For many tens of thousands of years, the land that UniSC Moreton Bay is built on has been home to a number of Aboriginal clans belonging to the Turrbal, Kabi (Kabi Kabi or Gubbi Gubbi) and Waka (Waka Waka) language groups.

There were several ceremonial bora rings in the area, including ‘Nindur-ngineddo’ (leech dreaming place) located near the present-day Petrie roundabout, and a ‘Mandin’ (or Mundin) fishing hole near the North Coast Railway Bridge.

Permanent European arrival in the region commenced in 1824 with the establishment of a convict settlement of 14 soldiers and 30 convicts who sailed from Sydney. After the convict settlement closed in 1842, free settlement of the Pine Rivers area began.

It was an elder of the Turrbal People, Dalaipi, who encouraged Tom Petrie to establish his cattle run, Murrumba, in the North Pine area in 1859. Petrie and his descendants went on to make an enormous impact upon the history of the area, and their name lives on in the places that surround this site.

With the discovery of gold at Gympie in 1867, the Cobb and Co. coach company used Petrie as the location for the first change of horses after leaving Brisbane. The coach stop became an important centre in the district, and the beginning of a township sprang up around it.

Almost 150 years later, as the area became steadily more urbanised, the Australian Paper Manufacturers (APM)’s Petrie Mill commenced manufacturing operations on this site. The largest industrial undertaking in southern Queensland at the time, the arrival of the Mill in 1957 stimulated the area’s economy and caused huge population growth surge in what had been a small farming town.

After the Mill closed in 2013, Moreton Bay Regional Council purchased the site with the goal of transforming the area into a world-class innovation and knowledge precinct, generating jobs and providing tertiary education for local residents.

UniSC became The Mill at Moreton Bay’s Anchor Education Partner in late 2015, and construction of the campus commenced in June 2018.