‘Disneyland of War’: Weapons companies fund Australian War Memorial redevelopment

A recent ABC Four Corners report (“Sacrifice”, which aired 10 March) warns that the Australian War Memorial in Canberra is in danger of being turned into “a half-a-billion-dollar military theme park that celebrates, rather than commemorates war”.

A significant renovation, commissioned by former Prime Minister Scott Morrison, will expand the Memorial’s gallery space by 80 percent and include exhibits of a fighter jet and other military equipment.

“I’m appalled by it. It’s a kind of Disneyland of war”, Geoffrey Watson, director of the Centre for Public Integrity, told the program.

But there’s another issue, outlined by journalist Mark Willacy:

“Last year, at the largest defence industry event ever held in Australia, the world’s leading weapons-makers were proudly promoting their ware—Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Thales, BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman. Those same companies have also proudly sponsored the Australian War Memorial—an involvement that appals many who say it contradicts the mission of the memorial.”

The Memorial’s chair, former leader of the ALP Kim Beazley, told the program: “I don’t feel the slightest embarrassment with weapons manufacturers contributing”. Beazley, as it turns out, sits on the board of Luerssen Australia, a shipbuilding company. He is also on the advisory board of Lockheed Martin, one of the largest weapons corporations in the world.

Four Corners obtained annual disclosure forms for War Memorial council members, “which revealed Mr Beazley did not list his roles with Luerssen or Lockheed Martin”.

Indeed, there seems to be a secret revolving door between the Australian War Memorial and weapons companies. Former Memorial director and Liberal leader Brendan Nelson had a paid role with French firm Thales while employed by the Memorial.

“Dr Nelson’s role with Thales, which began in 2015, wasn’t disclosed for four years, and then only because he was forced to register on the government’s foreign influence register, introduced in 2019”, the ABC found.

“It’s totally fucked”, Watson, from the Centre for Public Integrity, told Four Corners. Nelson became Boeing Australia’s president six months after departing the Memorial.

Another member of the War Memorial council, Daniel Keighran, is also employed by Thales. “Across five annual disclosure forms, Mr Keighran does not once mention his role with Thales”, notes the ABC.

War Memorial council member Greg Melick defended taking the donations, saying that they came from “reputable weapons manufacturers”. But what makes a weapons manufacturer “reputable”?

In the WW2 gallery, you can experience the “sights, sounds and sensations of a Bomber Command raid on Germany” in a replica sponsored by Boeing. Today, the Israeli Air Force flies Boeing F-15 Silent Eagles over Gaza and drops bombs guided by Boeing’s JDAM kits.

Perhaps Boeing is “reputable” because it sells its weaponry to the “right” war criminals. Peter Stanley, a former principal historian of the War Memorial, called the arms manufacturer funding “dirty money” and said that the Memorial “should not be accepting money from merchants of death”.

Given the renewed militarisation worldwide, the creeping commercialisation of the Australian War Memorial should be of concern. Australia currently spends $56 billion on its military, approximately 2 percent of GDP. But that is set to increase. Defence Minister Richard Marles boasted on ABC radio that the government is delivering the biggest “peacetime increase in defence spending since the end of the Second World War”.

The problems with the Australian War Memorial run deeper than the influence of dirty weapons funding, however. The Memorial glorifies Australia’s involvement in World War One. Immediately upon entering the gallery, you see printed on the wall: “Their spirit, our pride”.

Further on is a statue of the Greek Goddess Nike called “Winged Victory”, erected in Sydney in 1919: “To the honour and glory of the men of Marrickville who gave their lives for God and the cause of humanity”. It is accompanied by a plaque quoting English poet John Oxenham: “All honour give to those who nobly striving, nobly fell, that we might live!”

The implication is that Australia invaded Turkey and Palestine to defend Australia. But the First World War was not about “defence”. The war was a bloodbath of working-class soldiers who died so that empires could carve up the world. Some 62,000 Australians, primarily working-class men, were killed in the industrial-scale mass slaughter.

Moreover, the War Memorial still houses the bravery medal of a war criminal. Ben Roberts-Smith’s Victoria Cross sits in a glass case in the Memorial’s Hall of Valor. In 2023, Federal Court Justice Besanko found there was “substantial truth” that Roberts-Smith murdered an unarmed Afghan man with a prosthetic leg. He later asked soldiers to drink from the prosthetic. The court found Roberts-Smith was involved in the unlawful killings of four unarmed Afghan civilians.

It is a disgrace to all of the people who were sacrificed for the British Empire that their memory is commemorated in galleries funded by corporations that profit from war. On top of that, the Australian War Memorial should not keep relics of conquered peoples, house the medals of war criminals, or glorify the battles fought for imperial gain.