Buck-passing inside the murky arms trade
Australia bears responsibility for how Australian-made weapons are used in conflict zones around the world
‘It is almost literally true that Australia cannot go to war without the consent and support of the US.’
This statement, made in 2001, is key to understanding the deceit and denials by the Albanese government regarding weapons exports bound for Israel.
In his 2019 book Secret: The making of Australia’s security state, veteran journalist Brian Toohey quoted the 2001 research paper by the Australian parliamentary library.
Toohey explained that:
The US requires almost all countries that buy its weapons systems, including Australia, to send sensitive components back to the US for repairs, maintenance and replacements without the owners being allowed access to critical information, including source codes, needed to keep these systems operating.
To rephrase Toohey: Australia cannot use its advanced weapons platforms for any length of time without US support.
Two decades later, the F-35 fighter jet is one such advanced weapons platform.
Australia reliant on the US
Australia is now more embedded in and reliant on the US military than it was in 2001.
After nine months of denials, Defence Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong finally admitted in June that Australia is still exporting parts into the global F-35 supply chain, a point of contention because Israel is using its F-35s in its war in Gaza. Both senior ministers also noted at the same time that Australia’s F-35 fleet forms the heart of our air force’s “fast jet capability”.
Is Australia’s continuing supply of parts to the US somehow linked to the need to maintain our own F-35 capability?
The UN has stated only that supply to Israel of weapons, parts, components, ammunition and munitions should cease. It has not said all exports into global weapons supply chains that include Israel as a recipient nation should cease. Australia could continue supplying the US-led global F-35 supply chain and be compliant with UN requests provided the US has agreed that none of the Australian exports will be sent to Israel.
I asked the Defence Department whether it had sought assurances from the US and Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the F-35 fighter jet, that they would cease transferring Australian-made parts and components to Israel. The Department had not responded by deadline.
I also asked whether it was correct that Australia does not have access to the necessary source codes, or other critical information, needed to repair, maintain, upgrade or replace the sensitive components in our fleet of F-35s. Again, no response had been received at deadline.
As Toohey concluded in his 2019 book:
Although the ability to operate our major weapons systems independently is crucial to defending Australia, our leaders prefer to ignore this fundamental flaw and become more tightly integrated with US forces.
This may explain why the Albanese government has been intent on obscuring the extent of Australia’s involvement in the F-35 supply chain and unwilling to take decisive action to ensure that no Australian parts and components could end up in Israel.
Hot denials
“I am saying we’re not sending parts.”
That was Richard Marles, Australia’s deputy prime minister and defence minister, on ABC Radio Melbourne in June talking about Australia’s arms exports to Israel.
Marles then admitted, however, that Australia was continuing to supply parts into the F-35 global supply chain. But that was “worlds away” from claims that “we are directly supplying weapons to Israel” which, he said, “is just a falsehood”.
Marles insisted that claims by the Greens that Australia was supplying weapons to Israel were “absolutely false”, “a total lie”, “completely wrong”, and “utterly, utterly false”.
He repeated the government’s line that “there have been no weapons exported to Israel…for the past five years” and stated this to be “the absolute truth”. I have reported previously on this highly misleading statement.
Should Australia be taking stronger action?
Under international law, which all governments have a responsibility to uphold, governments must take into account the end user of the exported equipment and the ways the exports are likely to be used.
The UN has repeatedly called on countries, and now also multinational companies, to end arms transfers to Israel immediately or risk responsibility for human rights violations.
In June, Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy was asked on national radio whether Australia “should be taking stronger action, even on the supply chains”, given that a Netherlands court had ordered the Dutch government to stop supplying F-35 parts into the supply chain due to a clear risk that serious violations of humanitarian law were being committed.
Conroy responded: “Well, that’s a question for the Netherlands Government.”
No, it isn’t. It’s a pertinent and important question for the Australian government.
Conroy was re-asked the same question, which he sidestepped a second time. He responded, misleadingly: “We’ve been only approving export permits to Israel for equipment that is returning to Australia for the ADF.”
Yet the Defence Department had already confirmed in Senate Estimates just days before this interview that permits for the export of parts and components related to Israel remained active.
