When the dial was turned up on the heated Gaza debate in federal parliament last week, the Greens repeated an accusation they have made regularly in recent months: that the federal government is “supporting genocide” through a “two-way arms trade” with Israel, as party leader Adam Bandt put it.
Labor ministers have routinely insisted the government has not been exporting any weapons or military parts to Israel, and now defence officials have also pushed back against those claims.
What does the evidence say? Put simply, it suggests the “arms trade” is in fact one way.
Defence officials appearing before Senate estimates last week added ballast to the government’s claim that no “military” exports had been approved to Israel for five years.
But government tender documents published online reveal that Australia has continued to import Israeli-made lethal technology and has made purchases worth millions of dollars from Israeli-owned defence companies Elbit and Rafael since the October 7 terrorist attacks and subsequent conflict.
The debate over exports
Greens politicians have repeatedly asserted that unspecified exports to Israel are still being approved by Defence, also pointing to recent Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) data and crucially highlighting there are Australian components inside the F-35 military aircraft that Israel operates.
During last week’s Senate estimates hearings, Labor attempted to push back against these various data sets by asking a series of “Dorothy Dixers” to defence officials, eliciting rare detail about Australia’s opaque weapons trade.
Under carefully choreographed questioning by a junior Labor senator, Deputy Secretary Hugh Jeffrey explained to the committee that since the Gaza conflict had begun the government had been scrutinising defence export permits involving Israel.
“We looked through all of our export permit processes, export permits that were agreed over the past five years to ensure that what we were talking about is dual use technologies and items that were for the ADF,” Mr Jeffrey told the committee.
The deputy secretary also revealed that seven of the eight export permits issued since October 7 involved the return of equipment to Israel as the original manufacturer, for repairs or modifications, while the final item was non-lethal and non-military.
Earlier this year, the ABC also revealed that frustrated Australian defence manufacturers believed the Albanese government was overseeing a deliberate “go slow” over assessing exports to Israel.
Over recent weeks the Greens have also highlighted official DFAT figures showing during February Australia had exported $1.5 million in “arms and ammunition” to Israel, but Defence has again clarified this is not accurate.
“(It’s) for a single item, that is a return to Australia item that falls under the category of what we’ve just been talking about in that it supports Australian defence capability,” Defence official David Nockles told Senate estimates last week.
A more effective line of argument from the Greens has been Australia’s involvement in the global supply chain for the F-35 jet fighter, which is operated by over a dozen nations including Israel.
Last October, the RAAF boasted that more than 70 Australian companies had already directly shared more than $4.13 billion in global F-35 production and sustainment contracts. But defence insists those components individually cannot be considered weapons.
Speaking at estimates, Hugh Jeffrey explained that in granting export permits for F-35 parts, 12 criteria had to be balanced, including human rights concerns and whether withholding the products would erode national security interests and treaty obligations.
“I think 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,” Mr Jeffrey told the committee.
This week, Defence Minister Richard Marles added to the pushback against the F-35 supply chain criticism, telling ABC Melbourne that Australian made components for the warplane were “non-lethal”.
“We need to be really clear about how complex this becomes very quickly. I mean Qantas and Virgin, for example, purchase Boeing aircraft. Boeing supplies military planes as well and supplies military planes to the Israeli Defence Force,” Mr Marles argued.
“What are we now saying if we walk down this path in respect of Qantas and Virgin? I mean the reality is that in the world today we live in a very complex global supply chain, that is actually very much the case in relation to the F-35s.”
These details offered by way of rebuttal are uncharacteristically forthright for Australia’s defence export system, which is considered one of the western world’s most secretive and opaque. But the information, even if choreographed, helped to provide clarity.
The evidence on imports
In contrast, officials spent less time talking about trade in the other direction. But there has been some recent scrutiny in this regard.
In particular, focus has fallen on a controversial $1 billion contract awarded to Israeli company Elbit earlier this year to provide 30mm manned turrets for Army’s new infantry fighting vehicles, which are being built near Geelong by South Korean defence company Hanwha.
On Monday, Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy argued Elbit had been “subcontracted” by Hanwha, and while the government had control over such decisions it was not “sanctioning Israeli businesses or boycotting Jewish businesses”.
“We are contracted with Hanwha Defence Australia to build infantry fighting vehicles for the Australian Army in Australia. As part of that, Hanwha have subcontracted to Elbit to build the turrets, which is part of the vehicle in Australia for the Australian Army,” he told the ABC.
As the other published government tender documents reveal, Australia’s military imports from Israel go beyond the Elbit deal, and have continued long into the war in Gaza.
In total, Defence has signed or amended nine contracts with Elbit, Rafael or their subsidiaries since the war began, including for missiles, explosives and war vehicles. The total value of those contracts is just shy of $100 million.