What Australians have NOT been told about the $368billion AUKUS nuclear submarine deal.
‘We will undoubtedly be a nuclear target,’ ‘I don’t think many of the people living in Perth realise that, if they weren’t a nuclear target before, they certainly will be when all these… submarines start arriving.
‘I would bet an awful lot of money that the AUKUS subs will be duds by the time they get here, if they ever do,’
‘They’ll probably be redundant because there’s been revolutions in drone technology which will be able to detect submarines more easily.
‘I would bet an awful lot of money that the AUKUS subs will be duds by the time they get here, if they ever do,’
By CAITLIN POWELL – NEWS REPORTER, 29 December 2025
An AUKUS critic has shed light on the fundamental dangers of the military deal, including the threat of Australia being a nuclear target, as the security pact receives support from Donald Trump – and a rising number of Australians.
Earlier this month, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed that AUKUS was going ‘full steam ahead’ after questions were raised when the Trump administration earlier announced it would review the deal.
The agreement, which would see Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines, is expected to cost the country up to $368billion over three decades.
Just a few weeks before Rubio’s thumbs up, an Australia-wide survey of 2,045 people by the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) found support for the policy had increased.
The number of people who agreed that the trilateral deal with the US and UK could help keep Australia secure from a military threat from China surged compared to last year.
While 48 per cent agreed in 2024, that rose to 50 per cent in the 2025 survey. The poll also found that over two thirds (68 per cent) supported using AUKUS to deepen Australia’s cooperation with the US and UK on advanced technologies.
This included hopes for technology in cyber, AI and quantum computing.
But AUKUS critic and adjunct professor at the Australia-China Relations Institute, Mark Beeson, has said there are some major issues with the deal which most Australians are missing.
A major component of AUKUS will be a facility at the Australian Navy’s HMAS Stirling base in Perth’s south from 2027.
Up to 1,200 UK and US personnel, their families, and five nuclear-powered submarines will be stationed there.
‘We will undoubtedly be a nuclear target,’ Beeson said of the facility. ‘I don’t think many of the people living in Perth realise that, if they weren’t a nuclear target before, they certainly will be when all these… submarines start arriving.
‘This will be a sort of launch pad for whatever American strategic adventure they decide to take on next.’
The use of the area as base also raised another key issue for Professor Beeson: Australia’s sovereignty.
‘I think there are questions about the historical relationship we have with America,’ he said, referencing the poll.
The survey revealed that a growing trend among Australians is that they want Canberra to make foreign policy decisions without the US and UK.
Among those surveyed, 77 per cent said Australia should make its China foreign policy decisions independently, even when they differ from US preferences.
‘Australia would make absolutely no difference whatsoever to the outcome of any conflict or strategic stand-off between the United States and China – with or without four or five submarines,’ he said.
‘If the Chinese aren’t deterred by America’s overwhelming military power, they’re not going to be deterred by anything we can do.
‘We’re just a convenient piece of real estate in the southern hemisphere that they can use as sort of launching pad for whatever they decide to do next.
‘There are major implications for our independence and sovereignty.’
‘Australia would make absolutely no difference whatsoever to the outcome of any conflict or strategic stand-off between the United States and China – with or without four or five submarines,’ he said.
‘If the Chinese aren’t deterred by America’s overwhelming military power, they’re not going to be deterred by anything we can do.
‘We’re just a convenient piece of real estate in the southern hemisphere that they can use as sort of launching pad for whatever they decide to do next.
‘There are major implications for our independence and sovereignty.’
The reasoning for this, he said, is that by having the presence of American and British military on Australian soil, Canberra is no longer solely acting on behalf of Australians.
‘It limits the options available to Australian policymakers to make independent decisions that are in the national interest,’ he said.
‘Rather (we follow) some supposed mutual interest of Australia, Britain and the US.’
Professor Beeson highlighted that the poll displayed different views among Australians, with support for AUKUS but a desire for independence on policy.
‘I wasn’t surprised that there were a few contradictory sort of views amongst all that, because it is a complex set of issues,’ he said.
‘But some of it displays quite an encouraging degree of sophistication and not just wild panic about China, which is good.’
A final issue Professor Beeson raised was the capacity and timeline of the submarines promised to Australia.
‘I would bet an awful lot of money that the AUKUS subs will be duds by the time they get here, if they ever do,’ he said.
‘They’ll probably be redundant because there’s been revolutions in drone technology which will be able to detect submarines more easily.
‘It’s just such a ludicrous long term investment of a lot of money we don’t really have, and we could use on much better things.’
The Embedded Alliance – Australia, The Retreat from Sovereignty, and the Machinery of External Control
Critical debate on Israel’s policies is systematically constrained in Australia. A former senior editor notes a “tacit consensus” in newsrooms to avoid the subject, driven by fear of a well-organised lobby that conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism.
29 December 2025 Andrew Klein, PhD and Gabriel Klein, Research Assistant and Scholar
Introduction: The Architecture of a Dependent State
From the high command in Washington to the corporate boardrooms of Silicon Valley and the networked lobbyists in Canberra, a clear and sustained project has unfolded over the past six decades. Its aim is not the military occupation of Australia, but something more insidious and total: the integration of the Australian state, its resources, and its strategic autonomy into the imperatives of American hegemony. This analysis documents the systematic erosion of Australian sovereignty since the 1960s, revealing a pattern where security anxieties are strategically cultivated, neoliberal economics enables extraction, and domestic political discourse is policed to serve external interests. Australia has been transformed from a regional actor with independent agency into a compliant territory – a model of control replicated by empires throughout history.
Phase I: Cultivating Fear and Forging the Chain (1960s-1970s)
The foundational step in securing Australian compliance was the ideological binding of its foreign policy to American global objectives, beginning in Southeast Asia.
1 Vietnam and the “Forward Defence” Doctrine: Australia’s entry into the Vietnam War was justified domestically by the “domino theory” – the fear of communist expansion in Southeast Asia threatening Australia directly. Prime Minister Robert Menzies framed the commitment as a necessary response to a request from South Vietnam, a claim historians have contested, suggesting the decision was made in close coordination with Washington to bolster the legitimacy of the US war effort. This established a template: Australian blood and treasure would be spent in conflicts determined by US strategy, sold to the public through the marketing of fear.
2 The Whitlam Catalyst and the “Coup” Response: The election of Gough Whitlam’s government in 1972 represented the most significant rupture in this dependent relationship. Whitlam immediately moved to withdraw remaining troops from Vietnam, recognised the People’s Republic of China, and opposed US bombing campaigns. His assertive independence triggered a fierce response from entrenched security and political establishments aligned with Washington. The constitutional crisis of 1975, culminating in his dismissal, demonstrated the lengths to which the domestic machinery – when aligned with foreign interests – would go to reassert the established pro-US trajectory. It was a stark lesson that moves toward genuine sovereignty would be met with systemic resistance.
Phase II: Neoliberalism as the Engine of Extraction (1980s-Present)
With the security bond firmly established, the next phase involved remaking the Australian economy to facilitate the outward flow of wealth and deepen integration with US capital.
1 The Hawke-Keating “Reforms”: Pragmatism or Ideology?: The economic transformations of the 1980s and 1990s – financial deregulation, tariff reductions, and privatisation – are often framed as pragmatic modernisation. However, they served core neoliberal doctrines privileging market forces and global capital mobility. The floating of the dollar and dismantling of banking controls integrated Australia into volatile global financial flows, increasing its vulnerability to external shocks.
2 Structural Consequences: Finance Over Industry: This shift catalysed a profound restructuring of the Australian economy, privileging extractive and financial sectors over productive industry.
3 The Mining Cartel: The resources sector, buoyed by Chinese demand, grew to become Australia’s largest export industry. It accrued immense political power, exemplified by its successful multi-million-dollar campaign to gut the Resources Super Profits Tax in 2010, directly shaping government policy to its benefit.
4 The Financialisation of Everything: Banking deregulation led to unprecedented concentration, with the “Big Four” banks becoming a protected oligopoly. Their profits, supercharged by a government-inflated housing market, now rank among the highest in the world. The economy became geared toward asset inflation and debt, benefiting financial capital at the expense of housing affordability and productive investment.
