Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows the strong military ties between Australia and the USA and outlines Talisman Sabre, a series of joint military exercises involving Australian and US military forces in Australia. It shows the then Australian Defence Minister, Senator Robert Hill, and the then US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, exchanging a Memorandum of Understanding in 2001, as well as various Australian politicians warmly shaking hands with their US counterparts. These scenes are intercut with footage of military personnel, exercises and hardware. The clip highlights Australia’s importance to the USA as a site to test weapons and undertake joint training operations, and includes superimposed maps of Australia showing the sites for Talisman Sabre activity. The song 'Don’t sit under the apple tree’ is played in the background at the start of the clip and the Midnight Oil song 'US forces’ is featured.

Educational value points

• The clip emphasises Australia’s support of and dependence on the USA. After the Second World War, Australia looked to the USA as its main ally in the Asia–Pacific region. In 1951 Australia, NZ and the USA signed the ANZUS Treaty, which theoretically stated that an attack on any of the three countries would be considered an attack on all. The signing of the Treaty was driven by fears about Japanese remilitarisation and communist expansion in the region. The USA suspended its treaty obligations with NZ in 1986 after NZ banned US nuclear-armed or -powered ships from its ports. Three highly secret US intelligence-gathering bases continue to operate in Australia, at Pine Gap, North-West Cape and Nurrungar; the facilities are part of a worldwide US intelligence-gathering network.

• The clip shows that Australia’s Prime Minister, John Howard, is strongly aligning his government with the USA. After the terrorist attacks in the USA on 11 September 2001, the Howard government invoked the ANZUS Treaty for the first time in its 50-year history. Australia has supported the USA’s 'war on terror’, sending troops to the war in Afghanistan in 2001 and the war in Iraq in 2003. This support reflects the Howard government’s view that the USA is 'very important to Australia’s long-term security’. However, filmmaker David Bradbury clearly believes Australia’s foreign policy is too closely aligned to that of the USA.

• The clip describes Operation Talisman Sabre, a series of biennial joint military-training exercises carried out by the USA and Australia. Talisman Sabre 2007, the largest military exercise held in Australia, will bring together 30,000 US military personnel and the Australian Defence Force to practise 'high-tech’ warfare. The two countries regularly conduct joint training as part of the ANZUS Treaty. Australian governments maintain that this action enhances Australia’s defence preparedness, but Peace Convergence, a Brisbane-based protest group opposed to Talisman Sabre, claims the exercises are designed 'to practise aggression and offensive military strategies’.

• The clip reveals that the USA tests weapons in Australia. Following the closure of bases in the Philippines and anti-US sentiment in other parts of Asia that has US bases, the USA negotiated with the Australian Government to test weapons, including munitions containing depleted uranium (DU), in Australia. Exposure to DU has been linked to respiratory and kidney diseases, neurological abnormalities, lymphoma, and skin and organ cancers. In July 2006 Bradshaw bombing range was used for the first time by the USA to practise pinpoint aerial strikes. US military facilities have created high levels of pollution in military bases in the Pacific.

• US and Australian joint training facilities are highlighted. Military-training facilities at Shoalwater Bay in Queensland and the Bradshaw and Delamere areas in the Northern Territory have been upgraded and linked to training centres in the USA for the Talisman Sabre exercises. Former Australian Defence Minister Robert Hill said that these facilities would 'enhance mutual capability, ensure inter-operability and … assist a critically important ally’. A number of other military facilities are involved in the exercises, including Pine Gap, a joint intelligence base near Alice Springs, NT, and North-West Cape in Western Australia.

• In addition to military bases, civilian sites including Brisbane and Sydney airports, Rockhampton, and the Tasman, Timor and Coral seas will be used for Talisman Sabre. Some sites include Indigenous heritage areas or are of environmental significance, such as the Great Barrier Reef. Blowin’ in the Wind raises concerns about the impact of Talisman Sabre on these sites, and the risk of radioactive contamination from DU munitions. DU has a half-life of 4.5 billion years and DU particles can be blown hundreds of kilometres downwind.

• Blowin’ in the Wind is a documentary with a political message. This clip uses a montage of images, sound, commentary and text to highlight what Bradbury sees as the cosiness of the Australia–USA alliance and the implications of Talisman Sabre. The Midnight Oil song 'US forces’, which is critical of US imperialism, directs the viewer’s response to this montage. This technique is similar to the style (dubbed 'collage–essay’) used by filmmaker Michael Moore. Bradbury, like Moore, is unapologetically one-sided, and says Australians must ask if 'we are happy to be the 51st state of America’.

• The Midnight Oil song 'US forces’ features in the clip. The song was cowritten in 1982 by the band’s lead singer, Peter Garrett, and its keyboard player, Jim Moginie. Midnight Oil is known for its protest songs and was critical of US policies in the 1980s. Garrett, a former president of the Australian Conservation Foundation and founding member of the Nuclear Disarmament Party, left the band in 2002 and in 2004 was elected federal Labor Member for Kingsford Smith. Consistent with Labor’s policy platform, he now supports the Australia–USA alliance, and no longer opposes joint facilities such as Pine Gap.