Minutes/National Council/2015-06-10

Agenda

 * Previous meeting's minutes
 * http://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Minutes/National_Council/2015-05-27
 * Congress (DanielJ)
 * NSW forms (DanielJ)
 * Party Meeting reportback (MarkG)
 * Coordinator by-law update (Brendan)
 * General Business

Start: 20:32 AEDT

End: 21:27 AEDT

Attendance

 * Daniel Judge
 * Simon Frew
 * Michael Keating
 * Fletcher Boyd
 * Brendan Molloy
 * Mark Gibbons
 * Ben McGinnes
 * Melanie Thomas

Apologies

 * David Campbell

Previous meeting's minutes

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Minutes/National_Council/2015-05-27
 * See Motions

Congress

 * Venue Sydney City RSL, on hold for us, pending this meeting and will be booked tomorrow assuming noone throws up any objections
 * The smaller 30 people room to be confirmed/booked for 25-26th July
 * $200 saturday, $220 sunday
 * See Motions

NSW forms

 * 45 forms give or take
 * Leaves a pool of over 300 who haven't responded
 * Do also have another 9 that have hit the "posted" link but haven't received the form in the mail yet.
 * So far its been pretty good on 'hit links' equating to a form in the mail within 1-3 days.
 * Suggest sending out a reminder and adding to that that if printing or postage is a problem we ask that they email to request a form with a stamped return envelope so we can get these last 50 forms from our pool of hundreds.
 * It will cost $1.80 per form with a stamped return envelope sent so to do 50 would cost $90.

Party Meeting reportback

 * Last election we placed the Greens so high in our preferences that we effectively had no preferences to offer anyone else and no deals to make.
 * Which made it mathematically not possible for us to actually win
 * The Greens are not being very kind in return though. Effectively they are kicking out the ladder so other minor parties can't follow them up.
 * The proposition here is that we should consider putting other parties ahead of them as long as we have something in common with said parties
 * This will at least give us a mathematical shot at winning and a prospect that all our effort will pay off.
 * This group, as noted, is willing to accept our method for voting on preferences
 * they have wisely excluded authoritarian parties like socialist equality
 * they being the organisers, who are mostly from the progressive party and future party
 * originally it was going to be called the 'progressive future alliance', but the other attendees vetoed it
 * Progressives being the ones that are registered (not the other group)
 * All in all early days, and we need to stick to our methods that gave us a lot of good will post-election
 * but good to have open communications with other parties, not rule out options and be higher on the radar of other parties (ie may help us when they preference anyway just by knowing us better)

Coordinator by-law update

 * Only 1 was contested last congress
 * Current model ends up with potentially unsuitable people defaulting into the position uncontested and it is not working in practice
 * See motions & below

Amend By-law 2013-01

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/By-laws#By-law_2013-01_-_State_and_Territory_Coordinators
 * Repeal (2), (5).
 * Replace (1) with:
 * State and Territory Coordinators shall be appointed by a two-thirds majority vote of the National Council. Their term shall automatically expire at the end of the next Annual National Congress.
 * Replace (4) with:
 * In the event a State or Territory Coordinator is unable or unwilling to perform their duties, the National Council may declare the position vacant and appoint an interim replacement by a two-thirds majority vote of the National Council.

General Business

 * Brendan returns to Australia 24th June
 * Stripping citizenship proposals are dumb but many Australians support it
 * ALP being crap and while Greens showing some odd behaviour & tendencies they are still better than the rest
 * worth noting that the Greens are more than just Ludlam and not all are as good as him
 * also concerned about Greens possible support of some aspects of electoral reform that may be to detriment of minor parties
 * proposal that we draft a letter to send to the Greens to ask what their intention is on electoral reform (better to ask them first to get accurate answer than to start attacking them over it if wrong.
 * NC members to draft letter collaboratively
 * Secretary to send when completed
 * as per 3.2.3.1(4) - Official communications

Motions

 * MOTION: Accept the minutes of 2015-05-27.
 * Put by: Brendan
 * Ayes: 6 (Frew, Brendan, Fletcher, MarkG, DanielJ, Keating); Nays: 0 ; Abstains: 1 (Ben)
 * Motion carries.


 * MOTION: Approve $440 for the Sydney RSL venue for Congress on 25-26 July.
 * Put by: Brendan
 * Ayes: 7 (MarkG, Brendan, DanielJ, Frew, mel_ohyeah, Keating, Fletcher); Nays: 0 ; Abstains: 0
 * Motion carries.


 * MOTION: Amend by-law 2013-01 with motion as written in the minutes.
 * Put by: Brendan
 * Ayes: 6 (Brendan, Frew, Fletcher, MarkG, Ben, DanielJ); Nays: 0 ; Abstains: 0
 * Motion carries.


 * MOTION: close meeting.
 * Put by: Brendan
 * Ayes: 8 (Ben, Keating, Fletcher, mel_ohyeah, MarkG, DanielJ, Brendan, Frew); Nays: 0 ; Abstains: 0
 * Motion carries.

Action Items

 * Brendan and Daniel to send out Congress announcement email by Friday night
 * Interested NC members to draft letter to Greens regarding intended electoral reform position, Secretary to send when done.