Australian governments can find billions to spend on weaponry that maims but not on the NDIS, which is facing budget saving measures that will have malign consequences. 

One has to applaud the commitment of Australian governments to funding disability spending. The bipartisan investment in weapon parts for Israel has made its small contribution to the cause of disabling the residents of Gaza over the years. According to the United Nations, in 2025 at least 42,000 people there had life changing injuries – and at least one in four of these was a child. By the Israeli government’s own figures, 83 per cent of the casualties of the “war” are civilians.

To be fair, Israel is not the only one to receive Australian largesse. The other great Middle Eastern weapons client of the Land Down Under (at whose request, we are told, the government joined in on the Israeli–US war on Iran), the United Arab Emirates, is arming Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces – the part of the military that turned on the government and is now fighting them for control of the country. This client is credibly accused of genocide in the long-running Sudanese civil war, in which more than 300 children have been killed or injured in the last six months.

AUKUS, with its........

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