At about 9 am on Monday 8^th January, in an industrial outer suburb of Brisbane, roughly thirty activists took over the Ferra Engineering manufacturing floor. Banners read “Ferra Spreads Terror” and “Stop Arming Israel” as the protesters shut down, albeit temporarily, the Ferra production line.

The suburb of Tingalpa seems a long way from the Middle East, but has found itself as part of the global supply chain for lethal weapons manufacturing. Ferra Engineering is the sole manufacturer of the Alternate Mission Equipment (AME) weapons bay adapters — the mechanisms that hold and release the bombs carried by the F-35 jet fighters, currently being dropped on civilians in Gaza.

Lockheed Martin, the US manufacturer of the F-35, describes the bomber as the “most lethal” fighter aircraft in the world. The protesters at Ferra concur with this assessment, saying Ferra is “exporting terror” by producing components for the F-35 which Israel is using over the civilian population of Gaza.

However, Ferra Engineering, with its links to global military supply chains, is not the only weapons and military technology company based in Brisbane. What might surprise many is that this subtropical city, with a reputation of being a big country town, is a key link in the global weapons supply chain, and its economic future is becoming increasingly tethered to the military-industrial complex. Brisbane and its surrounding region are home to companies that span the arms industry, from missiles and guns to unmanned aerial and autonomous systems and testing facilities, all of which have headquarters or offices in the city and its outer suburbs.

Just as the local economy has become increasingly militarised, so too has Brisbane’s higher education sector. South East Queensland’s three largest universities — Griffith University, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), and the University of Queensland (UQ) — are also active in projects facilitated by Australian defence and have partnerships with arms companies.

Scratch the surface, and Brisbane’s military past, its present involvement in serious weapons manufacturing, and its investments in a militarised future become clear.

The main players

Just to give you an idea of the breadth and scope of the weapons industries in Brisbane, let’s go through a few of the key ones. One of the main players, as previously mentioned, is Ferra Engineering.

Ferra, a global aerospace and defence company, is a participant in the global supply chain and a cooperative partner in the Lockheed-Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter programme. “Every Joint Strike Fighter flying world-wide will have adaptors produced by Ferra,” Ferra’s website states. “With an expected global fleet of around 3,000 Joint Strike Fighters by 2035, this represents a potential contract value of over $1 billion over the life of this long term program.”

Unquestionably, these Australian-equipped Israeli Air Force (IAF) F-35 Joint Strike Fighters are killing civilians and supporting a brutal ground assault in Gaza. “Australia’s complete integration into the F-35 global supply chain means that every jet that flies has many Australian parts,” according to Kellie Tranter’s report in Declassified Australia. “And countries using them, like Israel, depend on the replenishment of those parts as needed.”

Much of the Gaza Strip is now reduced to rubble as a result of Israel’s unrelenting air assault, with 85 per cent of the population internally displaced, with at least 1.5 million Palestinians currently sheltering in the southern city of Rafah. Latest figures on the death toll vary, as those who are under the rubble or are being killed by starvation sometimes do not get counted. According to news agencies using Palestinian health authority data, the figure stands at 31,726 Palestinians killed and 73,792 injured as of the time of writing. However, EuroMed, an independent human rights monitor based in Geneva, has put the death toll of Palestinians in Gaza at 40,042 of whom 90 per cent are civilians, and shockingly, 14,350 are children.

Aside from the production of F-35 adaptors, Ferra is also involved with the manufacturing and capabilities of Boeing’s autonomous MQ-28A Ghost Bat aircraft, formerly known as the ‘Loyal Wingman’. The “Ghost Bat” is an autonomous aircraft that the Royal Australian Air Force and Boeing Australia worked on together as a flagship project. The Ghost Bat project instigated the creation of a Boeing production plant in Toowoomba, Queensland, as part of the Wellcamp Aerospace and Defence Precinct. The facility is Boeing’s first production plant outside of the United States.

Unmanned and autonomous aircraft, such as the Ghost Bat, are raising concerns about the ethics of contemporary warfare, while Australia embraces this quickly emerging business with little public debate.

Speaking of autonomous systems, Brisbane-based Trusted Autonomous Systems (TAS) is Australia’s first Defence Cooperative Research Centre (an initiative by the Australian Government that links industry with researchers to “deliver game-changing Defence capabilities”). Tasked with creating autonomous and robotic technologies to “enable trusted and effective cooperation between humans and machines,” the government granted TAS an initial investment of $50 million for their first seven years of operation.

