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Drone deliveries aren't attracting many complaints but experts say that's not a sign of public endorsement
A lack of complaints from the public has been cited as a reason why 'drone delivery' services should be allowed to expand in Australia — but experts say the reason there was just three complaints last year is because the system is so difficult to navigate.
Someone who felt spied on while in the bath as drones flew overhead 28 times in just three hours was among the very few complainants who navigated the bureaucratic nightmare to lodge objections to pilot projects for drone delivery above the suburbs.
Despite there being an estimated 3 million drones in Australia, in 2024 there were only three complaints about general drone noise to the government department that regulates it.
Previously-secret documents show the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) pushed to reduce restrictions and hand-balled monitoring of drone noise to the Department of Infrastructure, which says in general the issue is "difficult to respond to".
Noise is just one of the issues. One of Australia's foremost experts in the field, Julia Powles from the University of Western Australia (UWA), says the companies involved in drone delivery pilots want the sky for themselves.
"The vision is to architect highway infrastructure across our sky scape," she says.
Documents released under the Freedom of Information (FOI) system suggest that around sites where the deliveries are being trialled, the 'highway in the skies' may already be emerging.
"I've been sitting in the bath and watched them through the window fly past with direct line of sight," wrote one complainant in Harrison in the ACT, about 15 kilometres north of Parliament House.
"This frequent noise is incredibly disruptive and irritating. It also seems excessive!"
Commercial services such as Google's Wing promise to deliver hot coffee and fast food from shopping centres to the suburbs.
"Enjoy your latte, without the line," it promises.
But the documents reveal the difficulty of complaining about drone noise from the services to the appropriate channel.
Local and state governments have also been overridden by the Department of Infrastructure, which has taken control of regulation about drones and wants to see expansion in the sector.
UWA associate professor Dr Powles says the number of complaints is being used as "a proxy of community tolerance" for drones — she describes it as a "poor metric", and that's probably an understatement.
There are an estimated 3 million recreational drone owners in Australia, according to CASA's annual report, with an estimated additional 2.1 million people planning to buy a drone within the next year.
Drone delivery trials have been held in the ACT, Victoria and Queensland. But in the first years of operation there was confusion about who was responsible for complaints about noise from the operations.
"Do you go to your city council? Do you go to the federal government? Do you go to the state? And actually, the Department of Infrastructure didn't even know that it was responsible in the first instance," Dr Powles says.
People trying to complain about a drone, particularly noise, quickly find themselves in a morass of laws and buck-passing:
For Dr Powles, the confusing system throws up two problems.
"One, how do you even complain? And the second, how do you complain about what the ambition of these companies, which is to be able to operate at a scale that is commercially valuable."
She says for the systems to make a profit it will require tens of thousands of drones over Australian cities
In 'back-pocket notes' prepared ahead of a Senate Estimates hearing, the Department of Infrastructure says the increase in drones and Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) "may lead to greater impacts on the community (e.g. noise, security and privacy concerns), which need to be managed appropriately to enable the positive social and economic benefits".
In response to questions from the ABC, the department says it "works with a range of stakeholders to ensure community feedback about drone delivery operations is captured and considered, even where complaints are not made directly to the department".
Wing, which is owned by Google's parent company, did not respond to a request for comment.
The documents bear out the difficulty of making complaints about small devices travelling through the sky at high speed, which disperse noise over a great distance.
For example, the City of Logan — the fastest growing area of Brisbane and home to almost 400,000 people — received zero complaints about the drone trial for the six months from October 2023.
The Department of Infrastructure logged nine complaints about noise from different trial sites, taking the total to 98 since 2020.
Last year it received three complaints about general drone noise.
Not that it matters, because the department struggles to do anything about it.
"General noise complaints are difficult to respond to," the Department of Infrastructure wrote, in an internal document about the 'drone noise framework'.
Responding to the bathtub complaint mentioned at the top of this report, a Department of Infrastructure staffer [whose name is redacted in the documents] apologises and suggests it is unlikely that Wing was responsible for the noise because "Wing has ceased its delivery service in the ACT".
They suggest it is more likely a drone used for construction or emergency services, saying they are a "critical element in almost every aspect of emergency operations, e.g. policing".
"It is possible that the drone you heard was not Wing's and unfortunately it is not possible for us, based on the information you provided, to confirm the purpose of the drone flights you saw."
But in subsequent emails, it becomes clear the drones were from Wing.
"I can confirm we were flying at the times noted, so it's likely the noise feedback is regarding our drones," a Wing staff member emailed.
"We're going to review the routing in that area and explore adjustments that will likely reduce some of the overflight the resident reached out about."
Jake Goldenfein is a law and technology scholar at Melbourne Law School and an chief investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society.
"It's a very unusual situation where people would be complaining about noise directly to a federal department," he says.
"If you're going to complain about noise, you would complain to the state level Environment Protection Authority (EPA) or the state police or your local council."
Dr Goldenfein says the Department of Infrastructure, which has taken control of drone regulation, wants to see expansion in the sector.
"The regulation is trying to build a new market for drone delivery services," he says.
"It needs to do that in a way that takes into account what the industry actors are capable of doing and what they want.
"So yes, industry absolutely has a big say in what the law looks like when it comes to these kinds of technology products."
In email correspondence regarding noise approvals, CASA outlines a meeting between it, Wing and the department.
CASA wants "further detail" on how Wing is engaging with operators such as other airfields and for the company to establish "agreements/understanding with the operators to communicate and deconflict".
But when it asked about interactions between the company and the department "with regards to noise considerations for Melbourne operations" the discussions ended with a question — "is this a federal or local consideration with regards to existing operating restrictions?"
No answer was forthcoming in the documents.
But the agency was clear — it's not us.
Responding to questions, CASA reiterated that it has "no role in noise" regarding drones and is a safety regulator that doesn't touch on privacy or environmental issues.
However it does host educational resources and, if followed, its safety rules would work to reduce drone noise.
In 2024 CASA laid 12 fines, of between $825 and $1,565, to people who breached laws concerning drones, such as flying over populated or prohibited areas.
Responding to questions about drone delivery services, a spokesperson for the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts said operators are required to provide the department with information about noise complaints as a condition of their approval.
"[Additionally] before a new drone delivery operation starts in an area, the department reaches out to the affected local council(s) to inform them of the department's role and to request that they forward any noise related complaints to us.
Dr Goldenfein says by drawing focus to the issue of drone noise we're missing the larger picture, because they will get quieter.
"Noise kind of became the only thing that communities could complain about. It was the only thing that there was a clear process by which communities could engage with," he says.
He describes the shape of the delivery trials as "quite strategic" as an effort to channel public concerns about drones to be simply about noise.
As Julia Powles reflects, there are bigger issues on the horizon.
"I think there are very few people who'd say that what we really need is to elevate the problems of our terrestrial traffic to the sky."
