The Chaser Report - Australia's Homegrown Drones

Episode Date: June 3, 2024

Charles and Dom take a look at Australia's newest piece of local-made hardware. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. And Charles, let's talk about the future in today's podcast. Let's not look at the now. Let's not look at trivialities of everyday life. Let's dream big and better. Let's look at a future made in Australia.

Yes. And look, today's story is a heartwarming story. It's a good news story. For once, we're talking about the future, but it's not some sort of depressing, oh, we're all going to drown, oh, we're going to all die in a ball of fire caused by climate change. Today is a story about Aussie innovation. It's about the pluck and determination of what Australia can achieve when we put our mind to it. This is the thing, Charles.

I mean, we've discussed this briefly before. The dream of an Australia that manufactures. I mean, going back to the days when we used to make half, We used to build our own train carriages. I know they're still trying to do that in Victoria, but in the sense of all parts of the country, we don't. We import things from Spain that never turn up.

You know, going back to where everything in the supermarket was made locally, we never had to import anything anymore. What happened to that Australia, Charles? Why can't we have it again? I've always said that the real problem with war. How did we get to war? This takes a bit of a way in. Stay with me on this, right?

The problem with war is that it's too expensive to kill people. Every time Australia rolls out one of its missiles or whatever, you know, it has to pay millions of dollars to, I don't know, like America or France or England or Israel or wherever they bought the missile from. Yeah, they're consume balls, as we've discussed before. It's expensive and it's an import. I'm tired of importing. We've got to import everything.

I've got to come up these. days and everything. Everything's made in China. I buy it because it's $2 because it's made in China. But it's just, everything's imported. Where's the innovation in the local Hutzpah? And the biggest line item in the budget for the next 30 years is going to be this fucking august thing

which is all imported. It's like oh well, you know, oh, should we buy it from France or America or England or whatever? Well, what about the homegrown alternative? What about being able to buy your t-shirt from Australia? What about being able to buy your, I don't know, your orange

juice instead of having, oh, on the side, oh, it was made in New Zealand, oh, it was made in Malaysia, oh, it was made in China. Yeah, why don't we underpaid children to make our technology devices in this country? Why don't we have an Aussie version of the iPhone, which... The Oz phone? Yeah, the Oz phone. With Aussie design software that's not quite world class, but at least it's local. It'd be run by Telstra, wouldn't it?

Probably. Look, as I was saying, the problem with war is, it just... so expensive to kill everyone. Have you got a solution? Well, the thing is, this is not some, you know, pipe dream. This is something that's actually happened on, which is that there's been an innovation, and the Australian Army has announced

that a homegrown, lethal drone called The Owl, is about to be launched in Australia. Sorry, did you say The Owl, as in sort of nocturnal creature that goes hoot-hut? Yeah, exactly. Before we talk about what it can do, Charles. Is the brand set in stone because I'm feeling distinctly unscheduled? I reckon whoever came up with the name asked Chet GPT.

But don't you think, you know, if you ask Chet GPT, what's a good name for an owl? They'd say, a good name for a drone, they'd say. What about an Inovero, Al? Is that what this is? Because I think we're kind of burying the lead here in the name. Oh, yeah. Do we now have our own version of the Reaper? See, the Reaper drone, that's got a good brand.

Yes. If you threatened to sit in the Reaper drones, I would be like, shit, the Reaper's coming. If you're going, oh, a flock of owls is coming away. Oh, how adorable. Maybe that's part of the point. Well, I think this is the problem with Australia, though, right, is we've grown so out of touch with innovating.

We can't even name our innovations well enough. Like, isn't the whole problem that, you know, if we were like China or Japan or even France, we'd have really good names for innovations. Yeah. We haven't made anything here in the last 30 years. We've forgotten how to do it. So we don't know how, like, because, you know, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, little black box that everyone likes.

That was made in Australia. That was a cool name. I mean, it wasn't even black. And they called it a black box. I mean, the airplane thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The plane crash thing. Yeah, that was our innovation, wasn't it?

That was the last innovation. Do you think that we could combine the two so that you have a flying drone and then it sort of somehow sends a black box along with the missile so we can find out what happened? I think that that's what we should do. Except, no, no, no, you want to cover up. Oh, of course, of course. So, Charles, tell me what this thing does. Is this exactly what it does?

Is it one of those wonderful things where people get to sit in, I don't know, Las Vegas and just remotely sit there and kill people a long way away, which is wonderful when we get to do it, and utterly terrifying when we ponder anyone doing it to us? Yeah, no, this is exactly what it is. It's an unmanned armored vehicle, right? So you can just kill people from the comfort of your own lounge chair, right? And it's been described by the defence industry as an urgent innovation, right? Because the whole problem is all around the world, I don't know whether you've noticed, but like Ukraine, Iran, Russia, they've all, in the last few years, just all come up with their own drones.

