Page 4639 - Week 12 - Thursday, 1 November 2018
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have drone deliveries occurring here in Canberra. There are many interesting issues to examine in this arena. These include how drones may impact on local amenity, which is an issue that some Bonython residents have been raising in relation to the current trial. Other interesting issues include regulatory issues, privacy concerns, issues about privatisation of public space, environmental issues and safety issues.
I agree that this is a good issue for a committee to examine, to hear from all the different stakeholders, to talk about whether existing regulations are sufficient, to make sure that drone issues are dealt with sensibly at the same time as we take advantage of the possible advantages that the new technologies offer. Certainly, they have been noted by some in the context of the current trial in the ACT.
It is timely to look at this issue now because the current drone trial has uncovered some concerns in the local community. But these issues have been coming for many years and they will continue to evolve in coming years as this technology becomes more available, as more people are accessing it and the like.
Properly examining the issues related to drones will hopefully ensure that we are prepared and ready for some of these emerging issues. Of course, in the innovation space we are often behind as legislators, necessarily so, I think, because of the way people just develop things and start trialling. But we should not allow ourselves to get further behind on this one.
I have circulated an amendment. Procedurally, I cannot move it now, but I will speak to it to give the debate some context. I will seek leave shortly to move it once we have dealt with Ms Orr’s amendment. The amendment I have proposed asks the committee to look also at the potential impact of drones on greenhouse gas emissions in the paragraph dealing with environmental considerations.
Drone technology has potential applications that can help the territory to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and to achieve our climate targets. One obvious way they can do this is by displacing trips by private motor vehicles or by delivery trucks. At the moment, delivery trucks tend to use diesel fuel and most private motor vehicles use petrol or diesel. If drones used in the ACT are electric—so far they are with the technology that is around—and if they are charged in the territory, which one expects they would be, they will be charged by 100 per cent renewable electricity by 2020 and they could be an emissions-free transport technology.
Researchers are already looking closely at this issue. To quote one environmental scientist researching this issue at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, drones can make a significant impact on emissions, especially now that transport is the biggest polluting sector out there. That last mile of getting goods to a destination is a big part of the emissions picture. There are plenty of plausible scenarios where drones can do environmental good. Their research shows that drone delivery can be significantly better for the environment, even taking into account the environmental impacts from constructing the drone batteries.
Here in the ACT, transport is the next big challenge for greenhouse gas emissions reduction. It is difficult to displace car trips. We are making efforts to increase the
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