Sydney police are using drones to chase suspects 500km away. Is a vulnerable town being targeted?

Moree in NSW is the ‘perfect location’ for remote drones, police say. But critics worry about impact of increased surveillance on local Aboriginal community

A man jumps a fence and runs through a dry back yard. He passes a rusty trailer and jumps another fence in the regional New South Wales town of Moree.

The man then tears through more back yards, leaping fences as he goes, before police officers close in from all sides. Eventually, he is captured and led away in handcuffs.

It looks like a scene from a film. But the action captured on video is real. And the drone tracking the accused is being operated by police officers, not in Moree, but 500km away in Sydney.

The man’s arrest in mid-January for an alleged machete attack marked the debut of what the NSW police force says is an Australian first.

They have dubbed the trial “PolAir-Remote”. It relies on two drones that live in their own self-contained boxes on the roof of Moree police station. They are launched and controlled from Sydney and recharge automatically when docked.

The state police minister, Yasmin Catley, says the drones will be a “tool in the toolbox” when it comes to combating youth crime.

But legal and civil liberties advocates believe the six-month Moree trial could deepen distrust in law enforcement – and some locals say it already has.

“There is that distrust … especially if it hasn’t happened anywhere else in Australia,” the Miyay Birray Youth Services chief executive, Darrel Smith, says.

“In some aspects, you think it is a targeted thing, but hopefully it’s not.”

Jonathan Hall Spence, the principal solicitor at the Justice and Equity Centre, says the drones could worsen generational trauma held by the local Aboriginal community. Moree was the backdrop for some of the harshest forms of segregation and racial discrimination in Australian history – and the social divide remains today.

Policing v privacy

The Moree drones have been operating since early January. Seven people were arrested in one four-day drone operation in February, police say, and further “surge operations” are planned.

The NSW police commissioner, Mal Lanyon, says Moree’s remoteness from the control unit in Sydney makes it the “perfect location” for the trial.

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This week, police arrested another man in Moree with the assistance of a drone, on outstanding warrants for alleged burglary offences. The deputy police commissioner Paul Pisanos told reporters the arrest “does prove the concept” that drones protect the Moree community and police on the ground.

Catley says the drones are a cutting-edge and cost-effective tool to improve police response times and have “nothing to do with surveillance”.

Lanyon says it is “not about surveillance” and that flights won’t be recorded – unless responding to a specific crime.

“There are strict rules about the way that we maintain evidence and information,” he says.

Lanyon says police will adhere to the Surveillance Devices Act in relevant scenarios.

But those reassurances have drawn a raised eyebrow from some lawyers, who say it’s unclear how police will balance rights to privacy with police investigations.

The NSW Council for Civil Liberties president, Timothy Roberts, wants NSW police to share its policy on how incidental data will be stored and deleted.

“We’re talking about the use of drones over areas that could include residential areas [and] private back yards,” he says. “Ultimately, that is just surveillance.”

Hall Spence says police “must do a lot more to explain the legal framework for this trial”.

“The Moree community deserves to know if the proposed use will undermine those legal protections,” he says.

However, the mayor of Moree, Susannah Pearse, says many residents are “fed up” with high crime rates and welcome the trial. “When they see a drone go up in the sky, they get a bit excited,” she says. “They know that is a sign that police are working to look after our community.”

Local MP Brendan Moylan says feedback has been positive.

“Anything that is designed to reduce the crime rate in Moree is generally met with widespread support among the community,” he says.

Katrina McKenzie, a Moree business owner, is more cautious. The trial is a “great idea,” she says, but adds: “I don’t know if it will deter youth crime.”

‘Over-policing’ of Aboriginal communities

The decision to trial the drone system in a town with a high Aboriginal population and long-running concerns about over-policing has drawn criticism from the Aboriginal Legal Service.

Principal solicitor at ALS NSW/ACT, Lauren Stefanou, says police have chosen to roll out the “intrusive and untested technology” on a community that “arguably [has] the least power to object”.

“Any further over-policing and surveillance of Aboriginal communities seriously risks further damaging police-community relations,” she says.

Stefanou also points out that youth crime rates have been steadily trending down across NSW, with Moree in particular recording a drop of almost 25% since 2023.

“When the NSW Treasury reports that the majority of government spending on Aboriginal people goes to police, prisons and child removals, you know something has gone very wrong,” she says.

The NSW youth minister, Jihad Dib, confirmed in a budget estimates hearing last week that the latest data showed a statewide reduction in youth crime.

The police minister says the drone program could soon be rolled out to other regional youth crime “hotspots” like Kempsey – which also has a significant Aboriginal population.

Historically, police powers have been “disproportionately exercised against First Nations people,” says Hall Spence.

“We’re concerned that we’ll see the same thing repeated … with First Nations people harassed and over-surveilled,” he says.

Hall Spence says the trial ignores the root causes of youth crime – and, if kids are incarcerated, they are statistically more likely to reoffend.

“Moree deserves solutions to the harm caused by crime. But history shows that focusing on arresting and charging more young people does not deliver a safer community.”

Both Moree and Kempsey are involved in Just Reinvest NSW, a community-led initiative to reduce Indigenous incarceration.

A 2022 report on the program identified over-policing, siloed state and federal funding, and top-down actions from governments as contributing to continued high incarceration rates – whereas programs designed and led by local Indigenous groups were more successful.

The NSW government has committed $112m toward early intervention and diversion programs targeting First Nations people, including the Safe Aboriginal Youth (SAY) program which provides late-night transport and outreach services.

Smith, an Anaiwan man, says the drone trial could have “some great benefits” for the town, but the intense focus on law and order in recent years has made First Nations people wary.

“Anything that is new and promoted by the government, then there is normally that distrust around it,” he says.

Many fear the drones will be targeting particular groups.

“It’s that perception … that it could be just for use for one part of the town,” Smith says.

“Moree’s got a high population of Aboriginal people, especially young people. As long as we see there are benefits across the community, [it’s] not just targeting one group, then maybe it’s good. Time will tell.”