And all the arts of life they chang’d into the arts of death
… intricate wheels invented… to bind to labours
Of day & night the myriads of Eternity, that they might file
And polish brass & iron hour after hour, laborious workmanship,
Kept ignorant of the use that they might spend the days of wisdom
In sorrowful drudgery to obtain a scanty pittance of bread,
In ignorance to view a small portion & think that All…
William Blake, Jerusalem, 1804-1820
Just before dawn on 21 October 2025, a far right group led by Ben Shand put up Australian flags outside Heat Treatment Australia (HTA), an engineering firm at Coopers Plains, an industrial area on Brisbane’s southside.
HTA is a crucial cog in the global war machine. HTA heat F35 jet parts that are essential to Israel’s genocide and occupation of Gaza.
So Ben Shand, pictured at Albanese’s true belivers dinner in July 2024, put out this call to his mates:
“We got word that a bunch of left-wing commies were planning to protest an Aussie steel factory, one that supplies steel for our Defence Force. We were all working, so we couldn’t get down there to counter-protest … but we made sure our Aussie spirit showed. Last night, we banged up flags around the factory.”
At 8.50 am a group of about 40 people marched on the footpath to HTA to protest government complicity in the ongoing genocide in Palestine.
Australia’s F-35 industry relies on government grants, where HTA’s leadership helps other local businesses to obtain. HTA Owner and Director, Dr Karen Stanton, sits on advisory boards to the state and federal governments and holds key leadership positions with other complicit arms dealers.
Karen Stanton is a Board Member of the Australian Government Centre for Defence Industry Capabilities, created to funnel small businesses into the weapons industry through government grants. She also sits on the Queensland Government Advisory Council on Defence Industry, and a number of private company boards in the arms industry, including Elbit System, which is deeply involved in making weapons for Israel’s genocide.
About twenty police were in attendance at the picket. Before the demonstration could be established, Queensland police, Sergeant David Brait, grabbed and handcuffed a person who had taken down one of the Australian flags, stapled to a power pole by the ‘Australia’s Sons’ group.
Perhaps Sgt Brait was personally offended seeing the flag being treated with contempt? When I challenged the lawfulness of Sgt Brait’s actions, he threatened to arrest me for obstructing police. Will police never learn? The Sergeant told me to hand over the Australian flag, falsely claiming it had been damaged. He told the handcuffed activist he was going to charge them with wilful damage. There certainly is blood on the Australian flag, on Aboriginal land, in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and now Palestine. Is there not a single police officer offended by the genocide being perpetrated using the weapons manufactured inside this dark satanic mill?
When I declined to give the officer the flag, he ripped this undamaged piece of polyester out of my hands. Who owns the flag? Where is the complainant? Sergeant Brait pulled the person-in-his-custody across the road and placed them in the back of a police car, their arms still handcuffed at the back. I thought Sgt Brait and McPhiney was going to drive their prisoner away, unattended in the back seat. Another officer unclipped his gun holster. I opened the unlocked rear passenger side car door objecting to their illegal detention. I was thinking the Sergeant had breached his duty of care to his prisoner.
While this was happening, police arrested another person claiming falsely that he was obstructing the driveway into HTA. At no point during the several hours of the picket was there any attempt to obstruct the driveway, and several trucks came and went during the morning, delivering and picking up their deadly wares.
Police placed their second prisoner in a police van and then took their first prisoner out of the police car under the orders of Sergeant Tim McPhinney (sp?). After a third police officer had driven the two prisoners to the Acacia Ridge Police Station, Sergeant Brait approached me and took my photograph with his body worn camera for facial recognition. This police officer then did the same for all the other participants in the picket. Police then set about doing vehicle checks, including, unwittingly, on one belonging to a worker inside HTA.
The F35 Genocide Jets are crucial to Israel’s assault on Gaza,” Wage Peace said in a media statement. “Every component manufactured in Australia for F-35s needs to be heat treated for use.”
This gives HTA has a “direct link” in the genocide according to the group.
“Declassified Australia has revealed that F35 parts are being sent weekly from Sydney to Tel Aviv as freight via passenger aircraft.”
About 50 people joined the morning action at HTA.
How did Shand get an invitation to Albanese’s dinner guarded by police in July 2024? Online, the so called ‘dusty bogan’ called the pickets ‘goblins and mutants‘. Yet his actions at recent pickets at Caltex and HTA have demonstrated he is prepared to commit unlawful and dangerous acts namely by fixing Australian flags to power poles using steel wires.
Grounded in racism, Shand’s rants fail to identify that our defence industry is supporting Israel’s genocide. Here is his facile analysis about HTA:
“A hard-working business, run by hard-working people, supporting the men and women of our military who put their hands up to serve and keep this country safe. And this is how they’re treated? By a pack of left-wing extremists trying to undermine them? Absolutely disgraceful. The cops moved them on arrested two of them for ripping down our flags. And as you can see, a few of our flags are still flying proudly.“
More insidious still, our state and federal governments seem determined to stick with Israel despite the war crimes being committed and supported by this deadly trade.
Who is going to do the tough grind at the shop floor of the weapons factories of convincing our working class sons and daughters not to follow the path of the war machine?
Ian Curr
22 October 2025
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