Amongst other research and development projects, TAS initiated The Sea Wolf pilot program in late 2021. Funded by the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), Warfare Innovation Navy (WIN) Branch, with expertise, hardware and manufacturing from Cellula Robotics Ltd, The Sea Wolf Program aims to build autonomous underwater capabilities. Out of this initiative, they developed the ​​Solus-XR, a “next generation, fuel cell powered extra-large uncrewed underwater vehicle (XLUUV) designed for port to port, lightly supervised surveillance missions over long ranges.”

TAS also boasts partnerships with the university sector, but we will get to that later.

Another company developing autonomous weapons systems capabilities in the Brisbane region is Insitu Pacific (a subsidiary of Boeing), whose main activity is providing unmanned aerial system (UAS) services to Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. Located in Alderley, Insitu Pacific head office is about five kilometres north of the Brisbane CBD as the drone flies. According to their website, Insitu’s facilities include business services, engineering capability, flight operations, maintenance services, a large warehouse, and comprehensive training rooms.

Insitu Pacific’s “Flight Testing and Training Facility” is located at Coominya, less than ninety minutes from Brisbane, where they conduct a range of testing on their systems, payloads, and engines. In conjunction with QUT, researchers developed the Australian-designed detect and avoid (DAA) capability — an autonomous onboard capability to detect other aircraft that will be used on Insitu’s unmanned aircraft systems.

Brisbane is also home to your more run-of-the-mill style weapons manufacturers, with the “family-owned” global munitions company NIOA, which is the “largest privately-owned supplier of munitions to the Australian and New Zealand defence, law enforcement, and commercial markets.”

The founder and CEO, Robert Nioa is the son-in-law of Australian federal politician Bob Katter and the company has donated at least $160,000 to Katter’s Australian Party (KAP), and $20,000 to the Liberal Democrats. As we are on the topic of Australian politicians, former Australian Defence Minister Christopher Pyne is currently the NIOA chairman. Former ALP Opposition Leader and current Council Chair of the Australian War Memorial Kim “Bomber” Beazley, and former Coalition Opposition Leader and former Council Chair of the Australian War Memorial Brendan Nelson, are two more prominent figures who have left their political careers to assume lucrative leadership roles at NIOA. (Nelson is also the senior vice president of The Boeing Company and president of Boeing Global.)

NIOA boasts they are a “provider of firearms, weapons, munitions and technical support for critical programs” and work with “multiple Australian and international companies.” NIOA’s repertoire consists of “small arms, medium and large calibre munitions, special function grenades and pyrotechnics, leading edge pistol systems, optics and carriage solutions.”

However, the company is not without controversy. In 2015, NIOA imported over 7,000 Adler A110 lever-action shotguns from Turkey. This sparked a discussion in Australia concerning access to rapid-fire shotguns with large magazines, which might have gravely damaged post-Port Arthur gun control legislation. The Brisbane plant not only provides ammo to the Australian police force, but also maintains Glock handguns. Wage Peace and Indigenous Australian Yuendumu elders have spoken out against NIOA and its assertions that the Australian arms business, police militarization, and state brutality are all interconnected.

The NIOA Group’s other companies include NIOA New Zealand, Barrett Firearms (USA), Rheinmetall NIOA Munitions and the Australian Missile Corporation (AMC), which specialises in guided and non-guided weapons systems. In 2022, the Sovereign Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance (GWEO) venture included AMC as one of its partners. This $4.1 billion initiative, along with Raytheon Australia and Lockheed Martin, is designed to establish a “sustainable sovereign guided weapons industrial base” that would extend existing weapons systems to include “land based maritime strike and long-range missile launchers.”

Military on display

Brisbane loves a show. And often, it is the military that is on display. Every year in September, as part of the Brisbane Festival, ‘Riverfire’ is Queensland’s largest pyrotechnics spectacle. Despite the more than 11 tonnes of fireworks being used for the show, the centrepiece of the Riverfire event is when the Royal Australian Air Force flies over from C17A Globemaster and EA-18G Growler aircraft over the river, much to the delight of fawning crowds.

The event has previously featured flyovers from RAAF F/A-18F Super Hornet aircraft, Army MRH-90 Taipans and EC655 Eurocopter Tigers and Globemaster aircraft, some within seventy metres of Brisbane’s skyscrapers. The ear-deafening aircraft reverberations can be heard from every corner of the city.

