Minutes/National Council/2021-05-06

National Council Meeting May 6th

Scheduled Start time 20:30 AEST; quorum achieved 20:37.

Agenda

 * Previous Minutes
 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Minutes/National_Council/2021-04-01
 * Congress prep
 * forums and speeches (John)
 * other business

Attendance

 * Phillip 'Parduss' Richards (Councillor)
 * Fred Gerner (Councillor)
 * Alex Jago (Secretary; MINUTES)
 * John August (Treasurer; acting CHAIR)
 * David 'Satch' Kennedy
 * Miles Whiticker (from 20:42)


 * Bryn 'Mandrke' Busai (DRC)
 * Dr Liam Pomfret (DRC)


 * Nemesis (member)
 * Morphs (member)
 * Andrew Downing (member)

Apologies

 * Brandon Selic (Deputy President)

Previous Minutes

 * AEC Deregistration confirmed, to be published by AEC
 * "The paperwork is done" - Alex
 * Endorsement of minutes (see motions)

Congress

 * Several things must be notified in advance, e.g. Congress in general 42 days out (see Constitution)
 * Congress must start in July and by convention it's over a weekend
 * "What about the weekend closest to the last one?"
 * Miles to be out of contact most of the month
 * Preference for last possible weekend; 31st July and 1st August
 * see motions
 * TODO Alex and Pip need to finish writing up policy changes
 * "Last year was our first entirely online
 * Arguably smoother due to all-online format
 * Mandrke does an incredible job, hopefully he'll be up for doing it again
 * Nobody should be irreplaceable though, pick his brains and improve the Party bus factor
 * See #party-technology on Discord for discussion
 * We don't have a working MotionBot but with a similar number of attendees to last year hand-counting won't be an issue. Either way!
 * Procedural notes: there are three main sections. Policy motions, Constitutional Amendments, elections.
 * Policy motions are by far the most vicious
 * Agenda finalisation a week out binds policy motion timing
 * "Let's not have too much policy on the run this time"
 * Announcement email TODO for the coming week: https://emailpad.pirateparty.org.au/load/congress-announce-2021
 * Wiki things
 * Miles thanks this year's NC for our work and struggles and successes.
 * Encouragement for everyone to (re)nominate

Forums and Speeches (John)

 * Between John/Miles/Andrew planning is ocurring for a general Pirate Crypto discussion
 * Emily Sims potentially onboard for chairing it
 * TODO: John, Mandrke, Andrew to do a practice-run seminar (without Miles)
 * John keen to do another bureaucracy speech; ~9min target

General Business

 * Let's get reregistered!
 * Next election coming soon...
 * "We need a call for candidates" - Miles
 * N.B. if we don't rerego in time, then candidates will need 100 signatures (and won't get the party name)
 * realistically need to get that re-rego form in 4-6 months before actual election date
 * Expected election date this year gives very little time, but it could be as late as halfway through next year
 * "AEC announcement is a potential signal boost" - Alex
 * Joe Toscano is trying to get up a "public interest before corporate interest" party up. Good luck to him, maybe we'll pick up people if it crashes.


 * Andrew asks "sure, there were process issues why we dereg'd, but why should the public care?"
 * Alex: it's all all process issues. We need more engagement but I don't know how to get there from here.
 * Liam:
 * Issues with recruitment as a continuing process
 * Issues with ensuring renewal and retention
 * Issues with how quickly the party could reasonably actually phone bank with members to try and pass the audit (and perhaps initially the exact process of how that phone banking was done - this was resolved, but it could come back to bite us again in future phone banking if the lessons from this one aren't passed on)
 * Fred: I see lots of opportunity in restarting local meetings and driving for more engagement
 * Alex: yes, we need local branches. Not only for interest maintenence but for the org structure to fight elections
 * continue discussion post-meeting in #party-meta


 * Liam: "In terms of promoting the party we need to think about what we speak to that grabs mainstream attention where we have specific and unique-ish credibility. E.g. recently the Aus Crim Intl Comm had a submission to the government on surveillance legislation claiming no legitimate reason to use encrypted comms. The major parties are too willing to go along with this; the Greens while on our side here have their own problems [to be fair so do we - AJ]. Things like Assange are actually riskier; it's fine for us to keep talking about that but it's not a vote-winner; people are worried about health and bills. Basic Income remains a key policy. I think we need regular (even if canned) public statements on these things. Just put the govt on blast, rinse and repeat."
 * Right to Repair a great wedge issue for regional areas. TODO: more there.
 * Can harp on about Bureaucracy for things like Robodebt and the Info Comm office underfunding without going down conspiracy rabbit-holes.

Motions

 * Approve the minutes of the previous meeting on April 1st as at https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Minutes/National_Council/2021-04-01
 * Ayes 4 (JA, PR, DK, FG); Abstain 1 (AJ)
 * Motion carried at 20:40


 * MOTION: Set the date of the Annual National Congress to be 31st July and 1st August 2021.
 * Put by: Alex Jago
 * Ayes 6 (JA, PR, DK, FG, AJ, MW)
 * Motion Carried 20:55


 * MOTION: end the meeting
 * Put by: Alex Jago
 * Ayes 6 (JA, PR, DK, FG, AJ, MW)
 * Motion Carried; meeting closed at 21:47