Heavy police presence and tight security as major defence event kicks off

Hundreds of people have marched through Perth’s CBD to protest Australia’s biggest defence expo, which opened at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre on Tuesday.

It is the first time the Land Forces expo has been held in WA, and is the first such event since the Victorian expo in 2024, where protesters clashed with police.

Those ugly scenes triggered an extraordinary response from the Cook government ahead of this year’s event, including $11.5 million for security and a controversial act of parliament giving WA Police powers to ban activists from entering a security zone around the convention centre.

Heavily armed public order police were concentrated on entrances to the convention centre and attendees were asked to show passes and IDs before entering the convention centre grounds.

About a half a dozen protesters holding upside-down red ensign flags gathered outside the security zone on Tuesday morning and were talked to by police.

On Tuesday evening, a larger rally organised by the WA Anti-War Collective was held at Yagan Square, with hundreds of people gathering to hear from speakers including Greens MLC Sophie McNeill before marching down William Street to to Elizabeth Quay, just outside the security zone.

Streets around the Perth CBD were brought to a standstill as the protesters moved down the central street, but the evening was largely incident-free, with organisers urging the crowd to remain peaceful and avoid anything that would get them arrested.

Inside the event, some of the biggest defence companies in the world including Boeing and BAE Systems, are among the 964 exhibitors.

The Australian Army, Defence West and Department of Defence also have stands at the event, and the Chief of Army Symposium is being held concurrently in the Riverside Theatre.

A theme emerging within the expo is the prominence of autonomy and AI in defence technology.

Thales, the makers of Australia’s famed Bushmaster vehicles, unveiled a remote and autonomous diesel-electric hybrid vehicle, the BladeHAUL.

Australia has provided 120 Bushmasters to Ukraine, and Thales’ vice president lands, Andrew Downes, said the company drew inspiration from the unmanned warfare happening on the frontlines in the country’s war with Russia.

The BladeHAUL is a box that can carry up to 10 tonnes on top and is configured to easily fit a sea container.

Downes said it could carry anything from a field hospital to long-range missiles, and had the capability of a Bushmaster but cost less than the $2-$3 million price tag for one of those.

“It’s deliberately designed to be procured in mass because we know these platforms,” he said.

“You unfortunately do lose them in combat. The whole point of the exercise is to take humans out of harm’s way, so the price point is much cheaper than a vehicle like the Bushmaster, for example.”

Tyson Sara, from defence advisory group CMAX Advisory, brought over several weapons manufacturers to the event.

He said the immediate theme apparent from the expo revolved around AI an autonomy.

“We’re seeing a lot of work in different platforms and different systems, different software that goes to that autonomy mission, and I think that’s probably a big underlying theme of what you’ll see around the show,” he said.

Greens MP Sophie McNeill is one of the staunchest critics of the Cook Government’s support of the expo and the money spent on the security operation.

She attended the first day, which she said was to see what her taxpayers dollars were paying for.

She said the event made her “feel ill”.

“It is an event that is all about increasing militarisation in our world,” she said.

“It is all about these massive corporations making huge profits to sell these weapons that kill people and as you walk around this show, there’s all this talk about investment opportunities and military capabilities, but there’s no talk of the reality of where this ends up,” she said.

“I’ve seen what happens. I’ve seen the other side of these missiles.”

McNeill also called for event organisers to remove Israeli government-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems from the event.

The MP will also speak at the protest in Yagan Square on Tuesday evening.

McNeill’s staffer Matilda Lane-Rose, who is on WA Police’s exclusion list, entered the security zone on Tuesday morning to film social media content of McNeill’s attendance.

Lane-Rose secured an exemption to her ban from the security zone on Monday after challenging it in the Supreme Court.

The exemption allowed Lane-Rose, a climate activist who was fined last year for her involvement in a protest outside former Woodside boss Meg O’Neill’s home, to enter the security zone from 8am to 6pm on Tuesday.

Lane-Rose intends to pursue the ban in the Supreme Court, but her matter won’t be heard until next week after the expo has concluded.

Sara, who also attended the Victorian expo in 2024, said protest was part and parcel of the nature of defence and the military.

“I think everyone wishes that there wasn’t a need to have to use armed force in the defence of our interests,” he said.

“But one of the features of a democracy is that you need to defend it, and one of the features of a democracy is that you’re allowed to say what you like about that.”