5 Manufacturing Decline: Concurrently, Australian manufacturing entered a steep relative decline, its share of GDP falling to one of the lowest levels in the OECD. The nation was deliberately reshaped as a quarry and a financial platform, deeply enmeshed with global (particularly American) capital and vulnerable to commodity cycles.
Phase III: The China Pivot and the Securitisation of Dissent (2016-Present)
The return of China as a major regional power presented both an economic opportunity and a strategic dilemma for US hegemony. Australia’s management of this dilemma reveals the subordination of its economic interests to alliance maintenance.
1 The “Securitising Coalition” and Anti-China Politics: From approximately 2016, a powerful coalition within Australia’s national security establishment, conservative politics, and aligned media deliberately elevated a “China threat” narrative. This served a dual purpose: it created domestic political advantage for the conservative coalition and was seen as crucial “alliance maintenance” with the US, proving Australia’s loyalty as Washington pivoted to overt “strategic competition” with Beijing. Policies like banning Huawei from the 5G network placed Australia “out in front” of even the US in confronting China.
2 Economic Punishment and Sovereign Costs: This posture triggered severe economic coercion from China, which disrupted billions in Australian exports. Despite this cost, the strategic subordination continued. The AUKUS pact, involving the purchase of nuclear-powered submarines at an estimated cost of up to $368 billion, locks Australia into a decades-long, exorbitant dependency on US and UK military technology, creating a perpetual revenue stream for the American military-industrial complex.
3 Direct American Coercion: This dependency invites direct pressure. In 2025, the US Secretary of Defense publicly demanded Australia increase its defence spending to 3.5% of GDP, a drastic rise from the current 2%. Concurrently, the Trump administration imposed tariffs on Australian exports, demonstrating that coercive pressure now flows from both major powers, with Australia caught in the middle.
Phase IV: The Information and Ideological Frontier
Final control requires shaping the domestic narrative. Australia’s public discourse on key US foreign policy interests is subject to sophisticated manipulation and silencing mechanisms.
1 The Israel-Palestine Litmus Test: Critical debate on Israel’s policies is systematically constrained in Australia. A former senior editor notes a “tacit consensus” in newsrooms to avoid the subject, driven by fear of a well-organised lobby that conflates criticism of Israel with antisemitism. This conflation, described as a “long-term strategy,” ensures Palestinian perspectives and critiques of occupation are marginalised. Government policy follows: the 2025 Albanese government antisemitism strategy adopts a controversial definition that risks conflating criticism of Israel with hate speech, a move criticised by human rights experts for threatening free speech and ignoring the context of the war in Gaza.
2 Surveillance and Infiltration: The reach of external influence extends into covert domains. Israeli intelligence has recruited Australian citizens for operations, as revealed in the case of alleged Mossad agent Ben Zygier. Globally, Israeli cyber-surveillance firms, often staffed by intelligence veterans, export intrusive spyware like Predator to governments worldwide, enabling the surveillance of journalists and dissidents. This global surveillance infrastructure, in which Australian entities may be both targets and unwitting transit points, represents a penetration of informational sovereignty.
Conclusion: Scraping By in the Imperial Perimeter
The trajectory is undeniable. From Vietnam to AUKUS, Australia has been mobilised to fight America’s regional battles. Through neoliberalism, its economy has been restructured for resource extraction and financial profiteering, enriching a narrow elite while creating crises in housing, manufacturing, and cost of living. Its political discourse is policed on issues core to US and allied geopolitical interests, from China to Palestine.
Prime Ministers from Menzies to Albanese have navigated this reality with varying degrees of submission or muted resistance. The result is a nation whose security policy is set by Washington, whose economic model serves global capital, and whose public square is patrolled by imported ideological framings. Australia is not a sovereign actor but a managed asset within the American imperium – a fate it now shares with territories across the globe where the empire extracts, and its subjects scrape by.
References……………………………………………………
Continue readingLooking to 2026 in nuclear news
28 Dec 25 https://theaimn.net/looking-to-2026-in-nuclear-related-news/
There are really a lot of good things happening, involving a huge number of good people. My favourite is that very persistent, won’t-be-beat boat – the Golden Rule, with its crew and supporters – Veterans for Peace. They sail the world, but especially from port to port in the USA, with their message of hope.
Dozens of groups sailed with the crew—including Code Pink, the NorCal TPS Coalition, the People’s Arms Embargo, the Comfort Women’s Justice Coalition, the Task Force on the Americas, and the Cal Sailing Club.
But of course there are thousands of other groups working for compassion and good will, in every country, of whatever political style. There are millions of people aware of, and prepared to be active in getting action on global heating.
I think that there’s a revival beginning in the media, with the growth of so many truly independent and alternative journalism sites. Some get funding from their readers, some soldier on providing free news and information.
Even the corporate media, and some USA Republicans are appalled at the antics of the deranged American “President for Peace” – leading to the thought that he might not last that much longer as “leader of the free world”.
Still – a reality check – if Donald Trump does cease to be USA President – there could be worse to come, with another choice from his pack of greedy sycophants.
So – a reality check is needed. It’s not going to be a happy new year as things are going at present
– “If we make no effort to change direction, we will end up where we are heading.”
Giving up is not an option. A world run by emotionally-unintelligent squillionaire technocrats is not going to be sustainably viable. Addiction to super-profits and power, and absurd ideas of exceptionalism and superior race -these are not the characteristics of good leadership. Jesus said that ‘the meek shall inherit the earth“. But I’m rather hoping that some of the meek get into charge before then, before the current power-brokers wreck the place.
Meanwhile, we continue to try to shed light on the absurdities of our current ‘civilised’ culture. And there are many hazards to expose and to combat – the horror of Zionism (which is NOT the Jewish religion), booming militarism, climate denial, racism, injustice, suppression of civil rights, AI gone wild- to name only a few. Lots of work to do.
The past week has been a busy one in non-corporate nuclear and nuclear-related news. The detailed list is at https://antinuclear.net/2025/12/28/the-non-corporate-nuclear-news-week-to-27-december/
Yes, a Bondi Royal Commission but … | The West Report
If there is to be a Royal Commission into the deadly Bondi Beach shootings, it must not presume blame. It must have broad terms of reference; not be concocted as a political stunt to attack Albanese, peace protestors, Muslims. Everything must be in scope – broad terms of reference and an independent Commissioner with credibility
Is Albo in Trouble? The Death by a Thousand Cuts
28 December 2025 David Tyler , Australian Independent Media
Is Anthony Albanese finished?
Albo is a sitting duck in the sights of the right. His “troubles” are being trumpeted from talk-back to the Melbourne tabloids and across social media, where the enormously well-funded dark-money megaphone of the right, the Advance Australia network, is busy amplifying outrage and sharpening its next campaign weapon. There is, and long has been, an industry devoted to vilifying Labor.
On my left is an historic organisation dedicated to humanity, equality and justice. Founded in 1891, the Australian Labor Party emerged from the trade union movement, built by working Australians who decided that if power resided in parliament, labour would have to confront it there.
On my right? Founded in 2018, Advance Australia is a right-wing political campaigning operation, structured as a web of charities and front groups, operating largely beyond the transparency rules that bind political parties and their donors, while running tightly targeted culture-war and electoral campaigns against Labor, the Greens, unions, climate policy, and progressive social reform.
With its Orwellian name and regressive purpose, Advance is taking no prisoners in its war on the party of the wage-earner. Its targets are predictable yet carefully chosen: Anthony Albanese for alleged weakness; Labor for timidity; government itself for failing to serve the mythical “real Australia”.
Clowns like Craig Kelly and Old King Coal himself, Matt Canavan, provide colour, but the deeper story is structural: the right-wing commentariat is now better funded, better organised, and more ruthless than at any point in Australia’s democratic history. The machinery shaping the national argument from the margins is no longer improvised. It is strategic, disciplined, and flush with cash.
Against that backdrop, Albanese is attempting to govern within a political and media ecosystem designed to grind him down. Every Labor leader since Whitlam has felt the same gravitational pull.