On the ground, Brisbane has also hosted the largest military exhibition in the southern hemisphere. The Land Forces Expo, where defence businesses showcase cutting-edge equipment and ideas at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre broke record numbers in 2022, boasting 20,000 attendees and 810 participating exhibitor companies from twenty-five nations. Protesters in Brisbane have consistently made sure to raise awareness over this expo. In 2021 they sprayed fake blood over the front of the Convention Centre steps, in a demonstration that ended in seven arrests.

However, this military fervour is not new. The city has a long legacy of weapons manufacturing and weapons dumping in the surrounding regions and coastal areas. During World War II, Brisbane served as an “advance debarkation” port for the United States Army and a repair base for submarines operating off the east coast of Australia. Brisbane River and the Moreton Bay waterways were vitally important strategically as they served as shipping channels on the north and south entrances to Moreton Bay. Additionally, the region was fortified to a significant degree. Bribie was defended by a “heavy artillery regiment,” and along the Sunshine Coast, “machine guns were installed in concrete pillboxes in preparation for an unexpected invasion” and barbed wire was stretched along much of the coastlines.

After the war ended, more than 8,000 tonnes of chemical weapons, principally mustard gas, were dumped off Moreton Island, just off the coast of Brisbane. Although these reportedly do not pose a serious threat to humans, it is unclear if any biological tests have ever been undertaken at the Cape Moreton Marine Park to this day. In addition to tear gas, explosives, aircraft, and munitions were also dumped, along with an arsenic-based chemical weapon called lewisite that generates the same large lesions as mustard gas.

According to publicly accessible Department of Defence sources, Australia has 1215 documented UXO locations. Of the 269 known Queensland locations, seventy are thought to contain “substantial” contamination, with bullets and grenades probably still buried.

Brisbane’s tertiary military partnerships

Universities in Brisbane and across Australia are becoming channels to the defence industry. The top three Brisbane universities — Griffith, UQ and QUT — boast multiple partnerships and research grants tied to defence industry firms, turning our higher education system into a glorified feeder for weapons manufacturers and developers. Brisbane universities are active participants in projects facilitated by partnerships with Australian defence or arms companies. These companies range from autonomous capabilities to bulldozing machines that have been used to flatten parts of the Palestinian Occupied Territories.

The biggest player in the research-defence nexus is The University of Queensland, which boasts a rogue’s gallery of military partnerships — vaunting ties with the Australian Defence Force, BAE Systems (British multinational arms, security and aerospace company), Black Sky Aerospace (Australia’s only sovereign manufacturer of solid rocket fuel, motors, launch vehicles, services, and common tactical boosters), Defence Science and Technology (DTSG), Defence Materials Technology Centre, Hypersonix Launch Systems (Hypersonix is an aerospace engineering, design and build company, specialising in hypersonic technology and scramjet engines), Lockheed Martin Australia (aerospace, arms, defence, information security, and technology corporation), MBDA Systems (a European missile manufacturer), Stryder Defence, Thales Australia, Trusted Autonomous Systems, and Boeing.

UQ’s ties with Boeing have sparked protests in recent years, after Boeing Research and Technology Australia moved its Brisbane-based team in 2017 to the University of Queensland’s St Lucia campus. This represented the “first time in the Asia-Pacific region that Boeing has co-located research within a university.”

Boeing is the world’s third largest weapons corporation, and is running a hypersonic missile program at the Boeing Institute on the St Lucia campus. According to Amnesty International, Boeing, among other corporations like BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, have been integral to the coalition effort, “arming a fleet of combat aircraft that has repeatedly struck civilian objects, including homes, schools, hospitals and marketplaces” in Yemen. Amnesty also flagged the risk of Boeing “making millions from supplying arms and services to the Saudi Arabia/UAE-led coalition.”

In 2018 under the auspices of the US Department of Defence Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) Griffith University was chosen, along with a select group of universities, to conduct joint research with US universities on priority defence projects. Through this initiative, Griffith’s Centre for Quantum Dynamics which does “extensive reach in the quantum research community”, also boasts key partnerships with the world’s largest weapons manufacturer, Lockheed Martin.

Griffith’s Centre for Integrated and Intelligent Systems work, “focuses on developing advanced robotics, data analytics, and AI technologies that can be used for a range of defence and security applications. Griffith’s Advanced Design Prototyping Technology Institute distinctively positions the university to support defence material innovation,” according to Professor Adam Findlay, AO, the founding director of Griffith University Defence Network.

