Australia - Arms Dealer

Technology and Internet
#1

G’day,

Did this story not sit well with anyone else?

Now followed up with…

Personally I hate the thought that we as a nation would be contributing to this particular “industry”. Of all the things that we could be doing with our resources, aiming to become one of the best providers of weapons in the world just makes me sick, as at the end of the day we are helping to kill someone/s.

Surely we are better than this?

Yes, we could be supplying weapons to nations that need to protect themselves… Sure. That’s feasible. Or, as suggested above, we could be selling advanced killing tech to countries known for their dubious human rights records, who could well simply use the weapons to continue committing indecent criminal acts.

Good one, Australia.

Sorry - probably thinking too much with my emotions on this one.

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#2

No, I’m with you Cosmic. It seems like a backward step generally for us to become arms dealers to the world, but selling to a country where people are beheaded for saying the wrong thing about the government and/or dominant religion is reprehensible.

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#3

Welcome to capitalism!

Money above all else. You don’t export weapons thinking they’re going to good people.

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#4

I think what upset me even more, reading the 2nd article above… was that the company that’s been awarded $38m by the Govt to make their remote controlled mounted weapons system… is a weapons, and space company.

Yes, ok - space and weapons have basically always laid in bed together… I just… wish they didn’t.

#5

And to revisit this… cos it’s Australia Day so let’s celebrate all that is Australia…

We are now a country that supports human rights violations in other countries (not just our own) by supplying arms to countries known to commit internal atrocities… :frowning:

Didn’t sit well with me back then… and it’s even worse now.

#6

I get your point on this but is it really any different, in the long run, to doing any sort of trade with these countries. I don’t really think it is…

#7

I can see the argument for trade that is for food / normal goods that the citizens would benefit from… but not arms. I don’t understand why we are in the arms trade at all.

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#8

Because the government of Australia don’t buy a sufficient number of weapons from the local manufacturers to maintain the manufacturing capacity (let alone grow it, which is both major parties stated policy).

Possible alternatives are to either reduce the size of the local arms manufacturers and reduce Australia’s ‘sovereign arms manufacturing capacity’ (which the government doesn’t want to do) or increase the share of the budget as a percentage beyond 2% of GDP (which the government are trying hard not to do).

The third option (reduce both spending and manufacturing capacity) is something that neither major party would support and is VERY unlikely to happen.

My guess? We’ll end up at around 3% of GDP spent on ‘defense’ within 10 years.