Pirate Congress 2015/Minutes

=Day One: Saturday, 25 July 2015=

President opens Congress, housekeeping and adoption of standing orders

 * Welcome and introductions of Brendan Molloy (President), Simon Frew (Deputy President) and Daniel Judge (Secretary)
 * Explanation of how to participate online, getting voiced and so on.
 * Reading of Standing Orders:
 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/National_Congress_Standing_Orders

Daniel Judge (Secretary)

 * to be transcribed

Brendan Molloy (President)

 * to be transcribed

Simon Frew (Deputy President)

 * to be transcribed

CAP-0: Raising the quorum for constitutional amendments

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Constitutional_Amendments#CAP-0:_Raising_the_quorum_for_constitutional_amendments

Questions and comments
Question: Why do we need to do this?

Answer: Original Constitution was designed with a floating quorum starting at 10% so as to find a natural equilibrium for what a rational quorum was for the annual meetings, so it rises by a small percentage each year based on a vote. If it is never reached, then the clause is removed, so it is self adjusting quorum protection measure.

CAP-1: Principles Grammar

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Constitutional_Amendments#CAP-1:_Principles_Grammar

CAP-2: Articles Grammar A

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Constitutional_Amendments#CAP-2:_Articles_Grammar_A

Questions and comments
Question: Why change? I dont get it.

Answer: The change makes it correct english.

Comment: That is debatable.

CAP-3: Article Grammar B

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Constitutional_Amendments#CAP-3:_Article_Grammar_B

Questions and comments
Comment from Brendan addressing the published Rationale: That justification is not actually accurate. The Registered Officer role as defined in the constiution includes the Party Agent and is necessarily a sub role of the Registered Officer. So the National Council doesn't decide who is the Party Agent, it is always also the Registered Officer. So at least since the last congress the Party Agent has always been defined as the responsibility of the Registered Officer so this proposal doesn't solved whatever problem has been identified here... but the problem hasn't been expressed in any detail either.

Question to dcrafti: What is the rationale beyond what is stated there? Or is there nothing further.

Answer from dcrafti: I'm ok with it (the motion) being removed. I was unsure of it myself.

Comment from Brendan: There are still some minor quirks in this article that could be fixed in the future Previously we have changed the Party Agent Role and Registered Officer and moved some article numbers around so there may be some ambiguities that could be addressed.

Proposed Amendment from Brendan: Propose that we commit this to the CRC for further consideration.

Comment from Brendan: A note on the Constiutional Review Committee (CRC). Last year we formed the CRC, which didn't meet as often as we had hoped (which resulted in these motions being written by David rather than presented by the Committee). We would like more people with certain legal interests to join the CRC.

Comment from Fletcher: It seems that these issues could have been identified and fixed by the constitutional review committee in the past year.

Comment: The Committee ended up being pretty much David and Brendan and forum discussion with little participation and covering less since life and other issues got in the way. Now we have another 12 months.

CAP-4A: National Council Minutes Quorum & CAP-4B: National Council Minutes Quorum

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Constitutional_Amendments#CAP-4A:_National_Council_Minutes_Quorum
 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Constitutional_Amendments#CAP-4B:_National_Council_Minutes_Quorum

Questions and comments
Comment from Fletcher: The other solution to this issue is to just use the online voting mechanism already in place for NC votes. ie, a "CFV" (Call for vote)

Comment from Brendan: Yes, this is what we did historically, if there was ever an issue with this we have the mechanism to do an online email vote and we record it at the next NC meeting. If minutes couldnt be accepted we just waited til the next meeting and vote on them in a block. This however fixes that to make it less of a workaround.

Question from John A: I'd like to observe that at previous meetings I've been at the mover and seconder of the motion need to have been at the previous meeting but the general membership can vote on it. So in a sense you are voting on the trust of the people who move and second it, rather than saying you've actually been there.

Comment from dcrafti: I prefer CAP-4A to CAP-4B

Question from Andrew D: Unrelated to the motion at hand, but the 3 NC members at the front don't seem to be voting on anything. Is that normal, in previous years some have?

