{"id":147558,"date":"2025-11-22T19:32:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T19:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/147558\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T19:32:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T19:32:07","slug":"human-rights-fears-over-australias-role-in-f-35-parts-after-trumps-decision-to-sell-fighter-jets-to-saudi-arabia-weapons-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/147558\/","title":{"rendered":"Human rights fears over Australia\u2019s role in F-35 parts after Trump\u2019s decision to sell fighter jets to Saudi Arabia | Weapons technology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump\u2019s unilateral decision to sell F-35 joint strike fighter jets to Saudi Arabia<\/a> will rely on critical Australian components, prompting experts to warn Australia could become complicit in human rights abuses.<\/p>\n

The US president announced the deal during a meeting with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, this week<\/a>, despite consistent concerns about the Saudi regime\u2019s human rights record \u2013 including bombing raids on civilian targets <\/a>\u2013 and fears it could share the technology with China.<\/p>\n

Australia is part of F-35 production<\/a>, but has no control over where and to whom parts are shipped \u2013 even parts leaving Australian soil.<\/p>\n

More than 70 Australian companies<\/a> have production and sustainment contracts with the F-35 program. In excess of 700 of the fighter jet\u2019s \u201ccritical pieces\u201d are manufactured in Victoria alone<\/a>, according to the state government. Australia also hosts a regional distribution hub for F-35 parts in NSW.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery F-35 contains crucial parts made in Australia,\u201d said Duncan Frewin, the clerk of the pacifist group Quakers Australia, which researches arms exports.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny bomb dropped by these planes can only do so because the Australian government has written a blank cheque to Lockheed Martin, selling them Australian-made parts with no human rights restrictions or monitoring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frewin said Saudi Arabia had a \u201cdeplorable human rights record and it is reckless to sell them the world\u2019s most lethal aircraft\u201d.<\/p>\n

Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n

Dr Sue Wareham, national president of the Medical Association for Prevention of War, said Saudi Arabia had an \u201cappalling human rights record\u201d, in particular in its prosecution of the war in Yemen.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo pretend that weaponry in the hands of the Saudi rulers would only be used lawfully and in accordance with human rights principles is not plausible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frewin and Wareham are advocates for peace and disarmament, but their concerns are also shared by more hawkish defence analysts who worry that Australia is losing control of which militaries it supports.<\/p>\n

Michael Shoebridge, the founder of the defence and security thinktank Strategic Analysis Australia, said the sale of up to 48 F-35s to Saudi Arabia presented issues for Australia that \u201cwe\u2019ve tried desperately to ignore with the Israelis\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will be supporting the Saudis\u2019 use of the aircraft however they choose to use it, and the Saudis\u2019 involvement in the Yemeni civil war in recent years shows this isn\u2019t a hypothetical,\u201d said Shoebridge.<\/p>\n

Shoebridge, a former senior defence policy official in the Australian embassy in Washington, has previously said the complex F-35 supply chain allows governments to deny direct support for foreign militaries.<\/p>\n

The US economy is so dependent on weapons sales that there appear to be few constraintsSue Wareham<\/p>\n

At Senate estimates last month, defence department deputy secretary Hugh Jeffrey told senators the global F-35 supply chain was a \u201cunique arrangement\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a global supply chain. We participate in that. Goods are moved around the world. These are US-owned goods. They\u2019re managed by Lockheed Martin. Australia does not direct the export of those goods. It does not control the export of those goods.<\/p>\n

Goods manufactured in Australia require an export permit. The Department of Defence did not answer questions about whether Australia could \u2013 or would \u2013 refuse to supply parts for jets bound for Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

And the US itself does not comprehensively monitor where its weapons end up or how they are used.<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n

Our Australian morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n

Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n

The state department\u2019s Blue Lantern<\/a> program \u2013 monitoring end-use of commercial weapons sales \u2013 reviewed fewer than 2% of export applications in its last report (reports are supposed to be transmitted to Congress annually, but the last publicly available report<\/a> is from in 2022).<\/p>\n

Of 18,143 export authorisations approved, 305 were subject to targeted checks (1.6%). 30% of those checked were found to be \u201cunfavorable\u201d, meaning inconsistencies were found between the goods shipped and what was authorised in the licence.<\/p>\n

This year, the US Government Accountability Office<\/a> found efforts to stop US-made weapons being involved in human rights abuses were inadequate.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration\u2019s decision to sell F-35s to Saudi Arabia has been controversial globally, in part because of Saudi-led bombing campaigns on Yemeni targets which have killed thousands.<\/p>\n

Between 2015 and 2022 an estimated 377,000 people died<\/a> as a result of the conflict: nearly 15,000 civilians were killed by direct military action, most of them in airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition, the Campaign Against Arms Trade found.<\/p>\n

As well, a report from the US Defense Intelligence Agency, part of the Pentagon, flagged concerns that China would be able to access F-35 technology through Saudi Arabia because of Riyadh and Beijing\u2019s security partnership.<\/p>\n

The F-35 \u2013 described by Lockheed Martin as the \u201cmost lethal\u201d warplane in the world, and costing between US$80m and $100m each (A$123m to $155) \u2013 is already a controversial platform, implicated in a finding by a UN commission of inquiry that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wareham, from the Medical Association for Prevention of War, said the arms trade treaty prevented Australia from exporting \u201cweapons or associated items\u201d if there was a risk they will be used to breach international law.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no doubt at all that such a risk exists in the case of Saudi Arabia,\u201d Wareham said. \u201cThis makes Australia complicit in any crimes in which the F-35s are used.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wareham said Australia could have no confidence in US defence export controls.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe US economy is so dependent on weapons sales that there appear to be few constraints. While spruiking democracy, the US in fact sells weapons to over half the world\u2019s autocracies<\/a>. It is an industry out of control.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump\u2019s unilateral decision to sell F-35 joint strike fighter jets to Saudi Arabia will rely on critical…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-147558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}