Socio Economic

The military exercise Talisman Sabre and the establishment of three new US 'training bases' (the Bradshaw Training Area and Delamere Air Weapons Range in the Norhtern Territory and Shoalwater Bay in Queensland) will have a significant negative social and eocnomic impact on the Australian people.

Social

To meet its exorbitant military spending, the Howard Government has raided other portfolios such as health, welfare and education. In its 2004-2005 budget, Australian Government expenditure on the military exceeded education.

The Government also conceals the real extent of its spending on the military. Some budget allocations go directly to the military but are disguised as aid, industry assistance and other categories.

The US-Australia military alliance distorts our society. Instead of a focus on sustainable development, socially useful production and the needs of the community, priorty is given to supporting US foreign policy, military spending and increasingly repressive social control. The beneficiaries are not our people but the US and Australian militaries together with huge US corporations and some australian companies.

The Howard Government gives the US free use of facilities at the expense of the social fabric of our society. The cost of bases and war games are born by the most vulnerable in our community.

Around the world, in the Philippines, Japan and many other locations, US bases have become the centre of major social problems. The Governor of Okinawa has said the US bases on his island brought a major increase in levels of prostitution, drugs, alcoholism, rape, sexually transmitted diseases, and abuse of women and children.

The Australian experience is similar.

An Anglican Church report from Hobart details frequent sexual assaults on juvenile men and women by US service people.

There have been many other incidents of misbehaviour such as US MPs assaulting Aborigines in an Ipswich pub during the 1997 Tandem Thrust war games and a February 2004 court case in Darwin when two US servicemen were tried for rape.

US-Australian war games have a hidden cost. Young women and men pay with their bodies and minds for the 'rest and recreation' of military personnel. Services for rape counselling and trauma repair also pay a price. These costs are not acknowledged and the media rarely mention them for fear of being branded 'anti-American'.

Economic

Australia's current military spending of $55 million a day steals the resources which should be funding human and social needs.

Military expenditure reduces public and private investment, diverts funds and personnel from civilian research and development, increases the current account deficit, and tends to distort and hold back economic development.

It has been estimated by State governments that an extra $700 million (less than two weeks military spending) spent on public hospitals each year would overcome their critical problems.

Similarly a percentage of current military spending should go to upgrading public schools, reducing the cost of unversity education, supporting childcare, developing Medicare, assisting the needy in our community and maximising employment opportunities.

Military spending creates far fewer jobs that spending the same dollars on civilian projects and businesses. German studies showed that one billion marks transferred from the military budget to civilian programs created at least 800 and in some sectors up to several thousand more jobs than would be lost in the military sector.

Resources committed to the military mean less money for developing strong social cohesion and stability within the nation through employment programs and meeting the health, education and housing needs of Australians and our neighbours.

The World Bank has reported that 'evidence increasingly points to high military spending as contributing to fiscal and debt crises, complicating stabilisation and adjustment, and negatively affecting economic growth and development.'

A new US base will not provide jobs but it will provide rich pickings for a US corporate thug. There are no longer any quartermasters in the US military. Provisioning the US military is now done by Halliburton, US Vice President Dick Cheney's corporation, which has been indicted for malpractice and over charging.