Answer: There no rules and we don't have to but can if we choose to, although traditionally the chair shouldn't vote (unless needed for a tiebreaker), but the NC members at the front of the room will only usually tend to vote if it is close and the votes would matter (if they so wish). Just kind of a convention and also for efficiency in regard to counting and other tasks. Also why Brendan stated if he wanted to argue something he'd pass chair to Frew, so as to allow him to actively participate.

Comment from Fletcher: I wonder if floor motions to change the environment of the room include moving the fedora to Simon's head

CAP-5: Articles Grammar C

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Constitutional_Amendments#CAP-5:_Articles_Grammar_C

Questions and comments
Comment from drafti: Brendan, this was one of yours, I thought

Comment from Brendan: I dont think it was but may have ended up in there from someone's suggestion

Comment from Brendan: This cant be withdrawn since once it was put as a formal Constitutional Amendment it becomes owned by the Congress and needs to be voted down. The person who put it cant withdraw it once submitted and deadline has passed. So prudent to vote this one down now that we know the person who put it thought Brendan wanted it, but now we know Brendan did not adviocate it either.

CAP-6: Articles Grammar D

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Constitutional_Amendments#CAP-6:_Articles_Grammar_D

Questions and comments
Comment from Melody: As someone who is known to be grammatically challenged, I am having so much fun right now.

Comment from Brendan: I agree this is a sensible change based on historical party practice. It makes it clear that our Terms of References do have power and if there is a dispute you take it to the Dispute Resolution Committee or raise it at a National Congress. (because the National Congress is the paramount governing body of the party, and any motion here can override any motion from anywhere else so long as it is in line with the Constiution)

Question from Brandon: Are the "special conditions" already set out in the constitution? (special conditions referred to in the Rationale)

Answer: This refers to the eligibility criteria specific in the Terms of References for that working group.

Comment from Brandon: I worry about the potential for ambiguity here. Maybe we should kick this one back to CRC.

Proposed Amendment from Fletcher: "Where eligible, participate in working groups defined by the National Council or any organ of the Party; and" since that would match 4.2.1 (1)b

Comment from Fletcher: Apologies for the technical nature of that, it makes more sense when you're sitting at a keyboard. Also it's slightly shorter and covers other possible eligibility clauses.

Comment from dcrafti: The point of this proposal is to ensure that the NC can ensure that a person has a particular qualification, if necessary, but which can't be predicted in the constitution.

Comment from Rundll: I don't think this should go to CRC, we can resolve it now.

Comment from Brendan: My position is that neither of these amendments are bad, I agree with both and don't see why we'd need to put this back to the review committee. It's just saying how we set rules for joining stuff.

Comment from Brandon: As long as the constitution already has those mechanisms in place, that satisfies me.

Question from Yiannis C: The original point of the amendment was to clarify that the National Council can specify Terms of Reference for Working Groups. So does the addition of 'or any organ of the party' add more ambiguity to this?

Answer from Brendan: The original had 'or any organ' as well ('any organ' wasn't added). An example of 'any organ' may be the Policy Development Committee which can create their own working groups; they can only create those because the National Council tells them they can.

CAP-7: Articles Grammar E

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Constitutional_Amendments#CAP-7:_Articles_Grammar_E

Questions and comments
Comment from Brendan: I supported this, it is sensible and fixes a potential loophole that this National Council would be unlikely to exploit but "can't trust the voter".

CAP-8: Articles Grammar F

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Constitutional_Amendments#CAP-8:_Articles_Grammar_F

Questions and comments
Comment from Fletcher: Given that various terms of reference within the party rely on approval by multiple NC members this amendments should be modified to to extend the restriction beyond motions before the council to any place where a council member is required.

Comment from Brendan: No, because this is specifically in relation to the National Council. It can be implied for other Terms of Reference that that is the default, but it could be the the case that the Terms of Reference for another committee could have a different rule. We can fix this with a by-law if we ever need to, but can't be fixed by amending this because this section is specific to the National Council. If we need to amend it again next year, that's fine, but this one here just codifies the corrent line. In an example, codifies that if an NC position were vacant and someone was fulfilling two positions, ensures they cannot assert that they have two votes (which is much more important than a random guy in a committee that can be overruled by the NC).

