Sure does.
Digital Rights. Civil Rights. Your Rights.
No idea. All my equipment is old school, no electronics or computer programs. I do know a neighbour has had problems with their new tractor and yes, the mechanic needs a diagnostic tool to read error codes. A majic beyond my ken ā¦
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Out of curiosity, what department would be overlooking this in unincorporated areas?
Iām donāt know what you mean by āunincorporated areasā. Our local council oversees all that stuff.
Some bits of far outback NSW donāt have local councils.
That, also some parts of WA, SA and the NT iirc, not sure about Qld though.
Qld I think is fully covered by councils, although obviously some of the outback ones are tiny.
There is a confluence between agriculture and technology happening right now (Agtech or precision farming) that is right for PPAU to develop policy around. Consider all the data that a farm might generate with all the types of sensors capable of being deployed. The farmer wants to keep ownership of that, but an anonymised/aggregated view across a region or sector would be useful for plugging into machine learning applications for predictions. There is a lot of money investing in Agtech startups who innovate faster than government can keep up. I think a focus area could be how we keep the whole precision farming ecosystem open and transparent to ensure it doesnāt become a proprietary lock-in.
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The most likely source of lock-in would be the tractor and farming equipment vendors. Precision farming requires up-close imaging and other sensing at each plant, tree or small patch of grain. Precision watering, fertilizer, pesticide and herbicide (for weeds) application reduces costs and increases yields. High resolution imaging with machine learning can detect disease before it spreads. The whole setup also lends itself to refined yield predictions.
All round fantastic stuff, but it depends on the farm equipment platform to routinely take it all past every plant, and there-in lies the lock-in potential, that probably explains a lot of John-Deer behaviour.
Itās a patent issue.
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Yes, the issue would be who owns the datasets and ML models. Can that be patented?
You canāt patent a dataset, but you can patent things about how your farming equipment works to collect the data and you can lock the data up with crypto then scream DMCA violation if your customer breaks that to make use of data collected about their own farm by their own tractor.
Farmers might have to buy open source tractors.
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bwa ā¦ hahahaha
I thought youād like that.
In return, you might like this ā¦
Weāre developing open source industrial machines that can be made for a fraction of commercial costs, and sharing our designs online for free. The goal of Open Source Ecology is to create an open source economy ā an efficient economy which increases innovation by open collaboration.
aaannddd ā¦ tada!
I expect farmers would love a tractor like that.
They do tend to like to tinker.
Just add computers with cameras.
Hey everyone, sorry Iāve been busy with uni and havenāt had time to think about this.
Iām still really keen to help develop party policy in this area. I have had some ideas that we could develop further. We could push for the following things:
- Increasing technological innovation in agriculture. Iām thinking automation, crop planning, improvements on current GMO products (and making sure all of this is open and free).
- Increased funding for regional universities and enabling rural students to gain access to tertiary education.
- Pushing for more resources to government bodies (such as Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning in Victoria) concerned with rural issues.
- We need a policy on exterminating pest species such as deer, wild dogs, feral cats, rabbit, foxes, etc. I like the idea of making hunting more than just a hobby, the government has in the past offered money to hunters who bring in pelts of certain animals. A system like that could make hunting pests more economically viable.
- National Parks should be opened to hunters providing that they undergo further firearms safety training and other recreational users are given PPE such as hi-vis clothing during peak hunting season.
Just some ideas, feel free to bounce some ideas or objections. Iām happy to listen or even go a completely direction if your ideas are better 
Good luck with that. My experience is that farmer already try to manage feral animals but, sometimes, there just arenāt enough bullets ā¦
What about kangaroos? With a wet 2016 winter the roos are breading big time but now things are dry theyāre coming closer to humans looking for green pick.
Well shit, if you want a fight this is how to do it. So now I have to wear hi-vis in national parks? fuck that. And who pays for it? oh, and what further training would you require hunters to undertake?
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Woah, calm down there Captain; some of us sailors donāt appreciate the bad language! I was just shooting some ideas. 
Anywayā¦
Good point. What do you think is causing this? Is there a tax on ammo? How difficult is it to import or put together a reloading set-up in Australia?
Politics is all about the fight. Maybe Iām wrong and what I suggested is a terrible idea. But please provide some actual criticisms on why this policy is a bad one. If we want to be taken seriously as a party we canāt shy away from standing up for policies we believe in.
How to correctly identify targets for one. Disposing of carcasses so that wild dogās donāt get a free feed (this is an actual problem in many areas). Other best-practices otherwise not covered by the test you do to get your A/B license. I could go onā¦
AGAIN Iām just shooting some ideas. Please donāt think I believe in these policies 100%, but we need some real discussion before we can develop something concrete.
A magical entity called āthe tax-payerā. The current lot in Canberra spend money on some relatively absurd projects. If we were to allow hunting in national parks you would have to spend some money to balance safety issues.
I suspect you mean me. No, I wonāt stop swearing. Fuck that as well. Words are NOT magical.
Goldenmaneās third rule of public discourse ā¦ also known as rule fucking #3. Swear a lot.
Thereās a tax on almost everything. Itās called GST. Many shooters reload (not me). The problems is the number of feral animals, and the time I have.
So, Iāve been out of the loop for a while but correctly identifying targets seems fairly straight forward. If itās on two legs itās probably human (or kangaroo). Iām feeling my age but I can still tell the difference.
Carcass disposal should be a part of the shooting experience but in the middle of nowhere it becomes ā¦ difficult. If I shot 20 roos a night Iād spend the majority of my time picking them up. Fuck that. I clean them up in the hay paddocks but thatās all they get. And what about those animals that die through other circumstances? Should they be picked up as well? Fuck that too. And while Iām at it, wild dogs are a problem created by touchy-feely townies who wanted to set a pet āfreeā rather than deal with it like an adult or, just donāt give a fuck. Fuck all them too. People should have a licence to own a pet.
Please, go on. Iād like to know what ābest-practicesā you have in mind.
Itās not a magical bucket of never ending money. Are you pulling my tackle?
Why? Just close the park. Solved.
And Iām shooting back. Ideas exist to be destroyed.
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