Minutes/National Council/2017-10-04

Start: 8:37 PM AEDT

End: 11:39 PM AEDT

Attendance

 * Emily Sievers
 * Simon Gnieslaw
 * Miles Whiticker
 * Tom Randle
 * Simon Frew
 * John Jeffery
 * Alex Jago
 * Mark Gibbons

Apologies
John August

Previous meeting minutes

 * MOTION: accept the minutes of 20 September 2017 National Council meeting as presented
 * Put by: Emily Sievers
 * Ayes: 7 (Simon Frew, Simon Gnieslaw, Miles Whiticker, Emily Sievers, Tom Randle, Mark Gibbons, John Jeffery; Nays: 0 ; Abstains: 1 (Alex Jago)
 * Motion carries.

Motions

 * MOTION: Repeal National Council Resolution 2013-5, as promotional materials authorisation is covered by https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Authorisation_processes
 * Put by: Tom Randle
 * Ayes: 8 (Tom Randle, Miles Whiticker, Simon Gnieslaw, Mark Gibbons, Alex Jago, Simon Frew, John Jeffery, Emily Sievers); Nays: 0 ; Abstains: 0
 * Motion carries.


 * MOTION: Raise the tax threshold in the basic income policy to $40,000 and adjust the basic income accordingly.
 * Put by: Mark Gibbons
 * Ayes: 7 (Miles Whiticker, Tom Randle, Simon Frew, Mark Gibbons, Simon Gnieslaw, Emily Sievers, Alex Jago); Nays: 0 ; Abstains: 0
 * Motion carries.

CFV Motions

 * MOTION: Approve expenditure of $76.00 for AEC audit related expenses payable to NSW Fair Trading.
 * Put by: Tom Randle
 * Ayes: 8 (Tom Randle, Alex Jago, Simon Frew, Simon Gnieslaw, Miles Whiticker, Emily Sievers, John Jeffery, John August, Mark Gibbons); Nays: 0 ; Abstains: 0
 * Motion carries.

Previous meeting minutes
https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Minutes/National_Council/2017-09-20

Audit (Tom)

 * Tom has added some algoritms to work out who is likely to be most active and completed export functionality
 * 460 active members, Target for 90+ more active to reach 550.
 * Renewals are essentially complete, 1 email every 5 days for those who haven't renewed
 * Alex & Simon: possible spam folder issues with that frequency.
 * Mini Membership Drive - Topic to continue on discusss: https://discuss.pirateparty.org.au/t/mini-recuitment-drive/1553
 * Facebook, Twitter & Paid Ads
 * Mark officers to pay for a some ads as a donation to the party
 * Family & Friends
 * Online Communities (OzBargain, reddit, Whirlpool, OCAU, etc.)
 * "free membership" as a selling point, most critical to stay registered rather than prove a "commitment"
 * Newspaper/Radio? Maybe not enough time
 * AEC usually sample out of 500-550 and don't keep asking if it fails from the subset, the process is weighted towards de-registering parties.
 * No authority / approval needed to post about PPAU in a personal capacity.

Emergency National Congress (Tom)

 * Pad started: https://pad.pirateparty.org.au/p/extraordinary-national-congress-2017
 * Tom working on SuperCAP (CAP-0) wording:
 * https://pad.pirateparty.org.au/p/emergencynatcongress17-cap0
 * https://github.com/Rundll/documents/commits/Congress_2017_ENC
 * https://github.com/Rundll/documents/commit/2289fc9d6ac8db4c1e6316a2545e66ef9c669a3c
 * Simon and John J find the GitHub format confusing
 * ACTION ITEM: Tom: "I'll CFV later this week on the proposal to get the tick of 'The National Council recommends the members of the Party adopt CAP-0.'"
 * There will be a full PDF + 2016 to 2017 changeset + Web version
 * Constitution is natively in LaTeX format and maintained using github rather than on the wiki, wordpress, etc.
 * IRC/Matrix-only

Resolution 2013-5 repeal (Tom)

 * Motion to repeal https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/National_Council_Resolutions#Resolution_2013-5_.E2.80.94_Promotional_materials
 * Justification: Tom: "We have other processes for this, it should have happened years ago."
 * Miles thought it was already repealed with Bureau
 * Frew says it's been ignored for years already

John August's copyright submission

 * John A has (over email) offered the submission he wrote to be sent on behalf of PPAU to the copyright inquiry, if we want to use it, otherwise he will send it as his own private submission
 * John A has sent in apologies for this meeting
 * Overall very well written, especially given that John wrote it all himself.
 * Usual Process is to use a Pad and send it around so everyone has a chance to take part in it, but this time nobody else has made a competing draft.
 * Transferred to Pad: https://pad.pirateparty.org.au/p/john_a_copreg_edits for final edit before submission
 * ACTION ITEM: Alex will get it authorised and sent off on Friday
 * Due 6 October
 * There was a draft "motion" to do this but no need as there is consensus and doesn't require a motion, so it was deleted.

