“A US Military Outpost”: WA Greens MLC Sophie McNeill on Land Forces and AUKUS
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Recent months have seen Western Australian Greens MLC Sophie McNeill persistently raising ire in WA parliament over the Cook Labor government not only moving to host the Land Forces 2026 weapons festival, but further, to rollout a tailormade security regime to conceal these arms dealers from the public, whilst the state’s also getting ready to host its very own US nuclear submarine base.
The Land Forces International Land Defence Exposition is taking place on Noongar land at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre over 6 to 8 October 2026. The largest weapons spruiking expo of its kind held in this country is being staged in Boorloo-Perth for the first time, as the biannual event was run out of Magan-djin-Brisbane by antiwar activists in 2022 and Naarm-Melbourne in 2024.
This year Land Forces has the rather inglorious distinction of being held on the third anniversary of the beginning of the Gaza genocide. And due to the sort of rage that the mass murder of an innocent people inspires, the Cook Labor government passed the Land Forces (Special Powers) Act 2026 (WA) to keep protesters at bay by blocking them from the expo site and beefing up policing powers.
But despite the overbearing tactics of WA Labor to heighten protections for warmongers attempting to sell killing machines that these days are used to target babies and hospitals, the WA Anti-War Collective is holding the Protest Land Forces 2026 rally on Tuesday, 6 October 2026, along with Stop AUKUS WA, IPAN (Independent and Peaceful Australia Network) and Friends of Palestine WA.