None of that matters to the Australian Department of Defence, however. Earlier this week, Defence revealed<\/a> it was paying $9.7 million for radios to Elbit Systems UK, the British subsidiary of Elbit that has attracted a storm of protesters at its plants across England<\/a> against the Palestinian genocide. Defence commenced the contract with Elbit UK last week, after a tender process commencing in December 2024 \u2014 long after Elbit\u2019s role in the execution of Frankcom by the IDF was well known.<\/p>\n Defence thus took a clear decision to reward a company connected with the killing of an Australian.<\/p>\n \n\t\tRelated Article Block Placeholder<\/p>\n \t\t\tArticle ID: 1217070\n\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t This new funding for Elbit is only the most recent taxpayer handout to Elbit or its subsidiaries: in October 2024, Defence handed nearly $700,000<\/a> to Elbit\u2019s Australian subsidiary for drone support systems; a month earlier it handed $38,000<\/a> to Elbit Australia for security systems; in April 2024, when Frankcom was executed, Elbit was, aptly, given $160,000<\/a> for explosives; it received $609,000<\/a> in February 2024, two contracts worth $3.7 million in January 2024 and a $14 million contract in November 2023.<\/p>\n \tIndependent. Irreverent. In your inbox<\/p>\n \n Get the headlines they don\u2019t want you to read. Sign up to Crikey\u2019s free newsletters for fearless reporting, sharp analysis, and a touch of chaos <\/p>\n By continuing, you agree to our\u00a0Terms & Conditions<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, the largest recent contract was around $900 million for Elbit to supply turrets to infantry vehicles being built by South Korean company Hanwha, a contract the government was caught lying about in 2024. While the government claimed it had no involvement in Hanwha\u2019s sub-contract, documents obtained by Crikey revealed that the government had closely vetted and approved the sub-contract process<\/a>.<\/p>\n The government also recently handed $467,000<\/a> for missiles to another Israeli arms company, Rafael, which has also been targeted by protests in Australia and overseas<\/a>.<\/p>\n The government\u2019s enthusiasm for continued funding of companies deeply involved in Israel\u2019s genocide in Gaza radically undercuts its posturing on recognition of a Palestinian state. While the recognition has attracted criticism from the Coalition and the Trump administration, it has not been accompanied by any concrete actions to deter the Netanyahu government from its avowed aim<\/a> of destroying the possibility of a Palestinian state, through ethnic cleansing and colonisation of the West Bank and the extermination of Palestinians in Gaza. <\/p>\n Instead, the Albanese government has only strengthened its rhetoric, albeit still refusing to use accurate terms like \u201cgenocide\u201d to describe Israel\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n Indeed, by continuing to add to the profits of the Israeli arms manufacturing industry, and refusing to sanction the Netanyahu government, Labor\u2019s defence against the charge that it is complicit in genocide looks increasingly thin. It may engage in the theatre of concern for Palestinians, but its inaction, and its spending, send a very different message.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even as the Albanese government was recognising a Palestinian state on the weekend, it was handing yet more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2324,64,63,3403,109825,6898,49308,6897,44,6899,84],"class_list":["post-167403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-anthony-albanese","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-defence","tag-elbit-systems","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-palestine","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\t\t\t\t![\"Australia](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/jet.jpg\")
\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n