CAP-9: Remove legal binding provisions

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Constitutional_Amendments#CAP-9:_Remove_legal_binding_provisions

Questions and comments
Comment from Brendan: The history of this line was that when first forming an organisation you want to be as 'non-legally bound' as possible while still forming, so it is less relevant now as we are no longer an 'unincorporated association' in which people were personally liable for things (in which case you don't want a document that links you as all liable as a single 'pseudo-individual'). Getting rid of it now doesn't hurt anything anymore, plus most of it isn't enforceable now anyway since we are a NSW incorporated association. Bureaucracy!

Ten Minute Break was held.

CAP-10: Dispute Resolution Committee term clarification

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Constitutional_Amendments#CAP-10:_Dispute_Resolution_Committee_term_clarification

Questions and comments
Comment from Brendan: To extent upon the rationale slightly, we are currently in a situation where we have phased elections of the DRC. We only election two one year as there were not enough people to fill it so from then on each year we've alternated between electing 1 position or 2 positions (positions are for 2 years). So this merely codifies this as a legitimate practice. The literal opposite to just say they are fixed two year terms would be preferred (ie if a new person enters half way through their term still ends with the others), however, this merely codifies the current practice which is ok, but would propose it is fixed properly next year. I understand David wanted to go through this section and have a more thorough attempt at redoing the DRC article, but this at least fixes it for now.

Comment from Frew: As a side-note. I don't think we've ever had the DRC need to be used, it has never had anything referred to it ever.

Comment from Brendan: The best DRC is one that never has to be used.

CAP-11: DRC referral protection

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Constitutional_Amendments#CAP-11:_DRC_referral_protection

Questions and comments
Comment from Brendan: From that nightmare of a sentence you can see why we need to redo this whole article; but this amendment adds a subpoint that ensures the National Council cannot stop something being referred to the DRC. There are bigger issues with this article, and this doesn't necessarily solve the underlying issue, sioce the length of the whole block means it is unclear when or when not the NC can have its policies overrule different things. It needs to be made a bit more straightforward. It's never been used so it's never been engaged enough to mean we have needed to amend it, but this at least makes it clear that members know that they can refer stuff there regardless of whether or not an NC motion says not to.

CAP-12: Fundamental rewrite of principles

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Constitutional_Amendments#CAP-12:_Fundamental_rewrite_of_principles

Questions and comments
Comment from Brendan: There's only four more words in the original statement. As posted on forum: "No. Just no. I don't like it on any level. It's something one might find in the Liberal Democratic Party constitution, not ours." Because it fundamentally rewrites things on an economic basis when the original wording goes to the core issue of everything. It goes to laws and culture, not just about money. We cover all aspects in the original sentence. Fundamentally against the changes because it fundamentally changes the party's make up.

Comment from mandrke: Does not sound like a Pirate Party Statement

Comment from Gator: Original wording sounds more radical

Question from Fletcher: did Simon write the old text? (it sounds like Frew)

Answer from Brendan: It was definitely Rodney, though may have had more commas in it before. We had to teach rdney to use hyphens instead, and then we had a bigger problem.

Comment from tserong: the third sentence won't follow if this amendment happens as the third sentence references laws which aren't present anymore in the second sentence

Comment from Rundll: I also dislike this, it moves to much meaning to 'competition' and 'business practices'

Comment from dcrafti: I didn't write the statement, but I preferred it because it was broken into 2 sentences. I'd be happy with anything that isn't so wordy, and matches our reason for being.

Comment from dcrafti: I'd like to refer it back to the CRC then... It needs to be improved, but I guess the proposed wording isn't great.

Comment from Brendan: CRC has power to address this, but I think this result is a resounding "nothing like that sentence, at all". So we'll need to work on that a bit more.

Comment from Keating: In the vein that David said that woridng in that motion is horrible, but having said that, the original text probably needs a bit of massaging to make it look nicer for people in general. More readable for the less linguistically inclined. Massage it over the next 12 months and deal with it next year.

