Revelations of secret F-35 fighter jet parts shipments to Israel have exposed a yawning hole in Australia’s sovereign national defence.
Exclusive reports by Declassified Australia of at least 71 packages of F-35 fighter jet weapons parts being exported from Sydney to Israel have revealed that Australia has forfeited control over the plane’s spare parts stored here for Australia’s fleet of F-35s.
Australia has signed up to a system where, at a moment’s notice, those ‘parts and components’ may be whisked off the shelves at the RAAF Williamtown Air Base in New South Wales on the whim of a foreign state to be exported to a foreign country in a distant war zone.
While it may be known to defence experts and insiders, this was the surprise public admission by a senior Defence official, Deputy Secretary Hugh Jeffrey. He was responding to questions about the F-35 parts exports, that had been earlier revealed by reports in Declassified Australia, during a Senate interrogation … “These are US owned goods. They’re managed by Lockheed Martin. Australia does not direct the export of those goods. It does not control the export of those goods…"
This kind of makes sense, since we probably just signed an agreement to allow them to be made here so we’d at least get some manufacturing business out of the F-35.
Yeah, it makes sense. I thought it was interesting though as Australia has been copping heat about exporting these, turns out it was never really a choice.
Yeah I mean, feels like the gov could have dodged some flak if they just explained that…
Even then I’m not sure if they’d have avoided flak on it.
The F35 program, despite it being led by the US and utilising US tech is a joint program and Israel is one of the partners. That means we send bits and pieces back and forth to each other. That’s the first thing that comes to my mind every time I see articles about this. It’s what we signed on for.
