A number of 2003 Cabinet records, presumed to relate to the Howard Government’s decision to join the war in Iraq, were not transferred to the Archives in 2020, as they should have been for review prior to release yesterday. [1]

“We eagerly anticipate the release of these records,” said Miles Whiticker, President of Pirate Party Australia. “The delay may even prove beneficial — instead of being one tranche of many from 2003, all released in the holiday season, these missing documents will stand alone in the news cycle.”

Transparency — even on a 20 year delay — is vital for maintaining trust. What is known from the releases is that the decision to go to war was made by Cabinet based on “oral reports by the prime minister”. [2]

The Pirate Party believes that no Prime Minister should have the sole authority to commit Australia to war, a position which the recent releases only reinforce. Rather, Australians must not be sent to war without a 2/3rds majority in each house of Parliament. [3]

We urge the Albanese Government to enact war powers reform.


References:

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/jan/01/morrison-government-failed-to-give-howard-era-national-security-cabinet-papers-to-national-archives 
[2]: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/jan/01/australia-went-to-war-in-iraq-based-on-oral-reports-to-cabinet-from-john-howard 
[3]: https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Platform#Defence.2C_diplomacy_and_aid 

The Pirate Party urges caution following the announcement by the Attorney-General, Senator George Brandis, that retrospective legislation will be introduced to criminalise the re-identification of de-identified government data. The threat of retrospective legislation may be a ploy to silence critics of the government for discussing flaws in government-published datasets without due process. Consequently, this may prevent anyone bringing security flaws in government practices to attention — including the attention of the Government.

In a media release issued on Wednesday afternoon[1] the Attorney-General announced his intention to introduce new laws aimed at protecting data published by the Government. These changes appear to completely miss their mark, and may in fact criminalise the inspection of datasets for flaws and faults. The broad terms of the proposal could easily implicate any researchers in the field of data anonymity — anyone whose research involves examining datasets for potential privacy flaws.

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“Pirate Party Australia is well aware of the risks around state censorship of opinions,” said Simon Frew, President of Pirate Party Australia. “We fought the Internet censorship laws of the Rudd Government and we opposed the Gillard Government’s attempt to extend section 18C in ways that would have banned causing offence on the grounds of religion and political opinion.”

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Investment fraud, refusal to pay out genuine insurance claims, alleged Ponzi schemes and ASIC investigations into the rigging of inter-bank lending rates are among the many scandals[2][3][4][5]. In addition, the Australian Federal Police has failed to promptly investigate what appear to be blatant breaches of UN sanctions for the purposes of future monetary gain[6].

These scandals are unacceptable to all Australians and institutional corruption is at risk of taking hold. A Royal Commission is needed to rid the financial and banking sectors of unethical behaviour before it leads to a major crisis.

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"Civil society has been kept at arms length from the negotiations, with access to the draft texts only being granted to major corporations. The fact that the text is not immediately available gives us some insight into just how bad this agreement could be," said Simon Frew, President of the Pirate Party. "We demand that the text be immediately published so the Australian people can see what has been negotiated on our behalf and judge whether this is something that will benefit all of us or just a wealthy few."

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