CAP-13 Amendment A: Incorporate by-law 2013-03

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Constitutional_Amendments#CAP-13_Amendment_A:_Incorporate_by-law_2013-03

Questions and comments
Comment by Brendan: Wrote an ammendment to implement CAP-13 since incorporate doesnt tell you how. A by-law is not written in a way to just slot into the Constitution verbatim in a way that would make sense, so I've taken the wording and make it 'constiutional'. There was also some changes to the amendment to rectify some words because it looked like we had to notify the amendments themselves instead of people. You will not the By-Law is very similar in wording. The constitution didnt say how to notify people, so the by-law clarifies that and things such as times etc. If the updates are recorded and justified (as outlined in the by-law, then the Congress can make the determination as to whether they accept those changes. So it's a no loss situation and allows people to correct typos in advance so we don't spend all out time at congress doing so. (any devious last minute changes can be readily rolled-back)

CAP-14: Multiple party membership

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Constitutional_Amendments#CAP-14:_Multiple_party_membership

Questions and comments
Comment from Brendan: Not true that the National Council can add categories. Such changes need to go to a majority vote of the membership as per https://pirateparty.org.au/constitution/#4.3(1). Also reads from https://pirateparty.org.au/constitution/#4.2.1

Opposed to this change as don't see point of introducing this ambiguity. Understands that the idea behind it is to allow non-full members to join our party while being a member of another party (not strictly opposed to, but it would need to be very strictly defined). Associated membership as currently defined allows people not enrolled to vote such as overseas etc to join (can have people from other country parties). This additional line comes after the other rules and doesnt reference those well enough. Would like to put it to CRC.

Comment from dcrafti: Yep, I misread that. I thought the NC could create the categories

Comment from Rebecca: we received several enquiries over facebook from people who wanted to support the party but were members of other parties, and were confused by whether the 'associate member' tier could apply to them

Comment from Brendan: yep, and replied to those people, sorry about the confusion, but no they are not currently eligible. I did write a very detailed proposal (which i dont want to go into much here) but essentially to keep the full member tier, change the associate member tier to give them effectively the same rights as full members where legally possible bit only open to permanent residents (ie for people who intend to become a citizen and be a full member) and create a 'supporter member' with an explicit international sub-category. So it made it all very clear & easy administration, because when we create state branches there are issues such as NSW not being allowed to accept donations from anyone outside the country. Specific administrative requirements that would make things divergent and harder to maintain. We want to avoid mess. So while there is an interest, we need better fully fleshed proposals. [2:22:30]

Proposed Procedural Motion from Brandon: Amend the agenda to include discussion of membership of the CRC.

Comment from Brendan: Not a full motion, where would you want to slot it in? But if you are after the CRC the details are on the forum and website and you just need email the NC to apply to join. It is open to all members, legally qualified or otherwise, but nice if you are.

Comment from Brandon: I'll just email the secretary after congress to discuss it with them. I withdraw my motion

POLICY MOTIONS
[2:37:30]

PM-1: Distributed Digital Currencies and Economies

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Motions#PM-1:_Distributed_Digital_Currencies_and_Economies
 * To accept the proposed Distributed Digital Currencies and Economies Policy https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Motions/Policy_and_Platform/Distributed_Digital_Currencies_and_Economies_Policy

Questions and comments
Comment from Frew: Some reactions on twitter including "that's the best policy proposal on crypto currencies we've seen".

Question from Mozart: Are there many policy proposals on crypto currencies?

Answer from Frew: Probably not.

Question from Brandon: Any concern about organised crime issues invlving digital currency?

Answer from AndrewD: That is covered somewhat in the additional explanatory information that accompanies the policy. There's been some discussion about the potential for money laundering etc, but the fundamental position on that is the same as the tax department stance on cash, in that you could readiy use cash for that sort of thing. It could be treated in much the same way. The tax deptartment has quite extraordinary powers and track where you spend a lot of extra money into the economy with registered businesses and so on. You could have a lot of unaccounted for crypto currency, but if you can't do anything with it it is useless to you. If you want to start acting in the world and spend that money with real world business that are known to the tax department, then the tax department or other authorities can find you out there. Much the same way they can do with cash. A better approach than tryiing to track all the individual currencies themselves which gets hard.

