- by Emily Muagututia
- The Guardian
- Issue #2208
The WA Cook Labor government has rammed the Land Forces Event (Special Powers) Act 2026 (WA) through the Western Australian Parliament, granting police unprecedented powers to crush dissent and protect the profits of the arms industry. Passed on 16 September 2026, this legislation creates a 10-day security exclusion zone around the Land Forces International Exposition, a grotesque showcase of weapons and military technology.
The legislation is modelled on the repressive Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Special Powers) Act 2011, but goes much further. Rather than protecting heads of state, this current legislation protects a commercial event – the first time in Australian history that police have been granted special powers to do so. So why does the state need extraordinary powers to protect arms dealers? The answer is simple: the ruling class will always deploy repressive apparatus to shield the architects of imperialist wars.
This is a textbook example of the capitalist state acting in the interests of corporations. The legislation grants police the power to stop, search, demand identification and remove face coverings from anyone within the designated area. It bans a list of ‘prohibited items’ including speakers, microphones, glass bottles, tin cans, and even bicycle locks. Those who fail to comply face fines of up to $6,000, while anyone on the secret ‘excluded persons list’ faces up to three years in prison and a $36,000 fine merely for entering the event area.
People experiencing homelessness, the most vulnerable members of the working class, will be forcibly moved on from the area, with the government offering only hollow promises of outreach services but refusing to provide housing. The state has budgeted $11.5 million to police the event. This is money that could have housed people experiencing homelessness, funded public schools or staffed hospitals. Instead, it will pay for riot gear, drones, and overtime for police officers protecting these merchants of death.
The arms fair itself is a gathering of some of the world’s most notorious weapons manufacturers, including BAE Systems, Israel’s Elbit Systems, Israeli Aerospace Industries, and Rafael. These are all companies complicit in genocide and human rights abuses around the world. France, Spain, and the Netherlands have banned some of these exhibitors, yet the WA government welcomes them with open arms and a multi-million-dollar security blanket.
The passage of the bill was met with resistance from the Greens and community groups. Greens MLC Sophie McNeill condemned the legislation as unconstitutional and a dangerous precedent that restricts the implied freedom of political communication. Legal experts from the Human Rights Law Centre and the Australian Democracy Network warned the government that the bill would violate fundamental rights. Yet Labor, with the support of the Liberals and One Nation, pressed ahead.
The WA Anti-War Collective, which is organising protests against the expo, has refused to use the government’s designated protest area, which is a token gesture designed to give the appearance of democracy while relegating dissent to a corner. Instead, they will protest outside the exclusion zone, where their voices can still be heard by the arms dealers and their political servants.
The fight against Land Forces is more than a fight against this single event. It is a fight against the capitalist system that profits from war, exploitation and oppression. The arms dealers who will gather in Boorloo (Perth) are the same ones who send workers to die in imperialist wars that pollutes our planet for profit. The WA Labor government, despite its rhetoric, has shown that it stands with the billionaires and the weapons manufacturers, not with the working class.
The Greens and other progressive forces in parliament have done what they can to oppose this state protection of weapons companies, but real change will not come from the ballot box. It will come from the organised power of the working class.
As we unite against this state repression, let the message from Boorloo be clear: we will not allow our cities to become showrooms for the arms trade. We will not allow our rights to be trampled to protect the profits of the merchants of death. We will not be silenced.
