Page 4640 - Week 12 - Thursday, 1 November 2018
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amount that people walk, cycle or use public transport, but we are still a car dominated city. Studies show that a large portion of car trips are for journeys of three kilometres or less. Plenty of these trips are to make a purchase at the local shops, for example. Ideally, more people would walk or cycle for those journeys. They are three kilometres or less.
But that will not work for everybody and even for people it can work for, it will not work all of the time. If some of those trips could be replaced with an electric drone trip, it would be a good outcome for the environment. Similarly, if certain deliveries can be made by electric drones rather than diesel powered trucks, that will also benefit our environment.
The second part of my amendment relates to privacy issues. It asks the committee to consider them. People are becoming more and more concerned about the safety of their personal data, particularly in this new age of information technology where enormous global companies that are able to aggregate data across a wide range of platforms are increasingly doing so. One of the questions people have in relation to drones concerns their ability to record visual data. People want to understand what happens to this visual data, whether it is stored and, if so, where, and how it is used.
The other issue I want to mention in relation to drones is that there are emerging issues not just in their use for commercial deliveries. There are also interesting questions to explore related to their private use, their use in a surveillance capacity, including in relation to crimes of stalking and harassment, and other family violence situations.
I think there is interesting and relevant work we could do in this area to produce best practice modernised civil surveillance legislation and potentially update our crimes, courts and evidence legislation taking account of new developments and technologies such as drones. I think this is a vast and interesting area generally around the use of technology in these spaces. But, given the particular trial we have seen here in the ACT, I think it is the right time to reflect on these issues.
I note the comments that Mr Orr has made, and the discussions that have taken place in recent days, in preparation for this motion. Certainly, I have expressly sought advice from the Clerk around the issue of Assembly referrals versus self-referrals by the committee. I have received advice that there is no precedent that should the Assembly seek a committee to look into a matter, that that issue should take precedence over a self-referred matter of a committee. That had been a discussion this week.
My advice is that there is no such requirement in the standing orders, nor is there precedent for that. It may have been, perhaps, a cultural norm or an urban—I do not want to say “myth” because I do not mean to be derogatory. However, if that is something people have a sense of, my clear advice is that that is not the case.
Clearly, the building quality work is very important. I completely agree with the points that Ms Orr made in her remarks. We note that this has been a concern of the community for some time. I urge the committee to continue to do that work. But I
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