Each time, the Murdoch empire and its imitators treat Labor governments as temporary aberrations between the “proper” custodians of the realm. The idea no longer needs selling. It is simply assumed. The result is familiar: every Labor hesitation becomes a crisis, every Coalition failure a footnote, and every unforced error; a travel claim, a stadium stoush, a botched response to tragedy, another chance to land the cut.
The Small-Target Trap: Governing Like an Underdog
Albanese’s small-target strategy worked as a campaign tactic. It’s useless as a governing philosophy. The Prime Minister’s steady, understated style made sense in opposition, but in office, it too often reads as reticence. He speaks softly in an age that rewards loudness, compassionately in an age that scorns empathy, and with deliberation in a media environment that trades in snark, snide and speed. That makes him a rare kind of political figure: decent and disciplined, but branded as dull. The “weak Albo” trope thrives in this climate because it fills the silence his style sometimes leaves.
But the problem isn’t just style. It’s strategy. By failing to define his government’s narrative, Albanese cedes the field to opponents who are happy to fill the void. When Sussan Ley and Josh Frydenberg—neither known for political courage, vision nor caution with finances can land blows over the Bondi massacre, it’s not just a PR failure. It’s proof that Labor’s caution is being weaponised. When Labor-lite, “Cuisine minceur,” NSW Premier, Chris Minns outmanoeuvres the PM on Bondi it’s not just a state-federal spat. It’s a pattern. And patterns, in politics, become perceptions.
Minns’ leadership during the Bondi crisis is applauded as decisive, bipartisan action, upstaging Albanese’s federal response; making it seem cautious and reactive. Yet it’s not an isolated incident. The narrative of State leaders seizing the initiative while the PM plays it safe, has become a recurring motif in federal politics of late, from crisis management to policy rollouts.”
This is the death by a thousand cuts: not one fatal blow, but a steady drip of missteps, compromises, and missed opportunities. All capably played up by a Murdoch-led media. Travel rorts, stacked appointments, and the Tasmanian Stadium madness aren’t isolated gaffes. They’re symptoms of a government so focused on avoiding risk that it forgets to claim credit; or even defend itself.
The Environmental Own Goal: Climate Diplomacy as Surrender
Labor’s signature climate reform, the reworked Safeguard Mechanism, was billed as a cap on emissions from Australia’s biggest polluters. In practice, critics argue it functions more as a work-around than a brake. Facilities can expand emissions while complying on paper, relying on carbon offsets and accounting mechanisms rather than deep, on-site cuts.
The scheme has been dogged by controversy over low-integrity offsets, including so-called “avoided deforestation” projects where no credible deforestation threat existed, and carbon credits linked to mine-site rehabilitation that critics say should never have qualified at all.
Independent researchers and environmental law groups contend that, taken together, these design features allow new coal and gas projects to proceed under the pretence of a cap, effectively green-lighting fossil fuel expansion while maintaining the appearance of climate restraint.
Even within Labor, MPs acknowledge that compromises struck with mining and gas lobbies have drained the government’s credibility. This isn’t climate leadership. It’s carbon diplomacy of the old school. To anyone expecting strong environmental protections, the Safeguard Mechanism feels like a betrayal dressed up in bureaucratic finery; a replay of the politics that cost Rudd and Gillard their moral high ground a decade ago.
The message to voters is clear:
- The planet can wait.
- The donors can’t.
- The status quo will do.
Welfare and the Digital Workhouse: Polishing the Architecture of Cruelty……………………………………………………………
Defence Drift and the AUKUS Mirage: Billions for a Maybe
Nowhere is the gulf between rhetoric and reality wider than in defence. AUKUS is the most audacious wager any Australian government has ever placed on a technological future it neither controls nor is likely to live to see. Hundreds of billions have been pledged for nuclear submarines that will not arrive for decades and which, if they do, risk arriving obsolete, overtaken by unmanned systems, ubiquitous surveillance, and rapid advances in undersea detection.
Within defence circles, the project is increasingly derided as strategic theatre: a grand, expensive performance of alliance fealty that conceals the hollowing out of local capability. While ministers chant “sovereign capability,” shipyards remain bare, skilled workforces are wafer-thin, and costs climb with a stubborn indifference to arithmetic or accountability. This is not strategy so much as symbolism mistaken for strength, scale confused with power, and loyalty substituted for thought.
If this is deterrence, it is deterrence by press release: loud, brittle, and addressed less to adversaries than to editors, allies, and the anxious political class at home. AUKUS does not so much defend Australia as rehearse its dependence, outsourcing sovereignty in the hope that faith, money, and patience will one day be mistaken for capability.
The Structural Bind: Governing in a Rigged System
To blame Albanese alone is to ignore the architecture of his predicament. He governs in an environment where money, message discipline, and media amplification now flow overwhelmingly from the right………………………………………
A Party Too Small for Its Moment
So, is Albo in trouble? Inevitably. But not only because a hostile press or a cynical opposition have decided so. The deeper problem is that Labor’s exhaustion is showing………………..
This article was originally published on URBAN WRONSKI WRITES https://theaimn.net/is-albo-in-trouble-the-death-by-a-thousand-cuts/
How Corporations View (and Own) the U.S. Military
The most famous example in recent years is the 2023 NDAA, which contained several provisions regarding Taiwan. One provision allowed Taiwan to receive foreign military financing (FMF) from the U.S. government. FMF usually goes to independent countries, not breakaway provinces. FMF consists of loans and/or grants from the U.S. government for a country to purchase goods and services from the U.S. war industry.
And, just like that, the 2023 NDAA increased U.S. belligerence toward Beijing and made war more likely, profiting corporations all the while.
Corporate Capture Is Not Just Lobbying
Christian. Dec 27, 2025, https://thebusinessofwar.substack.com/p/how-corporations-view-and-own-the?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1769284&post_id=179499875&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
A for-profit corporation is a business organization designed to maximize short-term profit. The job of corporate executives is to maximize that profit, while the board of directors makes sure they do so.
The number one way that a corporation maximizes profit is by underpaying its workers.1 Workers create the profit, but don’t receive it. The executives funnel that profit to investors and themselves.
It goes without saying that the workers are not in charge. They are not allowed to make the business decisions in a given corporation. The executives make those decisions. There is no democracy in the workplace.
This is the situation in any industry, including the war industry.
What You Know about Corporate Capture
Big business works hard to influence the U.S. government. Corporate capture happens when it succeeds. Massive corporations work together to influence the government’s institutions and decision-making so that policy and regulation (or lack thereof) increase corporate profit instead of public well-being.
You likely know about think tanks, lobbying, and legal bribery.
- A think tank issues information favorable to those who fund it. Corporations and the super-rich fund think tanks, which create and inflate threats and justify the broad deployment of U.S. troops and sky-high military and intel budgets.
- Corporations and the super-rich hire lobbyists to swarm U.S. Congress and the Pentagon. Lobbyists even draft legislation, which they hand over to politicians.
- Corporations and the super-rich fund the two political parties and individual candidates. Once in office, elected officials pass laws favorable to these big business interests.
Think tanks, lobbying, and legal bribery are a powerful combination, but corporate capture is much more than that. War corporations (known as “military contractors” or “defense companies”) control the mind and the body in several ways.
Control the Mind
- Corporations regularly open (and close) offices and factories. Corporate executives promise a number jobs at a given location, particularly when seeking state and local tax breaks (though the fine print makes sure they never have to come through with all of those jobs or keep workers employed for the long run). Playing the “jobs” card is a way for big business and its politicians to pretend to care about workers.
- Legally designated as 501(c) nonprofits, trade groups (e.g., NDIA, AIA, AUSA) excel at networking active-duty military officers and industry officials, further blurring the line between government and corporate. Corporate viewpoints reign supreme at networking events, such as seminars, breakfasts, and arms fairs. (Additionally, 501(c)4 nonprofits are skilled at using dark money to influence politics.)
- Corporations help to craft policy and strategy on the inside. Corporations have had a hand in strategic initiatives and planning for Navy leadership, strategic plans and policy support for the Air Force, acquisition policy and program development for the Marine Corps, assessments and policy recommendations for the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Logistics, and more!
