A public rally to protest against the Coalition government’s Defence Export Strategy and the Australian Military Sales Catalogue took place on June 30 outside the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney’s CBD. Below is an extract from one of the speeches.

“By this public destruction of the Australian Military Sales Catalogue today, we symbolically protest against the Government spending $3.8 billion of our tax money to promote the manufacture and export of weapons of war, bringing death and misery to overseas countries.

This reprehensible policy of our Government must be stopped.

We demand that our government stops using this money to fund the weapons export industry, instead using it to develop a peaceful and caring Australia. The money is needed to care for Australians; schools, hospitals and pensioners.”

View the YouTube video of the event here.

What you can do: Contact the Coalition government and denounce its plan to make Australia a ‘merchant of death’.

The rally was organised by Independent and Peaceful Australia Network and Australian Anti-Bases Campaign Coalition.