In an interview on ABC Melbourne the following day, host Ali Moore asked Richard Marles a similar question: “I just go back to the question of whether there’s any responsibility? I note that Pat Conroy makes the point…that the use of military equipment is the responsibility of the Defence Force involved.”
Marles agreed the relevant defence force involved bore primary responsibility, then added that global supply chains made the accountability problem hard to manage:
Well, firstly, the primary responsibility for how military equipment is used is by the Defence Force which uses it, we accept that responsibility when we use the military equipment that is within the Australian Defence Force…
You know, we are eyes wide open in terms of the role that we play in defence industry generally and specifically in relation to the Joint Strike Fighter, but … we need to be really clear about how complex this becomes very quickly.
Marles said that Australia is engaging in the F-35 program through its prime contractor, US company Lockheed Martin. He also tried to deflect responsibility to the USA – particularly Lockheed Martin:
There are a number of what I’d describe as non-lethal parts…provided to the F-35s. … to be clear as well, that is a, the program is prime, meaning the company which manages it is Lockheed Martin, based out of America…we are really engaging through Lockheed, and when I say “we”, the companies that are participating into that supply chain…
False analogies
Richard Marles put forward an analogy to try to defend Australia’s continuing exports to the F-35 supply chain and to deflect responsibility, using Qantas and Virgin.
Qantas and Virgin, for example, purchase Boeing aircraft. Boeing supplies military planes as well and supplies military planes to the Israeli Defence Force. What are we now saying if we walk down this path in respect of Qantas and Virgin? … We live in a very complex global supply chain, that is actually very much the case in relation to the F-35s.
This is a red herring. The government-sanctioned continued export of Australian F-35 parts and components into the supply chain is vital to the ongoing assembly and operation of the global F-35 fleet, which includes Israel. It is not contested that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) are using their F-35s to wage this war. Israel stands accused in the world’s highest court of conducting a genocide.
Australia is directly contributing to the supply and maintenance of a complex weapons system that lies at the heart of Israel’s military capacity.
Deflecting responsibility
In Senate Estimates on June 5, Defence Department official Hugh Jeffrey explained that Australia exports F-35 weapons parts to a central US repository:
… we are part of a consortium on the F-35 capability. That is all exported to a central repository in the United States.
The question of whether or not the F-35 is being employed in the crisis in Israel is not material to the question of whether or not we grant an export permit.
Jeffrey later added:
That supply chain is directed by the United States…
We are a member of the F-35 consortium. That consortium exists under a memorandum of understanding between the parties. That gives defence industry opportunity to contribute to that supply chain. It also requires Australia to provide those contributions in good faith…
Jeffrey also said, “Any permit that assesses the export of the F-35 would need to be inclusive of… all the customers within that consortium.” There are 18 nations in the F-35 consortium, including Israel.
Independent senator Jacqui Lambie asked for the F-35 program’s memorandum of understanding to be tabled with the Committee. Labor senator Jenny McAllister, representing Defence Minister Marles, said the Department would take the request “on notice”.
Deputy secretary Christopher Deeble, who heads the Defence Department’s Capability Acquisition & Sustainment Group, said that “over 75 companies” contribute to the F-35 supply chain “to a value now of over $4.6 billion”. Jeffrey and Deeble both refused to confirm whether the Department was aware Israel was using its F-35s in Gaza. Jeffrey said: “We can’t speak for the IDF [Israeli Defence Forces] and how it engages in force deployment.”
Yet the “US repository” to which Jeffrey had referred, and with which the Department has engaged closely, has been “operating at a breakneck speed” to source and supply F-35 spare parts to Israel for its war on Gaza, according to evidence given to a US Congressional hearing in December by the head of the US F-35 Joint Program Office. This US hearing happened six months before Jeffrey gave his evidence.
BAE Systems is one of Lockheed Martin’s principal partners in the manufacture and maintenance of the F-35. Its Australian subsidiary is closely involved in managing Australia’s contribution to the F-35 supply chain, including subcontracting numerous Australian companies that supply parts and components. BAE has been one of the top five contractors to the Defence Department for years.
BAE Systems was one of 11 multinationals named by the UN on June 20 in its call for countries and companies to end arms transfers to Israel immediately or risk responsibility for human rights violations.
This article was first published at Declassified Australia on 2 August 2024
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