Australian Defence Industries

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Australian Defence Industries (ADI) was the primary defence contractor for the Australian Defence Force. It provided most standard equipment for the ADF from the F88 Austeyr (Based on the Steyr AUG) to designs for vessels for the Australian Navy. ADI also produced a variety of smokeless powders for reloading rifle, pistol & shotgun cartridges, although were better known for their production of Australian armoured vehicles, such as the Bushmaster, producing Australian specific modifications to imported military vehicles, and building the current generation ANZAC class Frigates at Williamstown in Australia.

In previous years, ADI was the sole defence contractor in Australia however this has changed with the creation of the Tenix Group company, Tenix Defence. Tenix itself was a tear-away company of Transfield Holdings, 50% shareholders of ADI, which broke off after the retirement of the original Transfield owner Franco Belgiorno-Nettis, the company passed into his sons hands, Luca, Guido and Marco, who subsequently broke the company up into 3 parts, Transfield Services, Transfield Holdings, and Tenix. [1]

ADI was based on Garden Island Naval Base in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, though they also maintained a R&D/Custom production facility in Brisbane, Australia. In 2004 they applied to the Australian Equal Opportunities Commission to exclude workers of certain nationalities for security reasons. [2]

In October 2006, the Australian federal government paved the way for Transfield Holdings, 50% shareholder of ADI to sell their shares to Thales Australian Holdings, the Australian branch of a French military engineering firm, and as of November, all ADI operations have in fact, been taken over by the company, and is now known as Thales Australia. [3]

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This article has been tagged since December 2006.