party blocked the motion from going to debate or the vote.
Nevertheless, the motion is a significant step for Palestine solidarity here; it is historic in the sense of getting the issue of sanctions against Israel heard for the first time in parliament and garnering support from some Members of the Legislative Council.
Activists in the Palestine movement say the next step will be pressuring SA Labor over its complicity in genocide at the upcoming election in March next year and promoting candidates who support Palestine.
[Markela Panegyres is a co-convenor of the Socialist Alliance in Kaurna Yerta/Adelaide.]