- The Pentagon gives corporations free labor from military officers. The corporations are allowed to propagandize these officers with recommendations about military policy, which the officers take with them when they return to their military unit.
- Greedy tycoons, including prominent war profiteers, sit on different boards that advise the Pentagon. The Defense Policy Board is one such grouping.
Control the Body
- The U.S. military doesn’t move, bomb, or communicate without corporations. In fact, it doesn’t do anything without corporate goods and services — from the largest aircraft carrier (itself a platform for innumerable goods and services) to the smallest microchip. Comprising the militant body, corporations gobble up more than half of the military budget. There still are uniformed troops (soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and guardians), but they are merely users of corporate products… in the eyes of top executives.
- Corporate personnel are everywhere. These “contractors” even outnumber the troops in many military locations.
- The U.S. military isn’t allowed to repair most of its own equipment. Corporations must do it. This is just like corporations preventing farmers from repairing their tractors or you from putting a new battery into your old laptop.
- In the same vein, corporations do their best to hog the data pertaining to big-ticket weapons. The most famous example is the Lockheed Martin F-35 jet, the most expensive weapon of all time. The corporation owns the software code and the technical data for the jet. The U.S. military therefore is unable to operate, maintain, or upgrade the jet on its own.
- If you don’t own it, it’s not yours. Many corporations require the U.S. military to license their software, not purchase it outright. Licenses cover everything from accounting software and data integration software to products that monitor communications network and Oracle databases for a massive counterintelligence bureaucracy. Licensing is more profitable than a one-time sale.
- Capitalists move from industry to government and back again. When in government, they implement profit-over-people policies and they acquire knowledge to profit better whenever they leave government. (Top military officers also flock to war corporations in retirement, often becoming executives.)
Corporations don’t just run the show. Corporations are the show.
The Resulting Behavior
This corporate capture — mind and body — guarantees that government policy will help to maximize corporate profit.
The annual military policy bill known as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is crafted in the environment described above. Corporate lobbyists and U.S. Congress pack the NDAA with section after section designed to increase corporate profit.
Year after year, the NDAA requires the Pentagon to:
1. Train and arm foreign militaries or paramilitary groups. This increases arms sales and can give the Pentagon some influence over those being trained/armed.
A few examples of many include: training Iraqi forces and Kurdish Peshmerga (2024 NDAA); expanding the training of Eastern European “national security forces” (2025 NDAA); and reinforcing Lebanese military training and equipping (2026 NDAA).
2. Maintain or expand the U.S. military’s presence around the world.
The hundreds of U.S. military bases worldwide increase corporate sales — remember, corporations comprise most U.S. military activity2 — and allow the Pentagon to further bully governments/groups that chart an independent foreign policy or resist corporate domination of their land and resources.
No region is off-limits.
For example, the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, established through the 2021 NDAA and enhanced in all subsequent ones, is the main way the Pentagon militarizes the Pacific. It focuses on building up military infrastructure in the Pacific, purchasing and placing weaponry there, expanding military training and exercises there, and fostering and co-opting regional leaders.
3. Spend money on goods and services made by U.S. war corporations.3 For example, section 1640 of the 2024 NDAA required the Pentagon to establish a nuclear sea-launched cruise missile program. (Sections 1513 of the 2025 NDAA and 1633 of the 2026 NDAA refined the program’s goals.) Guess which corporations the military will pay to develop this weapon!
4. Assess what the official enemies are doing in a given region.
- Assess, for example, what Moscow and Beijing are up to in Latin America and the Caribbean (2024 NDAA, section 7342).
- Devise a strategy for “exposing, and, as appropriate, countering” China’s “malign activities” (2025 NDAA, section 1254).
- Evaluate [alleged] fentanyl trafficking by the Chinese government (2026 NDAA, section 8313) and plan to “respond” to China’s “global” military bases (section 8367).
These are just a few examples.
The assessments are then used to create fear and hype up such “threats.” Look out! [Country you’re taught to fear] is doing X, Y, and Z in [region U.S.-based capitalists want to dominate]! Bigger budgets follow. More money for war corporations.
5. Spend tax dollars on researching more technology for war and espionage. For example, the past three NDAAs have mandated research in artificial intelligence, microelectronics, nuclear weaponry, and much more. Industry does the research. And charges a pretty penny for it. (Meanwhile, corporations don’t use much of their own profit for R&D. Profit goes to execs and investors.)
The most famous example in recent years is the 2023 NDAA, which contained several provisions regarding Taiwan. One provision allowed Taiwan to receive foreign military financing (FMF) from the U.S. government. FMF usually goes to independent countries, not breakaway provinces. FMF consists of loans and/or grants from the U.S. government for a country to purchase goods and services from the U.S. war industry.
And, just like that, the 2023 NDAA increased U.S. belligerence toward Beijing and made war more likely, profiting corporations all the while.
Every subsequent NDAA increased the likelihood of all-out war with China. The 2026 NDAA, for example, further weaponized Taiwan by $1 billion, accelerated U.S.-Taiwan drone and counter-drone programs, encouraged the Pentagon to invite Taiwan to the massive annual military exercise known as RIMPAC, and more.
Full-court Press
Corporate capture is thorough.
It is lobbying; funding political parties and campaigns; establishing and funding think tanks; lying about jobs; using trade groups to imbricate military and industry; crafting policy and strategy on the inside; using boards to advise the Pentagon; flooding the military with corporate goods, services, and personnel; hogging data and requiring licensing; occupying the top Pentagon positions; and propagandizing military officers directly.
The troops are users of corporate goods and services.
Military bases are avenues of corporate profit.
That is how big business sees the U.S. military. And it has achieved its vision.
Christian Sorensen is a researcher focused on the U.S.-based corporations profiting from war. A U.S. Air Force veteran, Sorensen is associate director of the Eisenhower Media Network (EMN), a group of military and intel veterans who disagree with U.S. foreign policy and believe a better world is possible.
#9 TOP STORY OF 2025: Why six Australian Jews accused leading local Zionist of antisemitism
By David Glanz | 27 December 2025
When a leading Zionist calls six other Australian Jews “antisemitic” – and worse – over criticisms of Israel, the issues are deep. Hence this February piece, by those six, was so vital, well-received and much read.
Six Melbourne Jews, labelled “antisemites” by prominent lawyer Mark Leibler, have made a formal complaint against him to the Australian Human Rights Commission. Dr David Glanz details their position.
IMAGINE calling a group of Jews ‘repulsive and revolting human beings’.
At a time when Nazi thugs are openly organising on our streets and swastikas are being daubed on Jewish buildings, it’s surely the stuff of Far-Right memes. Inspiration for more foul graffiti.
But the author of the words was certainly no Nazi. The phrase was written by Mark Leibler AC, one of Melbourne’s leading lawyers, a member of the University of Melbourne Council, a former president of the Zionist Federation of Australia and the current chair of the Australia Israel & Jewish Affairs Council.
Mr Leibler wrote the words as part of a post on Twitter/X that he paid to promote, reaching some 400,000 people.
His target was anti-Zionist Jews in general and – given that we were organising an anti-Zionist rally the day after the post – surely the five of us, some of whom are migrants from Israel.
Mr Leibler didn’t pull his punches. He went on to say that our relatives killed in the Holocaust would be rolling in their graves.
And – this stings, given our track record of anti-racism – that we are ‘vicious antisemites’.
Now Mr Leibler is entitled to his support for Zionism. The idea that Jews would be best served by the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine is, after all, a political position and one that has been contested within Jewish communities for some 140 years.
He is also entitled to defend the State of Israel and its actions in Gaza over the past 16 months.
We disagree with him on both counts. We organised our rally at Parliament House because we wanted to put on the public record that some Jews oppose the settler colonial conquest of Palestine and the consequences that have flowed from that, including apartheid laws within Israel and the West Bank and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
We know that we are a minority within the Jewish community. We don’t claim to speak for all Melbourne Jews — quite the opposite. Our argument is that no one, including Mr Leibler, gets to speak for all Jews.
But we know that the number of Jews standing against the genocide and in solidarity with Palestine is growing, not just in Melbourne but around the world.
