Doctors attack Avalon air show focus on arm sales

DOCTORS have attacked Avalon’s international air show over weapons sales.
The show started this week with a four-day trade fair in military and civilian aircraft and systems.
Visitors from around the world attended, with the air show promoting its trade days as a “leading gateway” to important defence aviation markets in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.
But Medical Association for the Prevention of War president Dr Jenny Grounds said a “long history of corruption and bribery in the sales of weapons” assisted civil war and instability around the globe.
“It’s a huge business, the military industry, a complex huge multinational business and, like anywhere where there’s lots of money to be made, a certain amount of corruption is hard to avoid altogether,” Dr Grounds said.
The Independent does not suggest any impropriety at the Avalon show.
The medical association said $1738 billion was spent last year on weapons world-wide- more than 10 times the $139 billion the United Nations was seeking for its Millennium Development goals on education, health and the environment.
Association Victorian president Margaret Beavis said Avalon had “developed a focus on selling weapons and armaments”.
“It’s steadily increasing weapons sales take vital funds that would be better spent on health and education,” she said.
“It would be much better to focus on better diplomacy than fostering weapons sales.”
The association agitated successfully against a giant arms fair, the Asia Pacific Defence and Security Exhibition, proposed for Adelaide but cancelled in 2008.