Comment from Brendan: There'sa fun thing you might want to look up if you want to know how the underground markets create currency...  Lego. Lego is used as a measure of currency because the value of lego has remained consistent over a long period of time, never really losing value, so they are actually a stable currency. A common form of "cash" that many people don't know about.

Comment from AndrewD: And a related, humourous connection, is one way to launder money is actually via laundry detergent. In some parts of the US, a common means of trade is with truckloads of washing detergent because demand for it is constant, regardless of the state of the economy, it holds its value and you can also hide drugs in it.

Comment from John A: Whenever you say "will do something here" someone can say "aha, why aren't you worried about this other issue?" And it seems to happen quite regularly. So i'll just observe that while there is crypto currency, we do actually have international tax havens and various other dodgy things that actually happens with the current currency system we have now. I'm not saying that the Pirate Party necessarily needs to worry about these things, but in a broader sense, if we were actually able to fix up the international monetary system as it currently exists, with all its tax havens, that would be a very positive thing to do. And i think that is part of the broader issue that this is incorporated into.

Comment from AndrewD: One of the key realisations for me in this, was this idea about the regulation of organisations with crypto currencies and making a nice little dividing line between organisations that wanted to have a controlling interest over the money they have/held of yours (as a cosumer), versus organisations that did not. One of the great promises of these sorts of currencies is the ability to provide value added services (e.g. risk management services) that doesnt necessarily involve holding on to your money at all. And so those sorts of services can be very self regulated, they just provide a service for a small fee and that;s it, they have no control over your money, so you want a very deregulated free industry like any other service industry... Whereas on the contrary if they are an organisation (like an exchange) that tends to hold onto your money for periods of time, then you want them to have more the current style of heavy duty banking style regulation that banks and so on have, ie requiring certain reserves, getting audited etc, because there is a risk there that they'll just run off with your money, or not have it or go bankrupt and everybody loses and so on. So creating that dividing line gives the freedom to create a plethora of new exciting services at very low cost. While at the same time having another whole segment that is regulated in a more traditional sense, because, money.

Question from Ken D: A counterpoint to commercialising it, perhaps more than it already is, classing it as a currency as opposed to a commodity... it's a far more volatile currency as it is, and assuming all other forms of currency currently have someone or a body or a country to answer to... bitcoin doesnt and assuming that it becomes more mainstream and more in demand, as more people mine, it will more sooner become a limited resource. As in you cant mine past a certain point, there is a limit to it. And at that point, which will inevitably happen. What do you propose happens then, because that is not entirely too far away from now.

Answer from AndrewD: The mining and so on follows a very predictable mathematically determined curve, and so the result is that the supply side of the monetary thing is mathematically fixed (at least with Bitcoin, others may differ). But the demand side actually drives the price, and what we've been seeing is that the trajectory over time is towards greater stability as the market scale size increases, stability increases with it. So while in its early days it fluctuated quite wildly, as time has gone by those fluctuations have smoothed out and it is levelling off. so now you might see a gradual increase over time as the market and demand grows.

Question from Ken D: one last point, regarding insurance and risk etc, e.g. people who lose a harddrive that had thier key on it. That's money gone and there's no way they have an insurance policy to pay you back in bitcoin, it would likely needto be in something else.

Answer from AndrewD: There are in fact ways to sort that out built into the system, e.g. a triple key (stored in different locations) meaning if you lose one you can always retreive the others and retain access. That is one of these extra services you could add on in this currency i.e. a 'way to not lose your cash' or equivalent. Something you cannot do with cash which is interesting.

Comment from AndrewD: One other relevant point in there that does relate to the taxation as a commodity vs currency. The important difference with that is if someone buys some bitcoin through an exchange so as to use it, they would currently get double taxed. They get taxed to purchase the bitcoin, then get taxed again when using the bitcoin to purchase something. It's double dipping, which is usually a big no no in taxation systems. Part of our policy is to eliminate that double dipping.

