Australia must learn from Williamtown drone incident, experts say

Although the drones were reportedly not identified, destroyed or recovered, military personnel were allegedly directed to close all blinds to prevent any leaks of classified information during the incident.

Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy, speaking to ABC Newcastle radio on 10 August, confirmed that NSW Police Force have now conducted and completed an investigation into the drones.

“Over a couple of days last month we had some UAS activity over the airport … We have robust layered security measures to protect our personnel, our bases and our capabilities. So that’s the situation as it is, but it’s important that we take strong actions in this area and we are,” he said.

“So, this is sadly something we’re seeing more often, people operating drones near airports, both civilian and military airports, and it’s not something that people should be doing. Like from a basic commonsense point of view, anything that has the ability to interrupt air operations or endanger lives is very silly and people shouldn’t be doing it.”

Minister Conroy confirmed that last year, Defence Regulations had been changed to allow Defence personnel to seize, disable or destroy drones. It’s unclear why this wasn’t successfully implemented during the incident.

He also confirmed that $7 billion is being invested into drone defences as well as the ability to detect and disable drones for the Australian Defence Force.

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Drone warfare expert Dr Oleksandra Molloy said the drone incident at Williamtown indicated that there could be a current gap between authority and capability of drone defence.

“Why is an incident like Williamtown still so important? Because having the authority and having the capability are not necessarily the same thing as having an operationally effective counter-drone system at the point of need,” she said.

“There are at least three plausible explanations for what the drones may have been doing: intelligence/reconnaissance – they could have been collecting imagery, observing aircraft movements, base activity, procedures or patterns of life. Even relatively simple commercial drones can provide valuable intelligence.

“Testing and probing: the operator could have been deliberately testing Australia’s detection and response architecture – effectively asking: How far can I get before anyone reacts?

“Malicious or disruptive preparation: the drones could potentially have been part of preparation for a future disruptive or physical attack.

“There is also a fourth possibility: benign or reckless recreational/commercial activity.

“Similar cases over European or US military air bases or airports, sites of critical infrastructure, have demonstrated the challenges that these systems pose (with recent Leipzig incident taking its use to the next level). Ukraine has demonstrated repeatedly that the technology evolves faster than traditional acquisition and organisational processes.

“The vulnerability for any country is if the intent is not identified and if the responsible authorities don’t learn from it afterwards. We have learnt a long way from aviation from reactive to predictive approach. It’s just the right time to follow that approach.”

“This is a concerning security incident … (However) there are a number of legal issues which would prevent the ADF from shooting these drones down, so there is a lot to unpack here,” said Australian military expert Jennifer Parker, speaking to the Sunrise television program earlier this week.

“Whenever a drone enters a base, you should be highly concerned about what it is carrying. We only saw just a week ago an armed drone land at an airport next to a (Ukrainian cargo) plane in Leipzig.”

In addition, Minister Conroy has confirmed the establishment of a standing panel to protect national assets, with services available for the Queensland government to protect the 2032 Olympics.

“We’ve got robust layered security measures to handle these sorts of contingencies and we’re strengthening them through that $7 billion investment … We do have layers of security measures to protect our Defence personnel and the base itself and the capabilities that are housed there,” he said.

“But obviously this is something that, sadly, we’re going to see more and more as drones become more affordable to people. People can buy them from shops and we have to be very conscious of that and take appropriate actions, and that’s why we’re investing in that. It’s something that no other government has done.”

Australian cyber security expert Robert Potter, speaking in a public statement, said the response to the drone incident was ridiculous.

“Multiple drones breached restricted airspace over RAAF Base Williamtown across several nights in July. Williamtown is home to Australia’s F-35 fighters and E-7A Wedgetails, some of the most important and expensive military capabilities in the country,” he said.

“The drones were not intercepted using counter-UAS weapons. Instead, reports were referred to the NSW Police Counter UAS Unit, while personnel were reportedly instructed to close window blinds to protect sensitive information. That response is ridiculous and they still haven’t said who did it.

“The Royal Australian Air Force should not need to call the police to deal with an unidentified drone operating over one of Australia’s premier military installations.

“Ukraine has demonstrated what even inexpensive commercial drones can do to aircraft sitting on the ground, fuel infrastructure, radar systems and logistics facilities. The lesson is not that every drone over an Australian base is hostile. It is that a modern defence facility needs the ability to detect, identify, track neutralise one immediately.

“This is fundamentally a base defence problem and I’ve been saying this for a while, defence still thinks there’s no need to defend airspace.

“Australia is spending tens of billions of dollars acquiring exquisite platforms. Protecting those platforms from a drone costing a few thousand dollars cannot be an afterthought.

“Most of the people in the Australian defence and national security space have been warning that drone defence is a missing and vital part of national defence. Defence has repeatedly assured everyone it has these matters in hard – it clearly does not. A military base should be able to defend its own airspace.”