QUEENSLAND LNP Senator Barry O’Sullivan says a “one size fits all” approach will be avoided when implementing new laws covering drone-uses, with virtually no restrictions on the technology in agricultural settings.
Senator O’Sullivan is on the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee’s inquiry into regulatory requirements underpinning the safe use of drones, or remotely piloted and unmanned aircraft systems.
He said safety was a core priority of the Committee’s inquiry but privacy was also a “writ large” aspect of the examination that was established in October last year and is now due to table its report on December 6, 2017.
“Apart from the management of work place health and safety issues with the operation of a drone, and apart from where those drones might have the potential to engage with the path of an aircraft, which will be very rare in agricultural circumstances, except with crop dusting and the like, and apart from the very limited and unusual events like fighting wildfires, I don’t think there should be any rules around the operation of drones, within the meets and bounds of an agricultural property,” Senator O’Sullivan said.
“There are serious challenges about the operation of drones over built up and metropolitan areas, and around airports and where there’s air traffic flows, but I don’t want those challenges to create a situation where we have a one shoe (size) fits all regulatory response that inhibits the use and indeed the development of this technology for agriculture and broadacre pastoral businesses.
“I’m reaching into the rural media to ensure people know, that despite the complexity of the challenges here, there’s an underlying intent from those of us interested in this subject matter, to ensure we don’t inhibit the current and future use of unmanned vehicle technologies around farms – except for the limitations I’ve talked about.”
Senator O’Sullivan said for example, firearms were governed by different conditions for uses in rural or agricultural settings, compared to metropolitan or built up areas.
“I live in an urban area and I can’t fire a firearm across my back yard and eight other back yards up the street, but we also have broadacre pastoral holdings - our main cattle block is about 8500 acres - and I can, with care, fire a firearm virtually anywhere there,” he said.
“The uses of that firearm and how I can apply it to what I do day to day, is significantly different between the two locations.”
Senator O’Sullivan he wanted to avoid an approach to lawmaking on drones that repeated the Howard government’s response to the Port Arthur massacre and its impact on firearms.
“There wasn‘t a lot of delineation about the use of firearms the next day,” he said.
“It was a one shoe (size) fits all approach - rule it out - and it took a lot of time and energy here, by my Nationals’ colleagues in particular, to isolate and convince the parliament that the use of firearms in rural areas was a different set of circumstances and that’s exactly the case with the drones.”
Animal activist drone use also in inquiry firing line
Farm group submissions to the Senate inquiry have urged the Committee to allow farmers access to drone use that boosts productivity through improved land management applications, while maximising safety and protecting their privacy, in particular from unwanted surveillance or trespassers.
Senator O’Sullivan said evidence to the inquiry had raised concerns about the rising trend of animal rights activists using drones fitted with high-powered modern camera technology, to observe intensive farming systems, despite concerns about privacy.
“If I own a parcel of land for agriculture – although it has equal application in metropolitan areas – I don’t let you wander around my backyard with a digital camera so I don’t want you to wander around my airspace with a digital camera,” he said.
“I think we need to look at a complete prohibition on the operation of drones within the meets and bounds of private property, particularly in an agricultural setting, where they don’t have the permission of the landowner, or landholder, to operate.
“The surveillance capabilities of drones almost can’t be measured – it is limitless and what we’re talking about here is the use of a drone to surveil someone or some activity which is not limited to law enforcement.
“Big Brother is almost here and Big Brother is going to arrive sometime soon in an air space sitting on a drone; whether that’s activists looking at a feedlot or some other invasive activity.
“We’re going to get enormous disruption in industry, if this flood gate is open to allow people to come and use a drone wherever they like.
“You’ll have trade unions hovering drones on work sites 24-7 looking for some tiny element of stuff.
“But life’s not perfect, things happen, and I don’t want to live in a situation where I’ve got 24-hour surveillance in an urban or agricultural sense.”
The Committee is due to report in seven months, and it will then take more time before any recommendations are adopted and new laws potentially implemented.
But Senator O’Sullivan said some interim laws were needed “right now” which won’t affect agricultural settings, except for the circumstances already mentioned.
“We’ve got 50,000 drones in the air and we’ve only got 13,500 fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft in the country – we’ve got a crisis just waiting to happen,” he said.
“Last year the Air Transport Safety Bureau issued a statement that there had been 108 times when a drone had been in the proximity of a manned aircraft, and reference was made, even though it wasn’t explored, about evasive action having to be taken.
“Just think about it – do you want to be on the plane on those 108 occasions because I certainly don’t want to be?”
The inquiry has published 96 submissions and held one public hearing in March, at Dalby in Queensland with three more due for late June in Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane.