Just as debate was muted on the big political issues on the final day of this year's ALP national conference, so too was the protest outside.
A modest crowd of about 200 people gathered at the Adelaide Convention Centre, representing a cross-section of causes and organisations.
They were vocal up to a point yet being adequately heard was a struggle after the speaker's microphone repeatedly failed.
Samantha Skinner, from Anti-Poverty Network SA, told the rally the gathering was "about a simple idea".
"Right now, governments are choosing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars preparing for war while people are struggling for poor housing, healthcare, education and support they need to live," she said.
"We believe another future is possible, and I'm sure all of you do too, where governments invest in people instead of militarisation."
Sans amplification, organisers relied on chants to rally the placard- and flag-waving coalition of more than a dozen community groups representing anti-war, anti-nuclear, pro-Palestine, poverty and housing, unionist and environmental movements.
They demanded government spending be redirected to public housing, health, protecting the NDIS and lifting people out of poverty.
The protest crowd was the biggest of the three-day conference, and again featured an inflatable green submarine painted with dollar signs, and activists in hazmat suits holding "AUKUS is toxic" signs.
Inside the conference, factional powerbrokers quashed a push for stronger criticism of Israel in Labor's party platform and debate on the AUKUS submarine program also failed to make the floor.
