Ferra Engineering provides weapons parts to arms dealers in and outside Australia: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, EADS, Raytheon, Parker, BAE, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics and Pratt & Whitney. It has been pressuring the Australian Government to remove export licence controls. This gave rise to this exchange in the Federal parliament between the Greens David Shoebridge and the DFAT mMnister Penny Wong.
Senator SHOEBRIDGE : RUAG Australia is the sole manufacturer of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s weapons bay door uplocks. Without that military equipment, the F-35 fighter currently being used by the Israeli military to bomb Gaza would be denied its lethal capability as a weapon. Can the minister please explain the government’s position on providing this military equipment to Israel?
Senator WONG: The advice I have is what the government has already made clear—that Australia has not supplied weapons to Israel since the conflict began and for at least the past five years. Australia has a stringent export control framework which ensures military and dual-use items are used responsibly outside of Australia in ways which do not violate human rights. I’m advised that Defence undertakes a rigorous assessment of each export application.
Senator SHOEBRIDGE: Minister, why won’t you answer the question about the manufacture of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s weapons bay door uplocks by Australia as the sole global manufacturer? Why won’t you answer that question?
Senator WONG: I have answered the question, and I’ve said: Australia has not supplied weapons to Israel since the conflict began and for at least the past five years. [This is a lie].
Senator SHOEBRIDGE: …. according to DFAT’s own website, between 2017 and 2022 Australia exported over $13 million worth of ‘arms and ammunition’ to Israel. Can you please explain how the government can export millions of dollars worth of arms and ammunition to Israel while you also claim to be sending no weapons to Israel?
The president of the Senate intervened and no answer was forthcoming.
Here is a speech by a social worker Lisa Bridle at a “Shut Down Ferra” picket at Tingalpa in Brisbane on the 31st of February 2024.
My name is Lisa Bridle, I am a social worker and disability advocate over the past three decades. And I’m also the mother of three children. And I want to speak today about things that are in our hearts, and in our minds, and really bear witness to the victims of this genocide. So it won’t be anything that is not new to you. We are here, because we have heard the atrocity … (it) is coming across our social media feed, but I really kind of want to slow down and honour … and (to) remember exactly the depth of depravity which is being unleashed on innocent civilians in Gaza.
So as a mother, I want to say … you don’t have to be a mother, you just have to be a human being (but) that is the lens through which I see this. I cannot but be heartbroken when I see fathers desperately searching under rubble for their children, carrying preschoolers, their mutilated preschoolers who have missing limbs and bleeding to death, trying to desperately find a still open, still functioning hospital for them to be treated, to see mothers writing children’s names on small bodies, and telling them that it’s okay because if they die, they will die together. So I am imagining now, all of those parents who are impacted by the ridiculous and vindictive aid withdrawal and of aid support to civilians through Israeli lies. And the babies whose babies or children and teenagers and grandparents who starve to death, or miss out on life saving medical treatment because of that decision, shame on you, Australian government for supporting those lies.
I can’t help but be heartbroken and despairing of the images that shell shocked children who are looking around for known adults and who are slowly coming to terms with the fact that everyone they knew who protected them is gone. The depth of this suffering makes it really easy to look away. But at the cost of witnessing this is actually not insignificant to us. But when the world looks away, I have decided we have decided, not to look away. We will not, we must not look away and we must fight.
My children are now adults. But when my second child was born, he was very desperately ill and spent time in the ICU. And in the even in the early days of the onslaught on Gaza. The story started emerging of the babies who died because the incubators were turned off due to loss of power and the bombing of the hospitals, and I can not get out of my thoughts. Just the desperation that those parents must have felt. Every parent of a child who has been desperately ill knows the racing heart, the tightness in your chest, the absolute sense of panic, that you will lose your child. And to know that these children were lost, not because they’ve got (inaudible) due to their medical impairment. But because Netanyahu and his ilk wanted those children to die, wanted them to die, plotted their death. These deaths were supported by most of the Western world. (Shame). It is unspeakably cruel, and yes it is shameful.
And then we turn to those who may, and I say may survive this genocide. All of those who have lost limbs, they’ve lost a hearing. They’ve lost their sight. Their mental well being will be permanently impacted. Their nights will be full of terror. As a disability activist, and as someone who’s supported my own parents through an amputation, I know that while it is possible to live well with lifelong disability, it is far from easy. It is something where those people will now have even more insurmountable obstacles in their life. So even in a country like Australia, where we have access to good medical care, where we have access to equipment support through the NDIS and you know, legislation, which kind of almost ensures access into buildings, we know that the issues of disability are not easily resolved. So I’m thinking of all those who will live with phantom pain for missing limbs for the rest of their lives. The injuries and the wounds from from ill fitting prosthetics, equipment breakdowns, environmental barriers impacted employment. And all of this disadvantage, which again, is deliberately inflicted
in our name which is absolutely linked to what is happening here at Ferra. So these weapons, this mutilation, this a deliberate disablement cannot happen without the cooperation of companies, the complete complicity of companies like Ferra (Shame). And I want to turn our attention now to the police and their dirty business of guarding this company. The impact on innocent civilians in Gaza is astronomical, it is unconscionable. So I asked you to actually please leave your jobs …. call in sick the next time you’re asked to do the dirty business of Ferra and our government? Is it really worth the cost to your soul to know that your work is deliberately and inextricably linked to the assault on children in Gaza? I don’t think. So if you want to be part of the slaughter of innocents keep doing this work. And if you don’t, just don’t turn up. (Applause).
So I remind us of the cost and the impact on innocent people in Gaza, not because I want us to feel hopeless or overwhelmed, but to remind us of the absolute urgency and the righteousness of our call. I want to appeal to everyone to keep up the fight. And I know because I’m older I’ve been around and lots of other movements. And it’s actually pretty hard to to sustain a movement over time. And that’s kind of what the government is also expecting … that this will go away. It won’t have any consequences to them. But we can’t turn away we can’t numb ourselves from the horror. So stick together, support each other. Let’s have the courage to keep being brave to keep sharing the truth to keep fighting with all of the will and determination that the Palestinians are showing now just to survive. (Applause) We must not, we will not look away, we will fight until Palestine is free.
Lisa Bridle
31 Jan 2024