Strategy (Frew)

 * Is a structure settled on? (Simon G)
 * Frew: "I think we are closer to having a strategy, if there aren't any objections, I think we should use the swarm as strategy thread and Adam's organisational diagram as the basis for a final strategy meeting to lock in the details"
 * Miles: "Tom and i have an alternate structure to Adam's"
 * Next Steps (Frew)
 * Simon Question: "Is it possible to start with Adams and then switch to Tom+Miles if we want to later?" Miles Answer: "no"
 * ACTION ITEM from Tom: "Frew and MilesW could both have models to present next monday that would be great" (And on Discuss)
 * ACTION ITEM for MIles: Post his structure onto Discuss too
 * https://pad.pirateparty.org.au/p/2017-strategy-development-long-term-goals
 * ACTION ITEM (all): Structure to be decided on Monday strategy meeting, 8.30PM AEST Monday.

Local Crews (Alex/Miles)

 * Alex & Miles are making a how to "Local Crews - How to run a meeting" guide
 * https://pad.pirateparty.org.au/p/Local-meetup-howto-2017
 * Trial & Error

Email unsubscription policy (SimonG/Alex)
Sending important emails to members
 * We should still send even if unsubscribed unless they resign (put this notice explicitly at the bottom).
 * Having members unsubscribing to important emails leads them to feel disengaged even though they unsubscribed (quite a few queries came in during members area rollout because they didn't even remember us) and bad for Quorum for internal elections.
 * Important Announcements should not be opt-out-able, despite spam blacklist concerns (use a throwaway domain/3rd party mailer) as it effectively disengages them from participation.
 * No legal requirement for us to even offer "unsubscribe" for 3 reasons:
 * 1. Political Parties are exempt from the Spam Act
 * 2. Putting a note on how to resign would count as clear instructions on "how to unsubscribe" if it were required under the Spam Act
 * https://www.acma.gov.au/Industry/Marketers/Anti-Spam/Ensuring-you-dont-spam/spam-exemptions-ensuring-you-dont-spam-i-acma
 * 3. Account messages are "Purely factual messages", not advertising (i.e. like a password reset email)
 * Still a good idea to make it clear how to unsubscribe (by resigning in the case of an account message) to avoid upsetting people (eg: "YesEquality" SMS campaign did this) and to avoid being marked as spam.
 * No clear consensus.
 * ACTION ITEM: Take it to Discuss instead.

General business

 * Basic Income numbers update (Mark G)
 * The basic income policy is several years old and needs to be updated for inflation.
 * Alex is working on a basic income video so we need to do it now.
 * The PDC has worked out a new Tax Threshold but the NC has to vote on it as it is technically a change to a policy.
 * The amount worked out is around $39,000
 * Simon Frew suggests rounding up to $40,000, nice round amount.
 * Marks says that it would add $6B to hypothetical cost to do $40,000 instead of $39,000 but it doesn't really make much difference as it's a hypothetical amount.
 * Main point is to update for inflation.
 * $40,000 "Future Proofs" the amount for likely continued inflation.
 * Motion made to update Basic Income Tax Threshold to $40,000


 * Annual National Congress 2018 Brisbane (SimonG)
 * QLD people, please get planning/logistics started, at least want a date set so I can book plane tickets
 * ACTION ITEM: Start planning 2018 Annual National Congress Venue/Date
 * Approve position statement opposing in principle Brisbane train facial recognition (Miles):
 * "PPAU calls for a halt to the plans to roll out facial recognition technology on Brisbane public transport until a consultation process and privacy assessment can be carried out."
 * Approved by Tom Randle, Simon Frew, Emily Sievers, Simon Gnieslaw


 * Advertising (Miles/Emily)
 * Tom: ACTION ITEM: you all have to work on AEC Audit comms and advertising for more members tomorrow night.