Unmanned military spy aircraft would have been used to alert police to Victorians ignoring coronavirus rules under a controversial plan rejected by the Defence Force.
The Herald Sun can reveal that a week before the Easter long weekend, Victorian authorities asked the ADF for drones to identify illegal public gatherings so officers could be sent to hand out fines.
Defence assessed that the request would likely have required the deployment of the Shadow 200 unmanned aerial vehicle, which provided reconnaissance and target acquisition support to our troops in Afghanistan.
It can travel at up to 200km/h and provide real-time footage from an altitude of 2.4km.
It is understood the ADF rejected the request — made by Emergency Management Victoria for Victoria Police’s Operation Hawkeye — because it did not fit with its focus of reassuring and supporting the community.
Source.
Seriously? What were they thinking? Civilian authorities asking the military to spy on the electorate?
But wait …
It wasn’t the civilian authorities.
In a statement, Emergency Management Victoria said the request was for “additional resourcing options which would supplement Victoria’s existing remote piloted aerial systems capability’.
Emergency Management Victoria is a statutory authority.
One of my pet-hates is ‘statutory authorities’ and so-called statutory independence. This constitutes a complete, total, and utter lack of democratic accountability. We know this is a problem. This lack of control has resulted in catastrophic failure during the COVID crisis, and is almost certainly responsible for the second Victorian lockdown and the deaths of hundreds of people.
Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp signed off on a decision to use private security guards for hotel quarantine the night before returning travellers were first detained and unacceptable breaches of security led to Victoria’s second virus wave, a parliamentary inquiry heard on Wednesday.
…
Mr Andrews was asked if Mr Crisp – who declined any media requests but will appear before the inquiry next Wednesday week – would speak to the media but he said Mr Crisp was independent of government and “he’s very busy doing very important work”.
Witnesses before a parliamentary inquiry could not explain who the State Control Centre reports to in Mr Andrews’ crisis cabinet. Emergency Management Victoria reports to Police and Emergency Services Minister Lisa Neville but Mr Crisp is appointed as a statutory officer independent of government.
“We could have a debate about flow charts and organisational charts,” Mr Andrews said.
So Emergency Management Victoria – an ‘independent body’ – made decisions that other people had to implement. Yet nobody was an in overall decision making capacity. Nobody. Furthermore, not one single democratically elected person had any oversight power.
All this, however, is still unfolding at the Victorian Inquiry. People are saying things like the premier might resign before the next election – I’m thinking people need to be arrested and prosecuted.
But … I digress.
But for the ADF saying ‘No’ – they know precisely the meaning and consequences of the phrase ‘crimes against humanity’ – an independent statutory authority, outside democratic control, would have ordered that Australian government military equipment be deployed against Australian citizens.
“[P]ublic health measures such as face masks shouldn’t be abandoned even once a vaccine is approved.”