Police in Melbourne oversee a pro-Palestinian rally in July. This week’s Land Forces military conference is expected to become a source of major protests. (Photo by Gemma Hubeek/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
SYDNEY — Police, defense companies and organizers are bracing for potentially violent protests by a range of protesters during the biennial Land Forces conference in Melbourne this week, with demonstrators already shutting down roads, chaining themselves to cars and generally protesting for the last three days.
The organizers of Land Forces, the AMDA Foundation, say the show is set for record attendance, with claims of more than 130 official defense, government and industry delegations attending from 30 nations, alongside over a thousand industry exhibitors. The show, which runs Wednesday through Friday, is being billed as “the largest defense industry event ever held in Australia.”
But protestors seem determined to impact the show, to the point Victoria Police said in an email that “this is expected to be our largest operation since the World Economic Forum in 2000.” They are, they said, bringing in “hundreds of regional police who will travel to Melbourne for the event, in addition to metro general duties police and specialist police including the Public Order Response Team, Highway Patrol and Mounted Branch.”
It’s all gotten a bit personal, with one group posting “wanted posters” of senior defense industry employees from the major primes.
“These war profiteers may be found at arms dealer events such as LAND FORCE 24 at the Melbourne Convention Centre. You may spot one in the streets, at a bar or a cafe, making bank off genocide. Approach with caution. Call for help. Arms dealers have no moral compass and may appear lost. Don’t be fooled,” the website DisruptLandForces.org says. “They know exactly how much harm their dealings do. Arrest on sight.”
Protestors started staging outside the Land Forces 2024 convention center days before the meeting began. (Colin Clark/Breaking Defense)
That particular site also offered protesters legal briefings and a detailed schedule of events. A public fundraiser shows over $20,000 AUS donated to support the group, which says it is a coalition of over 50 groups, many of which are pro-Palestinian.
Some of the wanted posters for industry are very specific, as this example makes clear:
“Christopher Pyne, who was Defense Minister for quite a few of those deals, literally walked straight out of his ministerial position into the employ of the weapons industry – first working as ‘executive consultant’ at EY Defence, and currently holding positions at no less than ten companies and organizations with links to the weapons trade. It is extraordinary that this could be tolerated – a man who was privy to every sensitive discussion of national military strategy be allowed to suddenly appear on the side of the companies who stand to gain from them commercially. Last year Christopher could be seen shamelessly striding into Land Forces, with the protesters being left with the task of reminding him that he was elected to work for the defence of Australians, not to line up cushy corporate jobs for himself.”
The potential scale of the protests may be surprising, but the presence of protestors was not: AMDA notified attendees of the general threat from protesters some time ago. It’s not clear who erected it, but what some local media are calling a “massive” metal fence has been erected around the entire Melbourne Conference Center to protect the site. Victoria Police were careful to note that “there is no intelligence to suggest this event is the target of any specific” terrorist threat.
Breaking Defense contacted representatives from five defense firms attending the conference; of those, only one responded with a comment attributable as “defense industry spokesperson.”
“Our employees will be joined by a security team at Land Forces. This is not out of the ordinary — we take our employees’ safety and security seriously, and this measure is something we consider for all large-scale, public-facing events,” the spokesperson said.
