Fahy, Michelle: Selling arms with impunity

Michelle Fahy

Selling arms with impunity‘, Pearls and Irritations, 30 January 2020 updated

Detailed piece by a researcher into the arms trade. Covers: government funding for Australian arms exports; role of federal, state and local governments; developments in the United Kingdom; attempts by Australian firms to justify their arms exports; Australian arms exports to countries that abuse human rights; government body, Team Defence Australia, as organiser of export efforts (with recent delegation led by former Chief of Navy).

Defence and national security are a federal responsibility, but that hasn’t stopped a headlong rush by every state and territory government in Australia to create their own defence advisory boards, with accompanying appointments of high profile ‘defence industry advocates’, in a naked grab for a cut of the $195 billion the federal government has on offer to enhance Australia’s ‘defence capability’ over the decade to 2025-26.

Michelle Fahy’s work was mentioned by Mike Seccombe in The Saturday Paper. For other Honest History material on the arms trade, use our Search engine with search term ‘arms’. Note particularly this piece on the Australian Military Sales Catalogue and this earlier piece by Michelle Fahy. Related and recent is this piece by David Stephens in Pearls and Irritations on the Brendan Nelson legacy at the Australian War Memorial.

Update 13 February 2020: FOI claim reveals cost of one Team Defence trip.

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