A packed-out public meeting on Gadigal Country/Sydney on July 26聽鈥 organised by Marrickville Peace Group and supported by Sydney Anti-AUKUS Coalition (SAAC) and the Movement against AUKUS and War in Marrickville 鈥 called for AUKUS to be cancelled because it makes war on China a greater risk, while making Australia more complicit in United States-led war crimes and genocide.
The meeting was held metres away from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese鈥檚 electorate office.
Gem Romuld, from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, warned that AUKUS poses serious threats to First Nations rights, to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty and Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which Australia has signed.
Wanning Sun, professor of Media and Communication Studies at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), spoke about how the media had primed the public to be fearful of China. She said this was why there had been little pushback against AUKUS until now.
Polling by the Australia-China Relations Institute at UTS had found that 鈥渇our out of 10 Australians surveyed believed that Chinese Australians can be mobilised by the Chinese Communist Party鈥.
The Chinese community was terrified at the prospect of mass internment, should such a war eventuate, Sun added.
Greens NSW Senator David Shoebridge said that polls showed that the public was turning against the military deal, which further embeds Australia into the US war machine.
Marcus Strom, from Labor Against War, said that 鈥渕ore than 100 [Labor] party units had passed resolutions opposing AUKUS鈥. Strom added that even the defence department has admitted that there is no threat of a Chinese invasion of Australia.
鈥淲e should fight against the manufactured idea that there is an invasion coming from China and that we will be in any way safer because of AUKUS,鈥 said Shoebridge. 鈥淎ll that AUKUS does is make war more likely. The idea that you 鈥榓rm for peace鈥 and build $375 billion worth of weapons is an obscenity and we should push against it.
鈥淭he idea that there is some inevitable war with China is an obscenity and we should 鈥 reject it when we see it from our politicians and our major media.
鈥淚ndeed, if there is a risk to us from a conflict with China, it only comes about because of AUKUS. And because we are building a nuclear submarine attack base, aimed at China, off Fremantle. It comes about because we have Pine Gap and we have the North West Cape and we have [US] Marines pre-positioned in Darwin and we have nuclear-capable B52 bombers 鈥 designed to be used in a war on China 鈥 on our soil.鈥
Peter Murphy, from SAAC, proposed activists discuss a mass protest cavalcade to the US bases in Pine Gap and Tindal in the Northern Territory.
Other speakers at the public meeting were: Nick Deane (Marrickville Peace Group) and Alison Broinowski (Australians for War Powers Reform). The meeting was moderated by Pip Hinman from SAAC.