One controversial partner that has also worked with Griffith’s Centre for Integrated and Intelligent Systems is Raytheon, a massive missile, weapons, and commercial electronics company. Amongst its arsenal, Raytheon sells the AIM-9 Sidewinder supersonic heat seeking air-to-air missile, Maverick air-to-ground missiles, Tomahawk submarine-launched cruise missiles. Raytheon also provides the Pentagon with futuristic-sounding weapons like the “Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle and Kinetic Energy Interceptors“, as well as a wide range of electronic components used in contemporary warfare. Raytheon has attracted criticism for producing the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW), which was used to deliver cluster bombs and was widely denounced for its destructive effect on civilians. Raytheon also has two corporate offices in Brisbane, with their glossy Instagram account stating that they are “the nation’s leading provider of whole-of-life capabilities for the Australian Defence Force.”

Across the Brisbane river, QUT’s military partnership rap sheet includes the likes of Rheinmetall Defence Australia, a joint venture partner of NIOA. Rheinmetall produces 155mm artillery rounds for the Australian Defence Force; however, the company’s website primarily mentions their ammunition manufacturing and export for the US F-35 Joint Strike Fighter project. In 2021, at the Rheinmetall NIOA Munitions plant in Maryborough, then-PM Scott Morrison, resplendent in the mandatory hi-vis vest, was also seen with a large artillery shell in his hands.

QUT also has a partnership with US-based equipment manufacturer Caterpillar. Caterpillar has been a supplier of heavy machinery to Israel for several decades. Notably, the Caterpillar D9 armoured bulldozer has come under scrutiny due to allegations that it was utilised to infringe upon human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Whilst it may seem strange to call out a company known for its heavy machinery, Caterpillar machines are often weaponised and retrofitted with “gunner positions” and a “bulletproof driver cabin” to be used for “battle” by the Israeli military. These are then used by Israeli forces in attacks against Palestinians as well as in the destruction of homes and the building of border fences, infrastructure for illegal settlements, and military checkpoints. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have both released several reports since the early 2000s calling out Caterpillar for complicity in these violations in the Territories and to cease providing machinery to Israel, to no avail. On July 3, 2023, Caterpillar D9 bulldozers were seen wreaking significant damage during the Israeli military assault on the Jenin Refugee Camp. The D9 bulldozers were used to remove roadways, causing damage to all of the refugee camp’s electrical and water networks. On July 24, 2023, D9 were recorded in a military attack on the Nur Shams refugee camp near Tulkarem.

The economics of war also extend to the finance system, with UniSuper — the preferred superannuation fund of all three universities — having recently come under fire for investing in arms manufacturers with a questionable track record on human rights. UniSuper is Griffith, UQ and QUT’s preferred super fund. It has been called out for its holdings in military companies that are currently supplying weapons and technology to support the war in Gaza, as well as weapons companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange, the most egregious being Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, General Dynamics, Boeing and Elbit.

Elbit Systems is Israel’s biggest privately held weaponry and security firm, producing 85 per cent of the Israeli military’s drones and land-based equipment. It is a significant arms exporter that has marketed its weapons as “field tested,” referring to the Israeli Defence Force’s widespread usage of Elbit weapons in Palestinian populations of the West Bank and Gaza.

There are broad moral, social and political implications of Brisbane and its higher education system, economy and culture becoming increasingly militarised. As the tertiary sector across Australia becomes increasingly marked by “cost-cutting, casualisation and ridiculous teaching loads,”  the military-industrial-education complex is a lucrative prospect. Despite the obvious ethical implications of using students to research military capabilities, having funding come from the billion-dollar weapons sector means universities cannot remain impartial and fulfil their role of producing critical thinkers capable of challenging such industries.

All of the companies discussed in this article are marked by anything from sketchy human rights track records to blatant involvement in war crimes called out by human rights organisations — and the city of Brisbane is complicit. From festivals to university partners to the manufacturing of specific adaptors that are dropping bombs even as you read this, the military-industrial complex has been interwoven into the khaki fabric that makes up greater Brisbane. What we must ask ourselves is — is it worth it?

As protesters picketed outside of the Brisbane Ferra Engineering factory for the second time on January 24^th, there was a resounding sentiment that having Brisbane’s name bound to a system that benefits from war was not only wrong, but it signified a moral cliff edge of how they want Brisbane’s economy to function. It also signified a connection to the growing global resistance movement, that stands against the global economic ties to the chain of the military-industrial complex, of which Brisbane is another link.

Image: AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles sit on a cart before being loaded aboard an aircraft