Comment from Ben: when no more btc are released the miners get paid by transaction fees

Comment from Brendan: That is an important bit of additional info for people who arent too clear on what bitcoin is. Bitcoin is similar to a finite resource and there is a limit to how many will be created due to the mathematical algorithm. That's not something we want to worry too much about, our aim is to create a regulatory setting that will allow it to thrive or die on its own merits. Treating it logically instead of 19,000 different magical chunks of tax law hat don't really 'get it'. Note using bitcoin as an example only, the policy is about 'cryptocurrency' as a concept. It's easier to just define it as a currency for tax purposes than create a new thing which in practice, for purposes of tax law would be the same. How it technically works is insane, but it doesn't matter. People don't have to use it either, we're not proposing it replaces the Australian dollar or anything, it's just to say 'treat it the same'.

PM-2: Digital Liberties

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Motions#PM-2:_Digital_Liberties
 * To replace the existing Digital liberties Policy with the proposed Digital liberties Policy https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Motions/Policy_and_Platform/Digital_Liberties_Update

Questions and comments

 * yet to be transcribed [3:08:00]

PM-3: Cultural Policy

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Motions#PM-3:_Cultural_Policy
 * To accept the proposed Cultural Policy https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Motions/Policy_and_Platform/Cultural_Policy

Questions and comments
Question from Yiannis C:[3:22:30] Asset Recycling fund is still with the Parliament and unsure if it is going to go through, is this policy contingent on its passage through parliament and if so and it doesn't pass will we be sourcing funds for this policy from other sources of income?

Answer from MarkG: [3:23:15] The Asset Recycling fund has actually passed parliament and it actually used existing funding and turned it into a special fund that when state governments sold public assets, they would get an incentive payment to do that. That's the purpose of the Asset Recycling Fund - That's already happened. What's in parliament now is a proposal to extend the Asset Recycling fund into the future, but there's already about $6billion sitting in the fund, some has already been used, but we'd be drawing from that.

Question from John A: Are there plans to cover community radio in future developments of the policy?

Answer from Andrew D: Admittedly we hadn't thought of that during development but it sounds like an excellent addition and if you'd like to contribute to that during that year that would be wonderful.

Comment from dcrafti: The disused buildings thing would need lots of nuanced legislation to create something that wouldn't be a mess.

Comment from mandrke: I still do not like a proscribed specific Licence

Comment from Rundll: I'll have a motion to change the word "product" in the preamble para 3 to "works"

Comment from Brandon: We'll also be fighting with a lot of other community organisations for the use of disused private property

Question from Brendan: (arising from the above) It seems a very badly worded paragraph for something that says we are going to be taking someones property. And the market often finds use for these properties with pop up markets etc

Answer from Andrew D: We're not saying we would be taking someone's property, but there are plenty of places like this that are sitting around disused in some areas due to lack of activity. If you dont maintain, or take care of or 'continue your claim' on the property for an extended period of time it becomes liable to squatters. One way to avoid it becoming at risk of squatters etc is to put it to this sort of public use. By allowing it's use in this contextyou would then be exempt from that.

Comment from Brendan: But that's not what the policy states. It just says unused property should be usable by the commons and that is the extent of it. It needs more detail than that to actually be a feasible non-argumentative part of the policy. The policy currently reads like the state will just say "lol library" and take it (til you can prove to us you can get a tenant).

Answer from Andrew D: Yes, that could be expressed better and an 'option for the owner'. Happy to accept amendments along that line.

Comment from dcrafti: We can't allow the use of property that puts obligations on the landlord. That would be worse than having squatters

Comment from Brandon: Happy to work on that one with the original policy drafters

Comment from Brendan: Unless someone wants to write something more detailed, I'd propose for now an amendment that just scraps that section and sends it back to the PDC for review.

Comment from Brendan: Note also the Constitution does allow us to hold policy meetings beyond congresses and so owe can amend policies more regularly if need be. We can have them when needed so if there is an issue, easy to just chop that bit and address it later.

Comment from Andrew D: Most of our policies have a tendency to have a negative flavour where we are against this bad thing the government's doing. In this case we wanted to institute a policy that was about creating new institutions and expanding existing ones. Also helps to ward off criticism that we just want to tear down copyright and so 'how is an artist going to make a living'. This is a 'here's how' and describing a system where that may come together in a very positive policy direction.