Oh, right. And they're all killing people really, really cheaply now. Like, the days of needing, you know, aircraft carriers and massive nuclear-powered submarines is over. Like, we just don't need any of that shit anymore. What we need is these really cheap drones. And the whole point is you can sort of make them from stuff from HobbyCo, right? Like, these are not sophisticated things. just need to sort of get enough battery life to be able to hold a, I don't know, missile or

whatever, you know, like some sort of killing device. And then it doesn't matter if they get then exploded or something like that, like the enemy shoots them down. Because you've got hundreds more. Oh, so are you saying that this device is so simple, so comically basic and easy to build, that Australia's got one? Yes, exactly. So, Charles, if this thing is so simple and obvious and, like, just get bits from, like,

a hobby store and you probably order the bits on Amazon or Timu. You probably get the bits on Timu. Has anyone? I think that's what they did. Has anyone pondered? Just considered the outside possibility that maybe, I don't know, terrorists and bad people can get them as well. I mean, if Australia can make them, can't anyone make them? It's like the lowest common denominator once Australia can start making them on their own. Wouldn't be, oh shit, Australia's don't worry too much. They're calling it an hour. It's clearly not going to be able to do anything. But yeah, this is a world where anyone can make a killer drone. I don't know that I want to live in that world, Charles. It sounds like I might not be able to anyway.

It's a problem might be taken care of. The good news. Good news. Well, the good news is that they've been developing it. It's urgent. But actually, if you look into the detail, it's still, they're just going to do a test run. They haven't actually proven that it definitely actually works. So it's doing continuing trial.

So it's still kind of a submarine. It's a hypothetical owl. But look, how much cheaper it is? They've only spent $5.3 million in defense climate. The design, develop and build. I mean, does that put it outside the reach of terrorist groups? I mean, the thing that troubles me about this is we're not, I mean, where's the payola to America? Isn't, as we've discussed before, isn't the real basis of our defense.

It's not about the equipment. It's about the fact that America is getting all these billions of dollars. I would have thought if I was America, I'd be trying to shut this whole thing down and sell us some sort of a Boeing product or whatever. Hang on. No, funny you should mention that. So the thing is, like, it is a Western Australian-based company. company, but it's actually a joint venture between this Western Australian-based company called Inoverro and a Boeing subsidiary.

Oh shit, I'm getting out of here, Charles. Let's take your hands and go I flee the building. The Chaser Report. News a few days after it happens. Okay, I'm back. I'm back. I remember that it's Boeing, so it won't take off the ground. They won't have windows. So I'm safe for now.

Well, no, they'll have windows, but they'll then fall off. Oh, shit. Okay, I'm out of here again. No, tell me. Yeah, and so the missiles just fall randomly. Oh, God. They launch and, okay. But, you know, I'm sure that they can get around that,

with some Aussie innovation. Ozzy innovation. Maybe that's what the Aussie side can bring is the ability to put together an aircraft that doesn't fall apart in the air. Well, we've been able to patch up the Collins class submarines. We've clearly got some people who are great at making shit products still serviceable, sort of. The other tiny, tiny little detail that sort of doesn't.

quite work for Australia is that the range of this drone is 200 kilometres and it can stay in the air for 30 minutes right so like I can imagine that works well in say Ukraine oh you're great for Ukraine where you've got Russians

inside your land and 200 kilometres you know you can literally fly across to Russia I mean you can probably yeah you can do lots right like then all these countries that are using drones to sort of you know Like, you're not, you know, because you've got land borders, right? Here, I mean, who could we invade? Norfolk Island?

I love that we've put it in Western Australia as well, because I feel very secure from this thing now. It's got a range of 200 kilometres. There are thousands and thousands of kilometres between me and any part of W.A. That said, I suppose if you put it in Darwin, you could maybe get to something, I don't know, Norfolk Island. We could invade Papua New Guinea. How fast Tasmania from Victoria?

I don't think we'd make it across the bass straight. You don't want to be. be flying it in the wind. Yeah, we could get it down to Antarctica. Is that kind of distance, you know? I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what. I've always hated those penguins.

They are fucked. Penguins are my, and the puffins. Oh, yeah. Let's take out some puffins. Fur seals. Yeah, anyway, look. We can get back into the whaling business. This is our defence future is a terrifying thing called an owl based in Western Australia.

Oh, I've just discovered why it's called an owl. Oh, God. Sorry, I should have probably looked at that up. Yeah, yeah, research isn't a bad thing. But look, I haven't done any research on how far Australia is from any military targets. So why start now? We could probably, do you reckon Vanuatu? No, Vanuatu is about 800 kilometres away, isn't it?

