Pirate Congress 2011 Motions

This page will contain proposals or motions for the National Congress. To submit a motion for consideration at the Congress, please send it to [mailto:secretary@pirateparty.org.au secretary@pirateparty.org.au] where it will be added to the agenda circulated before the congress. You can add your motion to this page too, along with citations, additional materials and background information.

Motion 1
As per Article 7, section 3 — the members will vote on whether to raise the quorum in Article 7, section 1 by an additional 2%. The current quorum is 10%. To vote 'YES' is to increase the quorum for constitutional amendments to 12%. To vote 'NO' causes this clause to lapse.

Vote Yes/No

Motion 2
(Grammatical error in Constitution)

Motion: To amend the following sentence in Part I to reflect the following: Overbearing and restrictive private monopolies constructed via regimes of antiquated, unfair and unbalanced laws which prevent the  free development of culture and ideas, and are detrimental to financial, economic and cultural outcomes for the citizens of Australia.

Vote Yes/No

Motion 3
Motion: To add, in Article 8, under the title Party Secretary, a 6th section, that specifies the following:

6. Briefly minute, or delegate responsibility for minuting, listing the decisions of meetings of the National Congress and National Council and ensure publication at the earliest possible convenience.

Vote Yes/No

Motion 4
Motion: To add, in Article 8, under the title President, a 3rd section, that specifies the following: 3. Co-ordinate the activities of the National Council.

Vote Yes/No

Motion 5
Motion: To add, in the Pirate Party platform Section 2.15 the following:

Put by Rodney Serkowski

All Levels of Government Should Recognise and Facilitate E-Petitions
Petitions are a well established and recognised form of political participation. In order to broaden political participation governments at all levels the state should recognise and facilitate electronic petitioning as a legitimate form of participation.

Petitions Should Enhance Democratic Participation
Recognition of all petitions must have attendant obligations upon the elected government when it reaches a pre-determined quota, which include mandated parliamentary discussion, meetings with petitioners and formal recognition of issues raised within the petition.

Vote Yes/No

Motion 6
Motion: To add, in the Pirate Party platform Section 2.16 the following:

Put by: Mozart Olbrycht-Palmer

2.16 Open-sourcing of State Funded Software
All software created or commissioned by the government should be open sourced if paid for by the taxpayers. Open-source software is more valuable to the public than closed, proprietary software: open-source software can be adapted by knowledgeable end-users for additional uses not envisioned by the original creators. Open-source software is also open to inspection by the public, increasing the chances that security issues can be found and resolved quickly, and allowing for a greater degree of transparency in government.

Vote Yes/No

Motion 7
Put by David Haidon

Motion: that the Pirate Party adopts swatch option 9 (lighter purple) for the official colours. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7611623/ppAU%20CI%20-%20Pantone%20Colour%20Swatch%20Options%20-%20June%202011.pdf (N.B.) links will be needed for members to see.

Vote Yes/No

REQUIRES A LINK TO PDF

Motion 8
Put by Simon Frew & David Haidon

Motion: To form a campaign committee to prepare materials to promote the Pirate Party and its ideals directly after the Congress. The committee is to prepare materials for O-Week 2012, in order to begin the process of forming Pirate Party Australia clubs.

Vote Yes/No

Motion 9
Put by Simon Frew

Motion: To produce Pirate Sampler 2 ready for distribution for O-Week 2012 with accompanying torrent and information.

Vote Yes/No

Motion 10
Put by David Campbell and Simon Frew

Motion: To hold a Pirate Roadshow, hosting workshops on a range of Pirate related issues around the country, including practical demonstrations of anonymising software, circumventing censorship and personal IT security.

Vote Yes/No

Motion 11
Put by Quentin Taran

Motion: that the position below is adopted as a platform by the party.

2.17 Transference of intangible property and obstruction of market processes
Physical possessions are amenable to easy transfer between owning parties, if a person owns a DVD then they can give, sell or lend that to another person and any attempt to prevent them from doing so would be easily seen to be abusive and contrary to a citizens right to dispose of their property as they see fit.

An easy example case, is that if a person purchases software through an online distribution platform, it should be permissible to give that software to another user and that preventing the transfer of this asset is an abuse of power that these online distribution platforms have  over the market system and obstructive of their users exercising the right to dispose of property. There may be some dispute about what it is that a person owns or bought within this system but whether that item is a right, license or account flag, they purchased an item and have the right to dispose of it as they desire.

Although not all property rights have an analogue with regards to intangible property, many do and a retailer or supplier must not restrict a consumer's ability to transfer such property.

It is the position of Pirate Party Australia that these tactics are abusive, create distortion or restriction of market processes and are opposed to the interests of consumers who are  best served by free trade of assets at all levels of the supply chain and between consumers themselves.

Defeated on Congress Floor

Motion 12
Put by Simon Frew

If the previous motion is defeated, Pirate Party Australia is to discuss and draft a provisional position to be implemented and adopted at the next Congress.

Vote Yes/No

Motion 13
Motion: That the congress endorses the following statement:

Put by Liam Pomfret

''Pirate Party Australia condemns the ongoing patent wars and the destructive effects that it has on the economy and innovation in general.

Patents are not fulfilling the intended purpose for which they were created, to give small players the protections they need to participate in research  and in the knowledge economy against larger firms who can better afford engaging in legal action and manoeuvres. This can in part be attributed to the length patents are awarded for remaining unchanged even as  technology has improved at an exponential rate. Whereas historically inventions may have taken several years to spread around the globe, today inventions can be created, distributed globally and then superseded several times in a matter of months.

Organisations of all sizes are harmed by this war over patents, as all organisations must participate in research and development in order to compete in the modern globalised economy. Patents as they stand currently have created a system in which organisations are forced to waste millions of dollars in legal budgets to defend themselves from rivals. Combined with the increasing trend of firms to speculation and hoarding of patents, organisations are now laying claim to increasingly trivial ideas and concepts.

These practices are clearly absurd, and a hindrance to innovation and economic growth. Ideas are not natural property, and there is no inherent notion or right of ownership in an invention. An idea is part of the greater collective knowledge of society, regardless of if this idea may be an abstract process, business methodology, chemical formulae or a mathematical procedure or algorithm.''

Vote Yes/No