Kym Bergmann: What is your business background and how did you first become involved in defence contracting?
Robert Nioa: Growing up in my parents’ small businesses was the best grounding I could have. It was all about hard work, perseverance, loyalty to your staff and customers… from Mum and Dad’s farm to their fruit stall to the service stations and a fuel depot to a tyre shop and eventually the gun business…and those values are the hallmark of the modern NIOA company.
By the mid-80s Dad had landed the distribution rights for a handful of American firearms companies and moved to Brisbane to focus on growing the sporting market.
We were the smallest wholesaler in the country when in 1996 the industry was turned on its head after the Port Arthur tragedy and the sweeping reforms to gun laws that followed. About half of Australia’s firearm dealers closed down.
By then I’d joined Dad to help the business through the changes. And if we were going to survive, let alone grow, we decided that we needed to diversify.
About the same time, I visited a trade show where I met some people from NICO-Pyrotechnik, now part of Rheinmetall Defence, which at that time was supplying stun grenades and 40mm munitions to police SERT teams in Australia as well as mortar and sub-calibre training systems to the ADF.
The NICO connection led us to SACO Defence, now General Dynamics, who were developing a futuristic 40mm grenade launcher.
Nineteen years later, in 2015, the MK47 lightweight automatic grenade launcher (LWAGL) became our first prime contract under the LAND 40-2 project.
Q: What interested you in the defence sector in particular?
A: We have an abiding sense of admiration for the men and women of the Australian Defence Force and the role they play in keeping our nation safe. Many of our staff members, leadership team and advisory board are ex-military.
There’s a sense of pride and patriotism that goes with being a part of this industry and that purpose of keeping our warfighters equipped and ready so they can do their jobs efficiently.
It is also about being the force behind the force – creating the jobs that strengthen local economies.
Over the next decade the Coalition Government is investing more than $270 billion to modernise Australia’s defence capability.
Australian workers, skills and knowledge will be needed for this.
For NIOA as a 100 per cent Australian owned entity the decisions on how we meet those needs are made in Australia, by Australians.
This is an excerpt from APDR. To read the full story, click here.
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