LAST week’s decision by the Australian government to acquire a strategic sovereign partnership with CEA, the nation’s most advanced defence technology company, is the culmination of an extraordinary Canberra saga.

The deal, negotiated by governments on both sides of the political aisle, will have profound consequences for Australia’s standing among its close allies. 

It will also continue and expand the financial returns to the national treasury from a company that employs many of Canberra’s best and brightest among its more than 600 employees in its four Fyshwick buildings.

The government bought out the former partner, the American defence contractor, Northrop Grumman. From July, the Commonwealth will hold a non-controlling shareholding for 18 months, after which it will become the majority owner of a fully Australian entity.

The announcement, by Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister, Richard Marles, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher and Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy, was deliberately and appropriately low key. 

It was typical of a business started on August 8, 1982, by two young RAN lieutenant commanders – Ian Croser and David Gaul – who left the Navy to strike out on their own. 

Initially, they had one employee, David’s wife Carey and their first premises were a mere 80 square metres at 14 Fyshwick Plaza where Carey’s father, who had retired from the family’s Riverina farm and moved to Canberra, rallied to the cause. “He worked out the back making benches,” Carey says.

They also had a silent partner, the”‘will to succeed”. Indeed, in the early days they spoke of him so often that he became a lifelike figure.

“My birthday is August 6,” Gaul says, “Ian’s is August 7, so ‘Will’s’ is August 8.” 

They were off and running. Just where they were running to was a totally unknown destination. 

“All my friends thought I was mad,” Gaul says. And there were occasions in the very early days when he was inclined to agree. 

However, the two men – Croser a near genius with the manipulation of electromagnetism to create, among many other things, the world’s most advanced phased array radar, and Gaul, the former naval attache officer in Washington DC with his warm personality and business orientation – were perfect foils for each other. 

Despite some near run disasters in the complex world of government defence procurement, they not only survived, they created an organisation that supplies the most cutting-edge technology to all three Australian defence forces and a remarkable range of materials and services to the US and other close allies.

Minister Conroy said: “‘CEA is an Australian manufacturing powerhouse, with world leading know-how that has led to the design and development of cutting-edge radar systems. [They] are critical sovereign capability.”

High on the company’s priorities is the CEA treatment of staff where Gaul and Croser adopted the naval standard of care, attention and respect. 

Before the official government announcement, for example, Ian Croser who unlike David Gaul, remains an active element in the company’s operations, addressed the staff. 

“The reason for the move,” he said,”is that the technologies and system capabilities CEA has been able to develop and field has for some time been deemed to be of sovereign significance and value to Australia and our close allies. The consolidation of shareholdings will assure the future.

“I intend to remain active in the company on a day-to-day basis, for as long as the company, the board and I feel that I am still contributing. I do wish to thank you all for your continuing contribution to Australia’s strategic and sovereign capabilities. I remain proud and in awe of the collective and cumulative achievements of you and your predecessors.

“I would also like to recognise and have you understand that there have been many predecessors to our current staff profile. These include the other part of the founding group of three, David Gaul and his wife Carey. Without this relationship we would not have survived the rigours of transition from a start-up company to where we are now.’ 

Silence was a special kind of torture

ROBERT MACKLIN writes…

In 2018, I was approached by the then CEO of the company with a commission to write a book on its remarkable rise from the founding trio (or quartet if you include Will) to its then becoming Canberra’s biggest private employer.

I spent a year on a massive research and writing regime – one of the most enjoyable of my career. The atmosphere at CEA was friendly, helpful and intellectually thrilling. The staffers were co-operative, the subject fascinating, and both Ian Croser and the Gauls were trusting and respectful.

But once the work was completed, suddenly there were new elements arising, not least the realisation that because of its partnership with the American Northrop Grumman, the sovereignty element of the company’s technology would require an Australian alteration to the shareholding.

Until that could be resolved, the book was put on “hold”. And for the last five years it has been necessary to speak not a word of CEA even to one’s closest associates. For an author trained as an investigative journalist, that is a special torture.

Whether the full story can now be told hangs in the balance, but it’s a huge relief to, at last, break the silence.