Voting is a fundamental right, but not even the Coronavirus Pandemic can stop that other great Australian democratic institution — the democracy sausage. It turns out that all you need to bypass that whole inconvenient social distancing matter is a few good drones.
As Ausdroid reports, select residents in the ACT who may have already voted early or via post for the ACT Elections won’t have to miss out on their tasty and oh-so-ocker democracy sausage just because they’re nowhere near a polling place.
That’s because drone delivery company Wing is adding Democracy Sausage to its menu, just for this weekend. That’s not across the whole ACT however. You’ve got to be in the Gungahlin region, and keen on a fresh drone delivered democracy sausage between 11am and 2pm specifically.
Actual orders will be produced by The Spence Grocer and Kickstart Espresso, because you can also order a coffee to go with your democratic duty meat tube in bread.
While those are all commercial businesses, what’s particularly neat here is that like every other democracy sausage event, it still counts as a fundraiser.
Wing will match sales figures and donating the lump sum raised to the Palmerston District Primary School, which is holding an “eSausage” fundraiser rather than a physical one, again to keep in line with COVID-19 social distancing restrictions.
That fundraiser is also selling virtual sausages through its donation portal with funds earmarked for playground expansion, although the virtual there means that what you’re doing is actually just a donation. That’s still a good idea, however, and also much lower in calories to boot.
If you’re thinking “drone sausage sanga delivery – it’s been done…”, you wouldn’t be wrong, most famously back in 2016 when one enterprising bloke used a drone to grab a sausage sizzle from his local Bunnings.
The big difference here is that self-piloted consumer drone pickups easily run foul of CASA’s drone laws whereas Wing is a commercial operation with all the relevant licences in play.
Wing, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet, the parent company of Google and has been operating in Australia for a couple of years now but only in very limited areas and with daylight deliveries only.
Madison Groom, Wing’s ACT City Manager said in a statement that “We’re so pleased to be able to give back to the Gunghalin community that has supported us over the last 18 months, by offering Wing customers the opportunity to still snag a democracy sausage”.
I see what you did there, Madison.