Last month a State Significant development at Williamtown was exhibited for public comment. The plan looked exactly like a weapons factory despite the shadowy language around "defence related components" and the failure to disclose the "intended occupier".
The area is zoned "light industrial" which, other than a vague (and evidently useful) category of "high technology industry", relates to artisan food and drink, and home and creative industries. It appears that "light industrial" also now includes missiles.
Last week, while this planning and assessment was underway, the Minister for Defence Industry, Pat Conroy, said that $850 million of our taxes would be given to a Norwegian weapons manufacturer, Kongsberg. It was left to the public to ascertain that Kongsberg is the "intended occupier" of the Williamtown facility.
Now that the missile is out of the launcher, so to speak, the rhetoric from the Minister is as predictable as it is patronising. Trying to downplay weapons components (which we're supposed to believe are less concerning than a whole missile that could, let's be honest, only be built with said components), offering the ubiquitous "jobs and the economy" line, and of course it's all for national security.
The NSW Department of Planning received a considerable number of objections to the proposal, citing human rights, economic and environmental concerns including that the development is on PFAS contaminated land.
There were enough objections to require a response by the proponent, Newcastle Airport, owned by Newcastle and Port Stephens councils. These councils are developing the Astra Aerolab weapons complex. One concern raised is the conflict between the role of local government and the weapons industry.
This industry is one of the most criminally irresponsible in terms of both corporate and human rights law. Indeed, City of Newcastle has a policy precluding revenue from the manufacture and sale of arms and armaments. As paid board members of the airport, the mayors and executive directors will also surely be thinking about their dual roles in for-profit business governance on the one hand and (respectively) as elected official and public servant on the other.
The rationale for objecting to the Kongsberg development is relevant to expanded weapons manufacturing more broadly. Claims about job creation are disingenuous when it is skills and workforce capacity that are in short supply in this region. Spruiking national security as a driver contradicts the reality that increased militarisation makes us less safe.
Militarisation has long been recognised as a threat to peace and security hence for decades nation states fostered non-proliferation and anti-ballistics treaties. With consideration to human rights abuses, ballistics disproportionately kill and injure civilians.
The explanation for the reckless expansion of weapons production lies in AUKUS (a military agreement between Australia, the US and UK), which former prime minister Paul Keating recently called "the worst deal in history".
AUKUS made international news this week with the headline "Is Australia becoming the 51st state of the USA?" Listening to US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin at the recent Ministerial Consultations, there is little doubt what the US view is. Australia will see more US forces and bomber deployments, which will have "unimpeded access to and use of" our sovereign territory.
Newcastle is positioned to be at the centre of a new arms race. Geopolitically this is about the US asserting domination.
Financially, obscenely rich weapons companies are getting richer off nothing other than human suffering. The $850 million for Kongsberg is part of a $21 billion commitment by the Albanese government over 10 years.
This is at a time of imminent climate collapse and worsening poverty. As we contemplate the expansion of weapons manufacturing in our area, the sole aim being to enable industrial-scale murder, imagine what $21 billion could do towards protecting life.
