Thales Australia Information

Thales Australia (formerly ADI Limited) is a defence contractor for the Australian Defence Force, based in Australia.

Thales Australia is best known for its naval ship repair operations, and currently leases the Captain Cook Graving Dock at Garden Island Naval Base in Sydney and also leases and occupies many of the buildings there. ADIs large site in St Marys in Western Sydney is progressively being repatriated for residential development with their munitions capability being consolidated in Benalla, Victoria and their testing facilities being sold to Vipac Engineers and Scientists. ADI manufactured the Steyr AUG based, F88 Austeyr assault rifle at Lithgow Small Arms Factory. ADI also produced a variety of smokeless powders for reloading rifle, pistol and shotgun cartridges, production of Australian armoured vehicles, such as the Bushmaster, Hawkei and producing Australian specific modifications to imported military vehicles.

In previous years, ADI was the sole defence contractor in Australia, although this changed with the creation of the Tenix Group company, Tenix Defence.

ADI was based on Garden Island Naval Base in Sydney, though they also maintained a RandD/Custom production facility in Brisbane. In 2004 they applied to the Australian Equal Opportunities Commission to exclude workers of certain nationalities for security reasons.

In October 2006, the federal government allowed Transfield Holdings to sell their 50% shareholding in ADI to the Thales Groups Australian holdings, the Australian branch of the French military engineering firm. All ADI operations have been taken over by the company, which is now known as Thales Australia.

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