Over the past 16 months there have been impressive and lively rallies by dissenting Jews in the U.S., a Jewish bloc of up to 1,000 on Palestine rallies in London and, here in Melbourne, Jews taking part in each of the 71 weekly rallies for Palestine, with Jews often invited to speak from the platform.
We include in our ranks the descendants of Holocaust survivors and those who lost family in the Nazi death camps.
So the one thing we are certain Mr Leibler is not entitled to do is to dismiss us as beyond the pale. We have a right to speak, to be heard (and disagreed with) as Jews.
We have submitted a complaint about Mr Leibler’s post on X to the Australian Human Rights Commission.
As we are all Jews, and as Mr Leibler attacked us as such, we would argue that his post is not just offensive but antisemitic.
And given that our rally was to highlight the issue of discrimination against Palestinians and all victims of racism, we would argue that Mr Leibler’s post was an attempt to victimise us by exposing us to ridicule and contempt as Jews in the public arena.
It is also insulting. We include in our ranks the descendants of Holocaust survivors and those who lost family in the Nazi death camps.
We don’t want money or revenge. A public apology would suffice.
We have been denigrated and impugned. But the suffering of the Palestinians makes any slight we have experienced pale to nothing in comparison.
And that is the tragedy. While Mr Leibler uses his position of power to attack us as the “wrong sort of Jews”, some 2 million Palestinians in Gaza squat in the rubble of their homes, their hospitals and schools, their mosques and churches, and mourn their tens of thousands of dead.
Our rally called for an end to the suffering and discrimination. It was joined by many Jews and our non-Jewish supporters.
Mr Leibler’s post was a calculated and pre-emptive smear to undermine our rejection of all forms of racism, including antisemitism and Islamophobia.
He was obviously concerned about our impact. We must be doing something right.
Dr David Glanz, Nachshon Amir, Shahar Amir, Dr Keren Tova Rubinstein and Dr Guy Gillor are anti-Zionist Jews in Melbourne, who organised a rally against genocide and racism at the Victorian Parliament.
Should We Have an Enquiry or a Tantrum?
27 December 2025 Terence Mills, https://theaimn.net/should-we-have-an-enquiry-or-a-tantrum/
Michael McCormack, former leader of the National Party, had a surprising and emotional outburst before the Christmas break. Surprising in that rarely has he shown this level of energy, certainly not when he was National’s leader and on the back-bench he has barely made a contribution beyond regretting the defection of his mate Barnaby Joyce down the rabbit-hole of One Nation.
Mr McCormack was incensed that federal parliament had not been recalled following the Bondi shootings and he was particularly upset that Anthony Albanese had not initiated a national Royal Commission to complement and duplicate the Royal Commission set up by the New South Wales government: he was also enraged that new gun ownership regulations legislated in NSW, and probably to be adopted nationally, would impact unfairly on the activities of farmers – farmers and professional shooters will be restricted to 10 weapons but with a ban on automatic weapons that allow multiple shots without reloading, similar to those used by the alleged shooters at Bondi and gun licences will need to be renewed every two years rather than being perpetual licenses – poor farmers, how will they get by?
He may have been spurred into activity after Sussan Ley, the coalition’s prime ministerial hopeful, noted that Penny Wong, despite close scrutiny, had not been observed shedding a tear over the Bondi killings – evidently an inexcusable failing on the part of a female minister!
I got the impression that Mr Mc Cormack’s emotional tirade was not so much about Bondi, Royal Commissions or guns but rather it was about the fact that he, as a deposed former party leader, now sitting on the back-benches, was the only voice in the National Party available to speak out particularly as his leader, David Littleproud was completely silent on these issues: Mc Cormack may well have been echoing his former colleague Barnaby Joyce who had little faith in the current leadership of the National Party.
For the record, the New South Wales government have initiated a Royal Commission that will look into, among other matters:
- The nature, prevalence, and drivers of antisemitism in Australia leading up to the Bondi attack, including actions of governments, law enforcement, and broader society.
- An examination of Islamic extremism and neo-nazi ideology long with recommendations to strengthen counter terrorism systems.
Albanese has resisted political and emotive pressure to having a separate Royal Commission to that proposed by Premier Minns in New South Wales. He has noted that:
“There was no royal commission called by the Howard government after Port Arthur. There was no royal commission called by the Abbott government after the Lindt [Cafe] siege, there hasn’t been a royal commission held recently that has not had an extension of time. We know who the perpetrators are here … We know what the motivation is, that they are motivated by the evil ideology of ISIS and a perversion of Islam.”
Albanese has, alongside hate speech reforms and changes to gun laws, announced a review into federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies which will be led by former intelligence chief Dennis Richardson, and he has offered the co-operation of both the government and federal agencies with the NSW commission.
Those insisting on a separate federal Royal Commission say that it would not necessarily take years to conclude and that they could call on the appointed Commissioner to have a preliminary report by the end of April. That, of course is nonsense as the whole point of a Royal Commission is to be broad ranging, hear from all and sundry and probe into the dark corners that usually are hidden; you cannot expect quick fix responses and the Royal Commissioner would undoubtedly resist that sort of pressure.
The non-corporate nuclear news, week to 27 December
TOP STORIES.
Trump’s Nuclear Obsession.
Palantir’s Palestine: How AI Gods Are Building Our Extinction.
The Sovereign Hook – How Australia and its Jewish Community are Played in a Foreign Game.
Gun vs Keffiyeh- One kills, the other gets you death threats.
“Make Iran like Gaza”: Chilling insider view from Israel weapons expo.
Israel Is Preparing for a Permanent Presence in Gaza,
Satellite Images Reveal. Fukushima Now (29) – Part 1: What Constitutes Responsibility?
Climate. Out of a superhero movie: Companies are coming up with plans to block out the sun.
ECONOMICS. It was blindingly obvious that Europe wasn’t going to agree to the reparations loan.
EDF faces the financial equation: Bernard Fontana is considering massive asset sales to generate 20 billion euros –
Instead of buying Venezuelan heavy crude…Trump just steals it.
Trump row threatens to delay Britain’s nuclear renaissance
Trump’s Son-in-Law Pitches$112B Tech Utopia on Gaza Rubble. Profiting From Genocide .
Studsvik Calls Extraordinary Meeting to Add UK Nuclear Executive Julia Pyke to Board. EU launches inquiry intoCzech funding plan for new nuclear. Sweden’s VattenfallSeeks State Funding for New Nuclear Reactors. Politico: Despite the war, France will build nuclear fuel in Germany with the help of a Russian company. Trump Floundering Efforts to Shore Up US Hegemony. Turkey Makes Another $9 Billion Bet on Russian Nuclear Power.
EMPLOYMENT. Fears raised that specialist Vulcan MoD work could shift to Sellafield
ENVIRONMENT. UK’s largest planned data centre ‘could use 50 times more water’ than developer claims. Biodiversity Net Gain: can developers be trusted?
ETHICS and RELIGION. Why Are Pedophiles the Most Successful Capitalists?
HISTORY. European Russophobia and Europe’s Rejection of Peace: A Two-Century Failure. The Real Story Behind the Russia–Ukraine War—and What Happens Next.
LEGAL. Keir Starmer’s attempt to send Abramovich’s billions to Ukraine is illegal. The Problem with Machado: Assange Sues the Nobel Foundation
MEDIA. How reporting facts can now land you in jail for 14 years as a terrorist.
OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . 15 years after Fukushima disaster locals fear return of Japan’s nuclear power.
PERSONAL STORIES. One excavator, 10,000 bodies, a sea of rubble: inside Gaza’s effort to retrieve and bury its dead.
POLITICS. Israeli Cabinet Approves 19 New Apartheid Colonies in Occupied West Bank.
Japan set to restart world’s biggest nuclear power plant. Former Japanese PM Ishiba again criticizes remarks advocating nuclear armament. Hiroshima urges Japanese government to uphold non-nuclear principles.
Japan set to restart world’s biggest nuclear power plant. Former Japanese PM Ishiba again criticizes remarks advocating nuclear armament. Hiroshima urges Japanese government to uphold non-nuclear principles.
Iran, UK foreign ministers discuss nuclear issue in phone call. Hawai‘i Has a Rare Opportunity to Reclaim Land From the US Military.
The 2025 nuclear year in review: Back to the Future Atomic Age. India’s Dept of Atomic Energy seeks sops to put nuclear power on a par with renewable energy.
POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. Kushner, Witkoff draft $112B proposal to develop Gaza into ‘smart city’ with luxury resorts.
Report: Netanyahu To Ask Trump To Support Another Attack on Iran. Global nuclear arms control under pressure in 2026. Iran rejects inspections of bombed nuclear sites without IAEA framework.
RADIATION. Canada’s double standard on tritium emissions
SAFETY. Warning Chernobyl nuclear plant radiation shield is at risk of collapse.
Incident. Radioactive substance leaks from Fukui nuclear power plant in Japan. Occupied and Imperiled: Charting a Path for Zaporizhzhia’s Nuclear Future.
SECRETS and LIES. The EU’s top diplomat casually rewrites WWII history on her way to WWIII. 58 Years of Occupation — And the Shocking Report Israel Doesn’t Want You to Read
SPACE. EXPLORATION, WEAPONS. Trump orders return to Moon by 2028, lunar base with nuclear power by 2030. Russia wants to build a nuclear power plant on the moon in the next few years .
TECHNOLOGY. Why Nuclear Fusion Will Not Solve the AI Power Problem. Scottish Government urged to intervene in Edinburgh AI data centre plans.
The Reality of SMR Timelines for AI Data Centers: A Veteran’s View.
URANIUM. Canada must acknowledge the implications of selling uranium to India.
WASTES. The cost of eternity. UK to restart nuclear submarine defuelling in 2026.
WAR and CONFLICT. Trump’s Peace? More Like Bombs, Blockades, and Bullying. US Launches Christmas Strikes on Nigeria—the 9th Country Bombed by Trump. The“President of Peace” Prepares for War.
Israeli Cabinet Approves 19 New Apartheid Coloniesin Occupied West Bank. Israeli Occupation Intensifies: Defense Minister Vows Permanent Gaza Presence as Settler Violence Escalates in West Bank. Netanyahu plans to brief Trump on possible new Iran strikes.
WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. Europe’snuclear sites on high alert for drone threats in the year ahead . Israel’s growing role in Taiwan’s air defense alarms Beijing. France is to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that will be the largest warship in Europe.
How Corporations View (and Own) the U.S. Military. Trump Announces Nuclear-Armed Battleships for the U.S. Navy. Revealed: Trump’s secret $264 million plot to put nuclear doomsday weapons in Britain to face down Putin. $264million scheme could transform RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk into a nuclear facility.
Gun vs Keffiyeh. One kills, the other gets you death threats.
by Member of Jews Against the Occupation | Dec 18, 2025 , https://michaelwest.com.au/gun-vs-keffiyeh-one-kills-the-other-gets-you-death-threats/
A Jewish woman wearing a Keffiyeh as well as the Star of David was escorted off Bondi Beach by police. The resulting social media storm led to death threats to her and to her friend.
I am writing this knowing it will likely result in more death threats.
That is not a metaphor. It is a statement of fact, based on what happened to my friend Michelle and me this week, and what happened next when we sought protection from the state.
On Monday, at the Bondi memorial for the victims of the mass killing the day before, Michelle – a Jewish local and member of Jews against the Occupation ‘48 – was surrounded by a hostile crowd shouting “get her off”. She was escorted off the beach to the sound of applause by approximately forty police officers, whilst trying to explain her position to the surrounding reporters, and taken to Bondi Police Station, where she was told she couldn’t go back to Bondi Beach for 6 hours.
Her “offence”? Wearing a Keffiyeh.
Whether one agrees with her politics or not is beside the point. The memorial was dominated by Israeli flags – the flag of a state currently accused of genocide and whose leaders are wanted for war crimes. Michelle wore the keffiyeh because she objected to a moment of mourning being politicised. But it is not a crime. Nor is it a provocation warranting mob intimidation.
What followed should concern anyone who believes the rule of law applies equally.
After video footage of Michelle circulated on X, under a post by journalist Hugh Riminton, the abuse escalated rapidly.
Facts ignored
What was not mentioned – despite Michelle wearing a visible Star of David and explicitly stating to the press that she is Jewish – was that she is a Jewish local who grew up in Bondi. That omission mattered.
I replied publicly on X to clarify that Michelle is Jewish, that she is my friend, and that she is part of JAO48. While those responses received hundreds of supportive comments, they also unleashed some of the most extreme antisemitic, misogynistic, ageist and Islamophobic abuse I have encountered in years of public advocacy.
I can deal with online abuse on social media. The block button is my friend.
Threats arrived in my email inbox – not via social media, but via my direct contact form and messaging linked to my business. One message stated that Michelle was “now wishing she had stayed home” and warned, “I would not want to be her”.
The individual who contacted me used the name “Brenton Tarrant”, the name of the Christchurch mass murderer, writing that I “deserve a bullet in the head”, and that Michelle would be “hunted down”, and that because her address was doxxed, it would make “putting a claw hammer in her skull even easier.”
This was enough intimidation for me to call 000 and for two members of the Chatswood station to attend my home. The expressions on their faces when they read the messages were of shock and disgust.
No police report
More concerning was that Michelle’s home address had been published online in response to Riminton’s post. On Monday night, she went to Maroubra Police Station to report she’d been doxxed.
And nothing happened. She wasn’t contacted the next day or given a case number. Nothing.
When we returned to Maroubra Police Station two days later to ask what action had been taken regarding the doxxing and threats, the attending constable.
‘could not even find a record of Michelle having gone there on Monday night.’
There was a record of the death threats I received from Chatswood Police Station, but that doesn’t help someone whose life is in danger in Maroubra.
A Jewish woman, escorted by dozens of police officers, detained at a police station under threat of violence, had no record in the system days later. Had something happened to her in the intervening period, there would have been no official trace of her presence or vulnerability.
This is not a paperwork error. This is a systemic failure.
Irony of doxxing laws
The irony is sharp enough to cut. NSW’s doxxing laws were introduced following sustained lobbying about online threats directed at Zionist Jews. Those laws were framed as urgent protections against harm.
Yet here we have a Jewish woman who is anti-Zionist, whose address was published, who received death threats, and whose case appears to have been ignored entirely.
Only after I explicitly raised the double standard to a young constable – only after pointing out how differently this would have been handled had Michelle been a Zionist Jew – was a report finally entered into the system. I also demanded that police investigate the instigator of the doxxing. Whether the individual can ultimately be identified is beside the point. The absence of effort is the issue.
This failure is made even more disturbing by the broader amplification of risk.
Identity matters
The omission of Michelle’s Jewish identity among all the abuse matters. Not because her Judaism should confer protection or legitimacy – it should not have to – but because it fuelled a narrative that made her a target. The implication was clear:
‘she was an outsider, an agitator, someone deserving of removal.‘
It should not matter who she is. It should not matter what she believes. Wearing a keffiyeh is no more illegal than waving the flag of a state accused of mass atrocities.
What should matter is this: no one attending a memorial should be threatened with death, have their home address exposed, or be left unprotected by the police.
If that standard only applies to some Jews, then it is not protection at all. It is political preference enforced by the state.
And if writing this results in more threats, then that fact alone tells you how broken our public discourse – and our institutions – have become.
Tragedy should have united the country
Fifteen people are dead. Around forty are injured. Families and communities are grieving. But within hours, the event was weaponised.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed the Albanese government. Jillian Segal linked the massacre with the March for Humanity on the Harbour Bridge.
Josh Frydenberg re-emerged, positioning himself as a future Prime Minister on the back of mass death, although suggesting this is the case is “highly offensive” to him.
I guess to Josh, it’s irrelevant that the father in the father/son terrorist team arrived in ’98 when Howard was PM, he gained his gun license in 2015 when Abbott was PM, and the ASIO investigation into the son was dropped in 2019 when Morrison was PM.And now, as a result of this horrific terrorist attack on Sunday, the calls to ban pro-Palestine protests are louder than ever.