Comment from Andrew D: Also Credit to Sunny Kalsi who was responsible for a fair amount of this policy but couldn't be here today. Proposed Amendment by Thomas Randle: In Cultural Policy, Preamble, end of Paragraph 3: Replace "creation of product for society's benefit." with "creation of new and derivative creative works for society’s benefit."

Comment from Thomas Randle: Motion justification, creative works are better referred to as "works" as its scope is greater than just product, which is more commercial

Procedural Motion from Fletcher: Chair is temporarily passed to Simon for the rest of the policy motions with responsibility of initial text reading remaining with Brendan.

Comment from Fletcher: Since there was a question regarding the reasoning, Brendan has more opinions

Questions and comments (cont.)
Comment from Mozart: Offering a further amendment to Thomas' amendment. Instead of "creative works" we put "creative materials" because part 3 of the Copyright Act refers to "works" and Part 4 refers to subject matter other than works, which includes film and audio recordings. So just to be clear there is a bit of a difference between them, so you really want to capture all materials. So "creative materials" is broad enough to cover everything we want, bit doesn't go too far into other areas of intellectual property. (materials includes works, and should be broad enough)

Comment from Mozart: So same motion amendment but with 'creative works' changed to 'creative materials'

Comment from Thomas Randle: Accepts the change.

Comment from Andrew D: As an aside, during the researching of this policy, we cam across this concept that ... if you think about Libraries as compared to filesharing, and what libraries are for, and what filesharing is for, you come to an interesting abstract realisation that libraries serve the same purpose; they are just less efficient. And noone would ever argue to make libraries less efficient. So in large part what we are doing here is improving the efficiency of libraries such that they move up to the current age.

New amended amendment text:


 * In Cultural Policy, Preamble, end of Paragraph 3: Replace "creation of product for society’s benefit." with "creation of new and derivative creative materials for society’s benefit."

Proposed Amendment:


 * Remove the block that begins with "Allow disused private property for use by libraries" and refer it back to the Policy Development Committee.

Questions and comments
Comment from Fletcher: Apologies for the initial procedural motion, didn't work as intended for both technical and bureaucratic reasons I hadn't considered.
 * A minor debate about breaks and whether the chair can declare a 10 minute break or needs a procedural motion in the room ensues. Brendan decides to move a motion to put himself back as chair.

Ten minute break

PM-4: Foreign policy and treaty making

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Motions#PM-4:_Foreign_policy_and_treaty_making
 * To replace the existing Foreign policy and treaty making Policy with the proposed Foreign policy and treaty making Policy https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Motions/Policy_and_Platform/Foreign_Policy_and_Treaty_Making_Update

Questions and comments
Further Policy Rationale/Explanation from MarkG:


 * A few changes form old verison of this policy.
 * Changed reference to meeting aid goal by 2014 which has now passed and obviously cant happen.
 * Old version was not explicit on reasons for pulling out of some of the named treaties, now they are grouped under headings that explain this.
 * The old version didn't cover defence at all, so that is the main addition to this new version.


 * Reason for adding Defence.
 * Most people probably assume we don't support foreign military adventures, but we may as well make it explicit that we do not.
 * If you want to purely defend a country surrounded by ocean then it is submarines that you want.
 * You can't bomb the middle east with subs, but they do provide an enourmous defensive advantage agianst anyone that actually tries to attack your own country.
 * Modern subs are very powerful self-defence tools. But they aren't agressive tools: they cant control the ocean or push you out.\
 * They also have useful peace-time uses for oceanography and science
 * They are a solid investment that you can make in defence while topping it up with necessary land & other defence etc so as to increase whatever forces the enemy would need to send into the 'teeth of the subs'
 * It creates a situation where with the existing amount that we spend on defence, we can make ourselves self sufficient.
 * We just have to invest a bit more wisely and don't spend money on things we don't need
 * This policy also defends us because the obvious response to a lot of our intellectual property policies are that if we piss off the USA so much that they may not defend us anymore so how will we be defended. Well this policy provides and answer to that question.

Comment from Brandon: Of course, we'll have to overall domestic whistleblower laws first.

