I grew up in the Western Victorian town of Portland Victoria, where the major sources of income were tourism, fishing and meat processing.l

Along came Alcoa, paying for a colour edition of the local paper to announce it's new aluminium smelter. Jobs for all, booms in construction, industry driven revival for the town were all emlazoned over display boards in an exhibition at the Civic Centre.

What did we end up with? A self-contained factory on the hill, empty shops and suiciding builders. The company con-man who had smooth-talked us moved on to his next destination .

Forgive me if I'm not excited about the defence contracts.

At least today we're hearing about extra troops moving into town so that they can use the railway to move north, construction of ships that will in an "emergency" be under George Bush's command, announcements of bids to build unmanned air vehicles.

Welcome to Adelaide: Defense Colony of America. If you're a travelling employee of one of the Pentagon's most successful corporations, you'll feel proud of our little Outpost Of Democracy.. Halliburton, Raytheon, Lockheed, SAAB, Tenix, Northrop Grunman and BAE are the heroes of this city. No doubt we'll be erecting statues of Dick Cheney soon.

I wonder how much of all this money will be seen by the average South Australian. Is our city to become a Utopia funded by defence dollars, or like poor old Portland, will we be blinded by greed and used for multinational profits?