Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

The reason I want to speak on this is that the use of unmanned air, maritime and land platforms has, across the board, permeated the existence of aviation. Aviation itself, more broadly, is now coming to grips with how to deal with the use of drones, as they are referred to—the use of unmanned air, maritime and land platforms. They are now being used as first responders. In the US, I had the opportunity of seeing how they are utilised by first responder groups right across the board.

It is interesting to note that they are also becoming far more cost-effective, far more reliable and far more useful in a wide range of roles—and in which they do not put people at risk. If you look at the broad use of UAVs across the platforms, the use by the various armed services is helpful. But when you look at how they can be utilised for communication and for first response—to give you a scenario that is easily thought through—if you want to have a look over the horizon, over a hill or at various things that are occurring, then UAVs are a perfect platform to do that.

That is why recommendations in the original report went to the Department of Defence strengthening its public communication in relation to military unmanned platforms as but the first step. We also want to look at how the Australian Defence Force acquires these platforms, the capability of the platforms and how they can be utilised by the Defence Force in various roles. But you cannot simply put them into the field and expect them to be used ad hoc for different types of ambitions or different types of outcomes. You have to spend a fair bit of time to decide what the role is and how you going to use them, to train the operators to be able to use the UAVs in an appropriate way and to ensure that, for role that you want a UAV to be used for, the UAV is fit for purpose. All of these issues were ventilated in that report. The government response to that report is helpful in pointing us in the right direction.

The committee earlier recommended that the Australian Defence Force takes measures to identify gaps in training and dissemination programs. This is the point I was making. You simply cannot buy UAVs as a platform and expect them to perform the multi roles that you want them to perform. You have to actually define the role, consider how they can be utilised and then ensure that they are utilised for their best effect for a role where a manned aircraft, or a manner maritime patrol, would be, otherwise, more useful. It is imperative that we do look at how a government can increase funding for the use of UAVs as we go forward.

If you look at the UAV development in such a very short space of time, it has been phenomenal. In the use of UAVs across Europe, the US, the UK, there has been a growth in the use of UAVs in defence—or the armed services more broadly. Therefore, Australia does not want to be left behind in the utilisation of UAVs. But we also do not want to be simply buying UAVs for any purpose. Recommendation 4, I think, is germane to this point. It is not only about increasing the funding for innovation in relation to unmanned platforms, but it is also imperative to look at how you establish a defence unmanned platform centre—in other words, a cooperative centre to ensure that we can examine UAVs—how they are going to be used and the training, or what I call the ancillary support mechanisms, that would surround the use of UAVs. They can save lives, they can save time, they can be cost efficient in planning and executing various missions.

The committee also took the opportunity of recommending that strategic engagement with the Australian unmanned platform industry be addressed in the Defence industry policy statement. This is an area that simply cannot be ignored. It is a growing area for UAVs. You only have to consider how they can be deployed and how they can be more cost effective over the short to medium term as to why it is imperative for the Defence Force to seriously look at the longer term use. At the moment, I think it is fair to say, the Defence Force is acquiring UAVs and is utilising them in various ways. But it is the deeper understanding of how UAVs can be utilised for missions over the longer term which is imperative because they will not only replace established missions by manned vessels and manner aircraft but also complement that work as well.

In addition to that, how you then defend against UAVs is an important concept. I had an opportunity of talking to a person who is doing a doctoral thesis. They are doing their doctoral thesis, effectively, on how UAVs can communicate to one another—in other words, what they generally consider as swarm technologies—so that they can interconnect, operate as a group, have a redundancy within that group and also, obviously, carry out a mission effectively. Complex algorithms are being developed for the use of that swarm type of arrangement—technologies. That will then drive even further developments with UAVs over time.

The committee at that time also recommended that the Australian government support international efforts to establish a regulatory regime for autonomous weapons systems. You also have to look at how you will manage the impact of these in battlefield environments. You want to ensure that you have the appropriate rules and regulations in place to ensure that the technology does not offend many of the arrangements we have in place about the use of current weapons. We do ban a range of weapons for very good reasons, but we want to be able to ensure that the regulatory environment for UAVs does not trip into any of those areas.

We also want to ensure overall that when we look at aviation and maritime—in other words, rights of passage—the regulations dealing with airspace and the sea are compatible with the use of UAVs. This technology is growing far more rapidly than the regulatory regimes that are following it are. Australia has been fortunate in that Airservices Australia has managed to look at how it would integrate UAVs into its airspace management for some time and that it has one model. The US has had a different approach and, in fact, they are now trying desperately to catch up to where they should be.

But all of that tells us that this technology is here to stay. Not only that, it is here to develop into significant use by the Defence Force over time. These issues that I have had the opportunity of ventilating today do need to be sorted through and managed in an appropriate way to ensure that we do have and can use UAVs effectively to advance the Australian Defence Force and to advance the opportunity for saving lives by their use, where they can be used, but not put people at risk.

They can also complement intelligence gathering and they can complement the civilian response to an emergency, one of the areas where it would be helpful to have platforms such as this utilised.

Question agreed to.