iscover
Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles has stepped into the ring to back the defence industry after an ABC report described corporate sponsorship of the Australian War Memorial as “dirty money”.
The recent Four Corners “Sacrifice” report, published by the ABC on 10 March, alleged that defence industry sponsorship of national war memorial and museum exhibitions in Canberra was “inappropriate”, “raised questions of corporate influence”, “disgusting” and involved working with “merchants of death”.
The Four Corners investigation alleged that the war memorial accepted funding from several international defence companies to fund galleries, a theatre, memorial projects, an art prize and exhibitions for the benefit of the public and to memorialise the nation’s fallen.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles, speaking to ABC News Breakfast on 13 March, confirmed his support for the defence industry in Australia and their funding of projects for public benefit.
“I don’t have a problem with that (sponsorship of the memorial) … defence industry is a really important industry in this country,” he said.
“Defence industry is quite evidently a sector which has been very much one that supported our defence forces. That’s what they do.
“As I engage with defence industry, it’s an industry which absolutely understands the nature of service and does everything it can to respect and honour that.
“(Corporate sponsorship) It’s a matter for the Australian War Memorial… I don’t have a problem with the war memorial going down this path, but it is ultimately a matter for the war memorial.”
War memorial chairman Kim Beazley, speaking on same the ABC program, said he felt no embarrassment in regard to defence industry involvement in funding the memorial.
“I don’t feel the slightest embarrassment with weapons manufacturers contributing.”
Defence Connect approached several defence industry companies named in the program, who declined to comment.
ABC journalist Mark Willacy, who reportedly “exposes how the memorial accepts weapons manufacturer funding” in the program, has previously covered aspects of the Australian defence environment and the Australian Defence Force.
In February this year, ABC managing director David Anderson released a report (reviewed by former ABC editorial director Alan Sunderland) into the circumstances of Willacy’s Line of Fire 7.30 series.
That review found that the sound of additional gunshots had been inserted into a video clip of Australian Defence Force helmet camera footage and comments from a former US Drug Enforcement Agency leader Bret Hamilton were not shown in proper context.
The ABC publicly apologised and expressed regret for errors, including to special forces veteran Heston Russell and members of the 2nd Commando Regiment.
Willacy has also previously won several of Australia’s highest media awards reporting on alleged war crimes by Australian special forces during the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan (2001 to 2021), later detailed in the Killing Field series in 2020.
