Minutes/National Council/2022-08-18

National Council Meeting 18th August 2022 Scheduled start time: 21:00 AEST

National Council

 * Miles Whiticker
 * Roger Whatling
 * Michael George
 * Tyrone D'Lisle
 * Alex Jago
 * John August (from 21:20 to 22:20)

Members and Observers

 * Morton
 * Sam (from 21:26)
 * Adam W (from 21:31)

Apologies

 * David Kennedy
 * Jake B.

Agenda

 * Call to order
 * Previous minutes (Alex)
 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Minutes/National_Council/2022-07-22
 * Pirate Ideology workshop (Miles)
 * Fusion participation in Pirate Party IR (Miles)
 * Pirate Party Australia to join PPI? (Miles)
 * J.B. press release https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S2UXiD5XPlefvNTxhnSXKXUbqjWvp5UiWn_8XyjAwFU/edit
 * Fusion new member signup content (Miles/Roger)
 * Fusion report backs (all)

Ideology workshop

 * Pirate politics can be... syncretic
 * Good to survey members about where they're at ideologically
 * Then run a theory-crafting workshop
 * PPAU doesn't have attached think tanks, so we have to do stuff in-house
 * NC has a responsibility to identify and act on the needs of the party and the movement
 * Tyrone: People buy into a narrative, we need to develop that further
 * Alex: see also https://web.archive.org/web/20160405170558/http://www.simonfrew.com/2014/06/07/the-why-of-pirate-party-australia/

Fusion participation in Pirate Party Intl Rel

 * Jay's happy for other Fusion folks to sit in on PPAU Intl Rel Cttee
 * Discussion ensued over the status of Supporter member rights
 * Supporter members of PPAU (and Fusion members are entitled to Supporter privileges) get a set of rights prescribed by the membership definitions in the constitution: a say, but not a vote

Re-joining Pirate Parties International?

 * Jay and Miles in favour
 * The question is whether we can meaningfully commit to turning up given timezone differences
 * Up to Congress to make the ultimate decision


 * Obligations: small fee, pretty nominal, likely to be <$100 AUD
 * Why do we want to join? To support the international movement, and to flex on other parties which don't have one.
 * We had previously quit because they sucked horribly at remote participation and weren't very transparent
 * New chair is Canadian, so the remote participation has improved at least
 * Mitch (previous Dep Treasurer) reviewed their finances, looks OK


 * Tyrone: let's put a formal document together with pros and cons that we can take to the membership


 * Also need to make the decision of whether PPAU or Fusion joins
 * Seems most sensible that PPAU joins; Fusion can be an observer
 * Michael: Does PPI have a joint members thing?
 * There's a few things but most energy is in the party specific venues

Facial Recognition Press Release

 * Miles has been onboarding Jake
 * Jake's drafted a PR about the facial recognition stuff
 * A good start.
 * Tyrone volunteers to edit.
 * As a reminder, https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Press_Release_Guide

Fusion new member signup content

 * Process Fusion is going through: where it makes sense to promote branches within the signup process
 * (Non-PPAU) branches have requested the ability for people to sign up to them through the Fusion signup form
 * Balance between Fusion as branch discovery mechanism, and confusion
 * Miles: people should be encouraged to join a branch, and this should occur after primary signup
 * First draft of "go join a branch" text now under revision, no consensus yet
 * Roger prefers to keep the content in the welcome email to a paragraph, and send people to a webpage for the links and detail
 * There's a page that's redirected to after joining including the volunteer signup bits, very appropriate for it to go there
 * Adam: is there a plan to roll this out to existing Fusion-only members?
 * Miles: not yet, but it's a logical next step - note that being in a branch is necessary to be on some exec positions
 * Morton: "Go join a branch" communication to new fusion members shouldn't just have the names of the party, it should also have the main contentious standpoints of each party that may differ from Fusion, or perhaps are the primary standpoints for the party.
 * Roger: should we *require* people to join a branch?
 * Tyrone: I think this would be good. Should sell benefits over forcing them though.
 * Roger: I don't see a particular need for it. Branches allow for a specialty focus, but there's also people who joined over the election period who don't *want* to be in a branch; they're Fusion-first.
 * Miles: Branches typically refer to a geographic area. Until now we've been trying to use the term "movement" to refer to the constituent parties but I like the word "caucus" now.

Consensus: put the movement signup details on the post-signup page, we would like to still be called a Party, but whatever we do there's a risk of things blowing up.

Fusion report backs

 * Currently active: Vic campaigns team, exec, comms team, engagement, secretariat and treasury


 * Membership up!
 * Science mined their former members a bit, good job
 * Cash in the bank but some big expenses coming up - NationBuilder, candidate reimbursements...
 * Vic state campaigning not yet ready to draw funding


 * Values process: where are we at and who are the delegates?
 * Convenor on holiday this week, no meeting
 * In discussion phase
 * Currently open to people who are/were active at organiser/officer level
 * Tyrone to join


 * Victoria
 * Application in! And formally received! And snail mail is out!
 * Two prospective candidates (Kammy and Andrea Otto) and a few more EOIs
 * More wanted, especially in Melbourne metro area
 * Opportunities for interstaters to get involved
 * Miles has written a campaign plan
 * Vic is a testbed for everything we learned from Federal, which feeds into NSW-2023 and QLD-2024, and from those back into Federal-2025
 * Mad props to Sahar K for engagement

Other Business

 * PDC met this week! Fortnightly Tuesdays 8pm AEST. Trying to work on one policy at a time.


 * We still have Google email. Great success.

Motions

 * MOTION: accept the minutes of the previous meeting as at https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Minutes/National_Council/2022-07-22
 * Put by: Miles Whiticker
 * Ayes 3 (Miles, Alex, Roger)
 * Abstain 2 (Michael, Tyrone)
 * Motion... carried at 21:11


 * MOTION: close the meeting
 * Put by: Miles Whiticker
 * Ayes 5
 * Meeting closed 22:57