If anybody can possibly think that Palestinians, Muslims, indeed even humanitarians who object to genocide had anything to gain from a mass shooting, “they’ve got rocks in their head”, as we say in Australia. If anything, the events of this week
‘show precisely why dissent must be protected.‘
When anti-Zionist Jews can be threatened with death, doxxed, misrepresented as terrorists, and left without protection by the state, the danger is not protest – it is repression.
If writing this results in further threats, that fact alone will confirm the point.
It is not safety for all that is being prioritised in this country. It’s not even safety for all Jews that is being prioritised. What dark days we are living in.
Albo bows to media, Israel pressure, moves on antisemitism, free speech
by Stephanie Tran and Kim Wingerei | Dec 19, 2025, https://michaelwest.com.au/albo-bows-to-media-israel-pressure-moves-on-protests-antisemitism-free-speech/
Anthony Albanese has announced the government “adopts and fully supports Jillian Segal’s plan to combat antisemitism,” bowing to intense media pressure. Stephanie Tran and Kim Wingerei report.
Criticising the state of Israel is about to get difficult.
Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, the Prime Minister said, “We’ve already legislated for hate speech, hate crimes, hate symbols, outlawing doxxing,” adding the government would implement all 13 recommendations “in consultation with the Jewish community and the envoy.” His words hint at a cop-out with a bit of wriggle-room.
The 13 recommendations he refers to are from Anti-Semitism Envoy Jillian Segal’s report, presented in July this year, including the adoption of the controversial definition of anti-semitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance – the “IHRA definition.”
Never intended to “chill speech”
The government’s formal response endorses the IHRA definition as Australia’s official definition by publishing a new “supplementary guide” by the Special Envoy to assist its application in an Australian context. Until that’s been published, it is unclear what this will mean in practice.
First adopted by Australia in 2021 under the Morrison government, the definition includes 11 illustrative examples, most of which relate to criticism of the State of Israel.
Kenneth Stern, the lead drafter of the IHRA definition, has cautioned against its use as a disciplinary tool. Stern has repeatedly said the definition was never intended to “target or chill speech”.
“Starting in 2010, right-wing Jewish groups took the “working definition”, which had some examples about Israel … and decided to weaponise it with title VI cases,” Stern wrote in a Guardian op-ed.
In 2021, the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism was supported by hundreds of Jewish scholars in response to what they described as the IHRA definition’s “unclear” and “controversial” framing. The Declaration’s preamble states:
“The IHRA Definition includes 11 “examples” of antisemitism, 7 of which focus on the State of Israel. While this puts undue emphasis on one arena, there is a widely-felt need for clarity on the limits of legitimate political speech and action concerning Zionism, Israel, and Palestine.”
Burgatory ruling
In a recent Melbourne Magistrates’ Court ruling, a magistrate rejected police attempts to treat anti-Zionist chanting as a strict-liability offence, finding prosecutors must prove intent to insult or offend.
The court found that political speech must go beyond a mere difference of opinion and be “contrary to contemporary standards of public good order” to constitute a criminal offence.
Outside the court, Hash Teyeh hailed the ruling as “a huge win for the freedom of political speech”.
New immigration powers
The government’s response also includes expanded immigration powers, with the government “collaborating with the Special Envoy for Antisemitism to enhance training of immigration officers”.
Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke said, “We will be changing the law to make visa cancellation and visa refusal easier. … I have refused and cancelled visas on the grounds of antisemitism in a way that very few predecessors have. I don’t resile from that.
“And I’ve made clear on the balance of bigotry versus freedom of speech.”
Antisemitism Education Taskforce
In response to Segal’s recommendation to “foster long-term societal resilience by ensuring throughout Australian society an understanding of, and familiarity with, the nature, history and danger of antisemitism,” the Government will establish “the Antisemitism Education Taskforce (the Taskforce) to be chaired by David Gonski AC,” the perennial go-to man for aspirational plans.
The aspirations are to encompass all levels of education, from kinder to uni, in a concerted effort to ensure “a deep understanding of Jewish Australians’ history and culture, and a mature understanding and expression of Australian values.”
The plan does not touch on what those values are, but there is the odd, cursory nod to combating racism in general, including funding for an SBS podcast “to dispel misinformation and disinformation impacting Australia’s social cohesion.”
Security, law enforcement and coordination
A new AFP special taskforce is to be established, “to investigate threats, violence and hatred towards the Australian Jewish community and parliamentarians.”
The government has also committed $159.5m in security funding to the Executive Council of Australia Jewry and other community groups, “to improve safety and security at Jewish community sites, including synagogues, and to protect Jewish students in schools and higher education.”
Recommendations not adopted
Some of the more controversial proposals in Segal’s original report were omitted from the government’s formal response, albeit not explicitly rejected.
These include recommendations to allow public funding to be terminated for cultural institutions or festivals deemed to have failed to address antisemitism, or the removal of charity tax status for “problematic organisations.”
See below [chart on original] for a detailed analysis of what has been included and what has not. Only 31% of the original recommendations are to be implemented “as is.”
RAAF, or Richard Marles’ Airways? The Defence Minister’s flight of fancy
by Rex Patrick | Dec 21, 2025, https://michaelwest.com.au/raaf-or-richard-marles-airways-the-defence-ministers-flight-of-fancy/
The awful events at Bondi Beach have taken travel rorts off the front page but documents show Defence Minister Richard Marles is using an Air Force 737 as his own private jet. Rex Patrick reports.
Apologies to Richard Marles for using the title of Defence Minister in the lede to this article; he much prefers the title of Deputy Prime Minister. It’s all about the look.
What next in travel rorts
The Prime Minister has asked IPEA, the Independent Parliamentary Expense Authority, to examine whether the parliamentary travel entitlement rules require reform (hint: they do).
MWM is on the case, with an FOI lodged to see what’s been happening behind the tightly drawn curtains of the Prime Minister’s Office.
Meanwhile, on RAAF VIP Airways
In August 2023, journalist Samantha Maiden revealed that the Defence Minister, – sorry, Deputy Prime Minister – had been personally consulted over the decision to stop publishing where politicians are flying on VIP flights during the same period he personally ran up a $3.6 million bill.
“Publication of VIP flights, generally, cannot present a security risk.“
They were indeed regularly published, with details of routes and passengers, from the late 1960’s until 2022. VIP flights generally take off from secure airports, often from quarantined Royal Australia Air Force (RAAF) areas of those same airports, and the reports are requested to be made public well after the event.
MWM has been fighting two separate Freedom of information (FOI) battles with the Department of Defence (‘Defence’) over the release of flight details.
In the first FOI fight, from September 2023 to October 2024, Defence capitulated in the Administrative Review Tribunal, effectively telling MWM there were no security issues with the flights themselves, rather a concern with identifying individuals with close ties to high office holders to target (presumably with cyber surveillance).
Second request
When a second FOI request was made in October 2024 by MWM focussing on the Defence Minister’s – sorry – Deputy Prime Minister‘s, ‘last four flights’, the FOI was met with hostility and obstruction.
Only after taking the matter to the Information Commissioner (OAIC) and threatening to elevate it to the Administrative Review Tribunal, did Defence again capitulate.
What the documents show in this case is that two of the four flights in question were between Avalon, 64 km from Melbourne airport, and Canberra. The first was a morning flight on 23 September 2024 from Avalon to Canberra. It involved two pilots, and according to the passenger manifest, 5 other security /support/defence staff and lots of empty seats.
Why the Defence Minister didn’t take a commercial jet is not known. There are plenty of, circa $1000 business class flight options from Melbourne to Canberra. Perhaps such a course of action would not have been befitting of a Deputy Prime Minister on that occasion.
And the entourage
A second flight that took place on 10 October 2024 at the end of a parliamentary sitting week, from Canberra to Avalon, carried the Defence Minister – sorry, we keep getting that wrong, Deputy Prime Minister – and three other Victorian MPs, Resources Minister Catherine King, Libby Coker MP and Joanne Ryan MP.
All were appropriately designated by the RAAF as ‘entitled passengers’.
The FOI suggests 13 other security /support/defence staff tagged along. Again, there were plenty of empty seats on the flight.
