Minutes/National Council/2019-04-02

National Council Meeting: Tuesday 2nd April 2019

Start Time: 20:40 AEDT

End Time: 21:58 AEDT

Agenda

 * Meeting Procedure (Alex)
 * Meeting split over a voice channel and a text channel
 * Both are named "meeting-one"
 * All motions, including voting and any specific text to be posted in the chat
 * preface with "MOTION:"


 * Previous meeting minutes
 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Minutes/National_Council/2019-03-19


 * Correspondence, reports, and action items


 * Discussion items, and motions


 * Christchurch and position on government blocking of related media
 * Assorted recent unpleasantness


 * General business
 * Deputy Registered Officers (deferred from March 19)
 * Party demographics report (deferred from March 19)
 * Councillor vacancy
 * John August video (John August)


 * Motion to close the meeting

Attendance

 * Miles Whiticker
 * Alex Jago
 * Daniel Oakley
 * David Read
 * Joe Furi
 * John August
 * John Wilson (from 20:54; suspended 21:41)
 * Mark Gibbons (from 20:01)

Observers

 * Paul de Abel
 * Bryn Busai

Correspondence, reports, and action items

 * Tania gets a radio interview on animal welfare policy, yay

Christchurch

 * Fairly extensive censorship of the shooter's manifesto and of shooting footage, including sites:
 * sites include: liveleaks.com, 4chan.org, 8ch.net, archive.is, kiwifarms.com
 * Opinion split within the party
 * very difficult for the party to come up with a coherent position that won't get us crucified by someone
 * JA notes that while there's been censorship, it's been corporate (which is less objectionable) but also blanket site bans (which is)
 * General agreement

Assorted recent unpleasantness
https://discuss.pirateparty.org.au/t/its-official-russiagate-is-this-generations-wmd/2682
 * This is about a forum thread that blew up:
 * primary argument participants: David Crafti (former party president, NC) and John Wilson (current deputy secretary)
 * this thread has attracted a bunch of negative attention, including denunciation and threats of resignation
 * This is only marginally about beliefs and stances, primarily conduct
 * some time spent on Miles and JohnW argument over relative amount of evidence backing up JohnW's beliefs
 * JohnW says he attempted to de-escalate (up to the point of offering to pay for flights for a face-to-face discussion), and that DC escalated with https://ohpi.org.au/conspiracy-theories/ (there is no evidence either way as to how that page came into existence)
 * Daniel: "there's a lot of very careful talking at the moment. Without going into depth of the forum thread, just the email chain and accusations of Zionism, threats of consequences of JW's resignation - those things put me in the position where I can't be in the same party. Not making a judgement, I just won't be in the same party and if I need to tender my resignation, I will happily do so"
 * JohnA: "I see that John Wilson became abusive and was being asked to calm down, but continued. I see that John Wilson was behaving inappropriately in the first instance. I agree with Miles that this is something that an impartial person would see as a problem."
 * JohnW: "there's a double standard here. I'm the only genuine Pirate here!" (context: JohnW lives on a ship).
 * MarkG: I support Crafti also. Calling people "zionists", "not bright", "intellectual pygmy" and so on is terrible public behavior and giant breach of NC standards. Any NC member who intentionally discredits the party this way must be removed.
 * JohnA: I agree: John Wilson is on the NC, and a higher standard is expected of him. It may well be appropriate to censure David Crafti separately, but would not be asking him to resign from the NC - but we know what John Wilson has done, it is not clear about the other clamis that are being made about David Crafti. Further, initially John Wilson became more strongly abusive than David Crafti.
 * while the above goes forth, Miles and John continue arguing over voice
 * Motion to suspend JW's party membership
 * This is taken as also suspending John Wilson from the NC.
 * John Wilson will challenge this with the DRC.
 * drc@pirateparty.org.au

Deputy ROs

 * Alex would appreciate some

Demographics report

 * basically a summary of who we have where
 * still delayed by tech issues
 * to be supplied over email

Councillor vacancy

 * it still exists
 * still need to advertise it to the Party
 * NC can appoint

JohnA video

 * John has done some videos of his shorter speeches
 * https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nO4ERrpIJqFiau87nf5B6KPGfPMHX9Z6/view?usp=sharing
 * to be approved out-of-meeting

General Business

 * None

Motions

 * MOTION: Accept previous meeting minutes as documented here: https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Minutes/National_Council/2019-03-19
 * Put by: Miles Whiticker
 * Ayes 6: Miles Whiticker, Daniel Oakley, John August, David Read, Alex Jago, Joe Furi
 * Motion carried at 20:50


 * MOTION: Suspend the party membership of John Wilson effective immediately in accordance with Constitution Part iii 4.5 (2)
 * Relevant section: https://pirateparty.org.au/constitution/#part-iii-4.5(2)
 * Statement of reasons to be sent to John Wilson and his barrister
 * Ayes 6: Miles Whiticker, Daniel Oakley, Mark Gibbons, David Read, John August, Alex Jago.
 * Nays 1: John Wilson
 * Did not vote: Joe Furi
 * Motion carried at 21:41


 * MOTION: close the meeting
 * Put by: Miles Whiticker
 * Ayes 6: Miles Whiticker, Daniel Oakley, John August, David Read, Alex Jago, Mark Gibbons
 * Motion carried, meeting closed at 21:58