South Australia is heading toward a March election in the grip of a familiar ritual: a law-and-order bidding war between the two major parties.
On one side, Premier Peter Malinauskas promises a high-tech surveillance future: a $11.4 million dedicated police drone squad as part of a $395.1 million law-and-order package. On the other, Liberal leader Ashton Hurn counters with recruitment bonuses, $20,000 sweeteners and promises of “more cops on the beat.”
Both speak the same language: deterrence, safety, stronger communities. Neither is asking the harder question: what are we actually investing in, and who is being left behind?
The Drone State: Malinauskas’ surveillance bet
The centrepiece of Labor’s announcement is a state-wide police drone squad: rooftop launch stations across Adelaide, mobile units for regional areas, thermal imaging, aerial surveillance, traffic management, “monitoring crowded places.”
The Premier frames it as cutting-edge emergency capability. And yes, drones can assist in search and rescue or disaster response, but the bulk of the justification rests on surveillance and intelligence gathering: tracking “suspects” before they flee, mapping crime scenes, monitoring public spaces.
This is not neutral technology. It expands the state’s capacity to watch.
The Australian Government itself recognises the serious risk of privacy invasion by drone technology. That is why it introduced a statutory tort for serious invasions of privacy, allowing individuals to take legal action where a drone operator deliberately or recklessly intrudes upon private activities, even where there is no physical damage. Invasion of privacy may include recording private activities without consent.
The Office of the Australian Information Commission is clear: ‘an agency must tell you that your image may be captured before you’re recorded’, and ‘make sure recorded personal information is secure and destroyed or de-identified when it is no longer needed.’
So, why are privacy safeguards absent from these emotive election promises? What oversight will exist? How long will footage be retained? Who will have access to it? What exactly will police be observing from the sky?
When surveillance capacity expands, civil liberties must be part of the conversation. Yet in this law and order auction, privacy appears to be an afterthought.
A permanent, centralised drone unit controlled remotely, dialled into police frequencies, capable of deployment to any triple-zero call; this is a significant shift in policing architecture. It normalises constant aerial monitoring as part of everyday law enforcement.
And once surveillance infrastructure is built, it rarely, if ever, shrinks. It expands. It is used against civilians in ways previously not considered.
South Australians are being asked to accept a future in which the sky above them is part of the policing apparatus; without any serious public debate about privacy rights, safeguards, oversight, data retention, mission creep or disproportionate targeting of already over-policed communities.
Who will be “monitored” in crowded places?
Who will be tracked before they “flee”?
Whose movements will become data points?
Technology does not remove bias. It scales it.
$395 Million for Policing, $6 Million for Homelessness
The starkest contrast isn’t between Labor and Liberal. It’s between surveillance spending and social spending.
Malinauskas has pledged an extra $6 million to combat homelessness in Adelaide’s CBD if re-elected.
Six million.
In the same breath as a $395.1 million law-and-order package.
That figure tells us everything about political priorities.
Homelessness in the CBD is not a drone problem. It is not a policing deficit. It is a housing crisis, a poverty crisis, a health crisis, a cost-of-living crisis. Yet the financial scale of response suggests that visible poverty is treated as a nuisance to be managed, while crime control receives a blank cheque.
If people sleeping rough are seen as part of the “crowded places” that need monitoring, what we are witnessing is not safety policy. It is the securitisation of poverty.
The imbalance is breathtaking.
For a fraction of the surveillance spend, the state could fund long-term supportive housing, trauma-informed services, and preventative community programs that reduce contact with police in the first place.
Instead, we are investing in better ways to watch the fallout of social failure.
The Liberal Counteroffer: Policing as labour market competition
The Liberal response offers no structural alternative. It simply doubles down.
$20k Recruitment bonuses. Incentives for interstate officers. University debt payoffs. The message is simple: crime exists because there are not enough police.
But South Australia has not suffered a shortage of police budgets. It has suffered from underinvestment in housing, youth services, addiction support, culturally safe community-led programs, and early intervention.
“More cops on the beat” is an expensive slogan. It is not a social strategy.
Neither party is asking whether expanding police numbers without addressing root causes will do anything other than expand the footprint of enforcement.
Bipartisan Consensus: “Law and Order’ as electoral theatre
The most concerning element of this debate is how narrow it is.
Both major parties assume:
- Crime is primarily solved through policing.
- Public safety is measured by visible enforcement.
- Technology equals progress.
- Surveillance equals efficiency.
- Recruitment equals deterrence.
There is no meaningful interrogation of whether we are building safer communities or simply building a more sophisticated enforcement state.
There is no discussion of civil liberties, community oversight, data governance or racialised impacts.
There is certainly no reckoning with how law-and-order spending consistently eclipses investments in the very social determinants that reduce harm.
The politics of visibility
Law-and-order spending photographs well. Drones on rooftops. Recruits in uniform. Press conferences with flashing lights in the background.
Homelessness funding does not. Housing policy does not. Trauma services do not.
Surveillance is spectacular. Prevention is quiet.
And elections reward spectacle.
What is safety, actually?
If safety means:
- People not sleeping in doorways.
- Young people not cycling through courts.
- Families not pushed into crisis by poverty.
- Communities having access to stable housing, healthcare and culturally safe support.
Then a $395 million policing package paired with a $6 million homelessness pledge is not a safety strategy. It is a prioritisation statement.
It says: we will invest in managing consequences, not preventing them.
It says: visible disorder matters more than structural injustice.
A choice about the future
The drone squad may well be implemented. The recruitment bonuses may roll out. The law-and-order packages will be sold as pragmatic, necessary, modern.
But South Australians should pause before accepting this arms race as inevitable.
Once surveillance capacity is embedded, it becomes the new normal. Once policing budgets swell, they rarely, if ever, contract. Once public space is treated as a site of aerial monitoring, that logic spreads.
This election should not be reduced to who can promise the toughest or most technologically advanced enforcement model.
It should be a debate about whether we are building a state that invests in care, or one that invests in control.
Right now, the balance sheet is clear.
And it is tilted firmly toward the sky.
Fascism isnt fashion! We dont need new dresses for oppression