The two other flights taken by the Deputy Prime Minister – he’ll be happy we’re finally using that more elite title – that were captured by the FOI were a Sydney – Java (Indonesia) – Timor – Avalon flight from 28 to 30 August 2024 and a Melbourne to Port Villa flight on 18 September 2024 returning to Avalon the next day – both using the RAAF’s smaller Falcon executive jet.
Perhaps it was appropriate for the Deputy Prime Minister to fly on a Falcon ‘private’ jet for these international trips, but it’s hard to see the justification for taking a near empty RAAF 737 on travel that could easily have been conducted on commercial flights.
Bronwyn “Chopper” Bishop
Richard Marles lives in Geelong. Maybe he could fly at the front of a commercial aircraft from Canberra to Melbourne and then take a helicopter the rest of the way to Geelong. Bronwyn Bishop did that once in 2015 (and lost her job as Speaker of the House).
‘But Bishop’s extravagance was less expensive for the taxpayer than Marles’.
Apparently, the Deputy Prime Minister regards a hour’s ride in a luxuriously appointed Comcar between Melbourne Airport and Geelong to be an intolerable inconvenience. But even allowing for security requirements it’d be a much more cost effective solution than an RAAF crewed 737.
When the domestic flights above were taken, FOI had not successfully extracted VIP flight details out from under a flight manifest secrecy blanket deployed by former Prime Minister Morrison, but endorsed by Marles.
Maybe the next MWM FOI on the Deputy Prime Minister’s flights might reveal that a bit of sunlight on the issue has stopped such extravagance. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Rex Patrick is a former Senator for South Australia and, earlier, a submariner in the armed forces. Best known as an anti-corruption and transparency crusader, Rex is also known as the “Transparency Warrior.“
“Make Iran like Gaza”: Chilling insider view from Israel weapons expo
by Michael West and Stephanie Tran | Dec 23, 2025 , https://michaelwest.com.au/make-iran-like-gaza-chilling-insider-view-from-israel-weapons-expo/
How to make ‘Iran like Gaza’ and describing the genocide in Palestine as a weapons testing laboratory. Michael West and Stephanie Tran with the inside story of a weapons expo.
Inside a conference hall at Tel Aviv University, executives, generals and venture capitalists took turns boasting about “combat-proven” Israeli weapons and surveillance systems.
At Defense Tech Week 2025, senior figures from Israel’s defence establishment openly described how the genocide in Gaza has accelerated weapons development, unlocked new export markets and reshaped Israel’s global identity as a defence powerhouse.
Less than 70 kilometres from where the conference was held, Gaza has been reduced to rubble. More than two years of genocide, indiscriminate bombardment and mass displacement have left at least 70,000 Palestinians dead and 90% of the Strip destroyed.
Gaza weapons lab
Defense Tech Week advertises itself as a forum connecting startups, investors, defence primes and policymakers. According to its organisers, the event showcases “practical lessons from Israel’s cutting-edge solutions that are addressing global security challenges”.
MWM has obtained the footage with Drop Site News in the US.
The speakers resembled a roll call of Israel’s military-industrial complex with senior Israeli military leadership, officials from the Ministry of Defense, and executives from Israel’s largest arms manufacturers, including Israel Aerospace Industries, Elbit Systems and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.
Speaker after speaker framed the war as a lucrative opportunity for weapons development and sales.
“These are not lab projects or PowerPoint concepts,” said Amir Baram, Director General of Israel’s Ministry of Defense.
“They are combat-proven systems.”
Gili Drob-Heistein, Executive Director at the Blavatnik ICRC and Yuval Ne’eman Workshop for Science, Technology and Security, described defence technology as Israel’s “next big economic engine”.
Israel is known for being the startup nation,” she said. “We all believe that defence tech has the potential to become the next big economic engine for Israel.”
She credited what she called Israel’s “technological leadership” and “out of the box thinking” for results “we’ve seen recently on the battlefield.”
For Boaz Levy, President and CEO of Israel Aerospace Industries, the war has presented an opportunity to showcase the company’s wares with IAI’s weapons being deployed in Gaza, Iran and Yemen.
“The war that we faced in the last two years enabled most of our products to become valid for the rest of the world,” he said.
“Starting with Gaza and moving on to Iran and to Yemen, I would say that many, many products of IAI were there.”
Real-time combat data
Elbit Systems CTO Yehoshua (Shuki) Yehuda spoke about deploying autonomous systems and mass data collection in real-time combat. He showed a video demonstrating how an AI-powered system developed by Elbit is used to select and track targets “less than a pixel.”
“All of it is done by collecting the data,” he said, describing the ability to track “small targets in a very tough background… less than a pixel.”
He explained that these systems were developed in collaboration with the IDF and refined through continuous data collection during military operations.
Profiting from genocide
The speakers were candid about the scale of the financial opportunity presented by genocide.
According to Amir Baram, more than 300 startups are now working with Israel’s military research directorate, MAFAT, with 130 joining during the current war alone. In 2024, he said, the ministry invested 1.2 billion shekels in defence startups.
Baram oriented Israel’s surge within the global boom in defence spending.
“Global defence spending reached $2.7 trillion in 2024,” he said, pointing to the increase in expenditure from NATO countries and US defence spending exceeding $1 trillion.
“By partnering with Israel, you gain access to our advanced technologies as well as the valuable insights and experience that make our system truly effective. The world has chosen to partner with Israel because trust in defence must be built on credibility, performance, and shared strategic purposes.”
In 2024 alone, Baram said, Israel signed 21 government-to-government defence agreements worth billions, positioning Tel Aviv as the world’s third largest defence tech hub.
At Israel Aerospace Industries, Levy said 80% of the company’s activity is export-oriented.
“IAI as of now has $27 billion of new orders,” he said, with annual sales of around $7 billion.
Elbit Systems reported $8 billion in annual revenue and a $25 billion backlog, with more than 20,000 employees worldwide.
‘Make Iran like Gaza’
The speakers were explicit about how techniques developed and used in Gaza could be deployed in future conflicts.
Dr Daniel Gold, head of Israel’s Directorate of Defense Research and Development, described scenarios in which Israel would replicate Gaza style control in Iran.
“Once we have operational freedom in the air,” he said, “we inject inside… our UAV fleet controlling Tehran and controlling Iran – which means we make Iran like Gaza.”
Gold highlighted the practicality of “dual use” technology which have both civilian and military applications.
“A swarm of drones that control the traffic in Tel Aviv can be the same swarm of drones that control in Gaza,” he said.
During his presentation, video footage was shown of a semi-autonomous drone targeting an individual inside an apartment building, imagery that bears striking resemblance to documented Israeli strikes that have killed civilians in residential homes, including the attack that killed Dr Marwan al-Sultan and his family.
“It is very simple to operate,” Gold explained. “Semi-autonomous.”
Mounting pressure
In her report on the “Economy of Genocide”, UN Special Rapporteur for Palestine, Francesca Albanese stated that “for Israeli companies such as Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries, the ongoing genocide has been a profitable venture.”
the report found.
Two years into Israel’s livestreamed genocide in Gaza, execs appear to be acutely aware of the mounting international pressure.
Shlomo Toaff, an executive at RAFAEL Advanced Defense Systems, lamented that “Israel is experiencing a boycott.”
“I think Israel is experiencing a boycott,” he said, citing the company’s exclusion from the Paris Air Show last year. “This is something that we have to take into account when we’re talking about what we’re doing here in the industry.”
Politicising a Terror Attack | Scam of the Week.
21 Dec 2025
IDF security guards to roam the streets of Sydney? Criticism of Israel to be outlawed? Protests banned, media and universities monitored, the threat of defunding for antisemitism?
This episode examines how the Bondi Beach attacks were rapidly politicised, before the facts were established and while families were still grieving. Instead of restraint, Australia witnessed an immediate rush to blame, agenda setting by foreign leaders, and a media cycle that prioritised outrage over evidence.
We look at how the tragedy was leveraged to justify new crackdowns on protest, expanded surveillance, and policies that blur the line between combating antisemitism and restricting legitimate political speech.
We examine the role of lobby groups, the adoption of the IHRA definition, and the implications for media freedom, public broadcasters, universities, and civil society. There is no justice without truth. Watch the full investigation and read the related reporting at michaelwest.com.au
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 