I have no idea in borders. I mean, I don't think there's a single country. I mean, if there's a civil war on the way, this might be one way. New South Wales can finally win state of origin. This is how we could take out Queensland. Yes. That's the only thing I can think of. Yeah.

And this is how Western Australia. secedes. Actually, that's true. For everyone. That's true. Except surely, if it's based in Perth, it's more than 200 kilometres to get to their own border. They can't attack Canberra. All they can do is, I don't know, what are they going to get Geraldton?

This would be very useful if you were in, you're trying to take out Canberra and you're in, say, Wogger. Yeah, yeah, or Queenbion. Queenbion. Okay. What you're telling me, Charles, is that if you imagine the sort of global league of autonomous drones, because the ones in America can fly halfway across the world and then back again. Like, we know this because they've used them. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, we're at the kiddies' table of kitty tables. Like, there's a kitty table at this event, and we're at the kitty table to the kitty table, and they're laughing at us at the big table. That's what this is. Maybe what we should do is we should enlist some of those terrorists who've started building these drones to help us out. You think? Because I have a feeling they might have better range than us.

Like, you know what I mean? Like, just sort of sidle up to, I don't know, you know, there's some terrorists in Southern Philippines, aren't there? Who haven't, don't get that... In Mendo now, the Moro Liberation fighters. Yeah. Yeah, I'm thinking... The way the government's going,

there's probably going to be some that they've just released from jail somewhere. Yeah, exactly. Like, I feel like there might be some sort of, you know, low-key, C- or degrade terrorist group who might be able to help the Australian army house. I mean, don't forget that the Americans post-World War II, we're very happy to accommodate Nazi rocket scientists. So there's a precedent for ignoring the sort of elephant in the room.

So what we do is we try and attract refugees from trouble spots around the world. In fact, we might get some American rocket engineers. But what we do is we do, it's sort of like a Dutton refugee program. Where instead of getting people who are fleeing their lives, we get people who are wanting to kill people. We get the sort of the baddies in. Is that a document program? Well, he doesn't like refugees, but if we get the people who are persecuting refugees to come here.

I just think we get the same rocket scientists, rocket scientists that the Americans got. Why we get Nazis? Well, just anyone, anyone from America who's worried about America. We could get political refugees from America, couldn't we? I think that'd be fine. Like, any Democrat from November is going to be looking for a new job. They won't be good at building drones. Oh, that's true.

They'd be terrible, I don't know. They'd be good at, I don't know, setting up protests on campus. Yeah, they'd be good at writing an agonised piece for Mother Jones about drones. Yeah, they'd be good at op-eds. Yeah, yeah. Op-eds about drone. No, no, no. Because the other little tiny, tiny detail, which doesn't sound too good,

is that Al stands for one-way loitering munition. What? So I think that the point is you launch them. You're not going to get them back. They're like one-use. Oh, okay. They go one-way. They're a bit like the Collins-class.

You know how the Collins-class submarine couldn't turn left? Yeah. These can't, these don't, they can't turn around. A single-use drone. I must say if they don't need to come back safely, I can understand Boeing's involvement, that makes a lot more sense now. That's their expertise. I think that works.

But Charles... That's the problem that drone division started making their passenger plane. That's right. It's like, oh, we don't need doors. But I don't think this isn't going to happen, is it? Don't we know someone who's campaigning against any single-use products and has had a lot of success? Ah, no, yes, Craig will get wind of this, and then he'll put a stop to it. He'll demand recyclable drones.

Yeah, like a keep drone. See, I think we've discovered why nothing is made in Australia, Dom, because you've got these left liberal Nambi-pambi, inner city types who just complain about, you know, single-use drones, even though this will, you know, even with single-use, this is a far more efficient killing machine. Like the amount of money you spend per death is way lower, way low. And that's the metric that really matters.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right. In the end of the day, I mean, this is all, you can have your human rights, you can have your rules of war. But it's the dollars, it's the dollars per enemy kill that we really care about. Yeah, that's right. That's the metric. That's the only metric that, and look, I hope that part of this is, I mean, does this come from Australia, you know, the elbow's whole future made in Australia? Well, that's where I started with this. I mean, this is the thing that might make all this impossible is because no government,

no ambitious government program ever happens in Australia. Yeah. Yes. I mean, a killer future made in Australia. I just can't see it somehow, Charles. I'm disappointed to say. I don't know that we're supposed to be our feel good episode. This was going to be our feel, like, you're just shitting on it.

Yeah, but Charles, this is a podcast. You listen once and then discard it forever. It's the ultimate. This is a single-use product. Yeah. Yeah, so just, just, you know. And there is quite a lot of droning. That is.

So just go and delete this download and go and do something else. Our gear is from Road. We are part of the Iconoclast Network. Back with another completely disposable episode tomorrow. See, yeah.