Australia’s military trade is not transparent.
NCCA joins the Quakers in signing their civil society sign on statement.
Policy experts describe defence export systems as “at best opaque and at worst negligently poor”. Neither the public nor parliament have detailed knowledge of what military goods Australia is exporting, to where or for what purpose. There is no justification for the current level of secrecy.
The statement ends:
We call on the Australian Government to support a parliamentary review to assess the potential that arms exports could be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law and consider available mitigating measures.
Background
Quakers Australia is coordinating a civil society sign on statement, to ask the Labor Government to support action on this issue. The ask is a pragmatic one – that is that they support a parliamentary review into systems governing military trade. We have been working with key NGO’s working in this field to get the language right, and are grateful that both Amnesty Australia and Human Rights Watch are initial signatories.
It has become clear that neither the Australian parliament nor public have detailed knowledge about what military goods Australia is exporting, to where or for what purpose. Particularly given successive Australian Governments have committed to increase Australia’s military exports, it seems vital for us to have better accountability measures to safeguard against these exports being complicit in human rights abuses. In recent years, both journalists and civil society groups have raised concerns that specific exports (involving Yemen and Palestine) appear to be used in human rights violations.
Quakers Australia have produced a short summary document about the issue as well as a longer briefing document. Both are available here.
As Christians, it seems particularly important to ensure that we advocate for policies that would reduce the harm of armed violence, which is estimated to kill half a million people people every year. Twelve billion bullets are made every year. Almost enough to kill everyone in the world, twice.
NCCA has signed this statement. The statement with the form to sign is available here.