Answer: Probably covered adequately by this policy https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Policies/Reform_of_Democratic_Institutions#Improve_transparency_and_credibility_in_systems_of_governance or if not can expand on this over the year.

Comment from Brandon: Agreed on submarines, but given controversies with submarines in Australia over the last 15 years, it'll be a hard sell

Question from Brendan F: I notice that we expanded a lot of Navy matters, which is good, but should we also expand on Army matters, for example perhaps a focus on Engineers whch can have dual use for local development and so on. Or is that not relevant?

Answer from MarkG: We probably could, there is quite a big pipeline of equipment and capital investment already going to the Army and we are not proposing to change that substantially at this stage. We havent gone to that level of detail on defence since it is not really a core policy for the Pirate Party.

Question from John A: I do feel that submarines do have an offensive capability. Submarines deny the enemy the use of the sea, but in that sense they can represent a tool of agression. I can see where you are coming from but there are a few other details of submarine warfare that need to be worked out.

Answer from MarkG: There's two ways to fight on the ocean. There's sea control, which is literally giant warships. The purpose of sea control is to give you a channel to the territory of your opponent. The offsetting strategy to that is sea denial, and sea denial attempts to disrupt that channel of control, and sea denial is the speciality of modern submarines. They are not that useful for sea control.

Comment from Ben: If we piss off the USA too much we get what happened in 1975...

PM-5: Health

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Motions#PM-5:_Health
 * To accept the proposed Health Policy https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Motions/Policy_and_Platform/Health_Policy

Questions and comments

 * yet to be transcribed [4:20:00]

PM-6: Energy, Environment and Climate Change

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Motions#PM-6:_Energy.2C_Environment_and_Climate_Change
 * To replace the existing Energy, environment and climate change Policy with the proposed Energy, environment and climate change Policy https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Motions/Policy_and_Platform/Energy,_Environment_and_Climate_Change_Update

Questions and comments

 * yet to be transcribed

PM-7: Education

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Motions#PM-7:_Education
 * To replace the existing Education Policy with the proposed Education Policy https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Motions/Policy_and_Platform/Education_Update

Questions and comments

 * yet to be transcribed

PM-8: Civil Liberties

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Motions#PM-8:_Civil_Liberties
 * To replace the existing Civil liberties Policy with the proposed Civil liberties Policy https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Motions/Policy_and_Platform/Civil_Liberties_Update

Questions and comments

 * yet to be transcribed

=Day Two: Sunday, 26 July 2015=

Nominations

 * See the Nominations page for information about candidates
 * Simon Frew to President as unopposed
 * Mark Gibbon to Treasurer as unopposed
 * David Crafti to Registered Officer as unopposed
 * Andrew Downing remains as Policy Development Officer as no nominations are forthcoming.
 * remaining positions will go to 7 day party wide online vote after Congress.

Questions and comments

 * yet to be transcribed

PM-9: Tax and Welfare

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Motions#PM-9:_Tax_and_Welfare
 * To replace the existing Tax and welfare Policy with the proposed Tax and welfare Policy https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Motions/Policy_and_Platform/Tax_and_Welfare_Update

Questions and comments

 * yet to be transcribed

PM-10: Declaration of platform and principles

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Motions#PM-10:_Declaration_of_platform_and_principles
 * To replace the existing Declaration of platform and principles with the proposed Declaration of platform and principles https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2015/Motions/Policy_and_Platform/Declaration_of_Principles_Update

Questions and comments

 * yet to be transcribed

Procedural Motions
Amending the Agenda:

Amending the Agenda:

Iterim Report

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/w/images/a/ad/Financial_report_Congress_2015.pdf

Final Report

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/Financial_report_Congress_2015_Final.pdf

Discussion Topics

 * Discussions yet to be fully transcribed (WIP atm)

Senate voting reform and the Pirate position
Opening Comments by Brendan, DanielJ and Frew:
 * If there are no objections we'd like bring this topic to be first since 'something came up'
 * We were contacted by a Green Senator to arrange a in person meeting to discuss some matters. These matters are as yet unstated over phone.
 * It may be completely unrelated to this issue but it prompted us to decide that we needed to decide as a party exactly where we stood on the issue.
 * We have previously made submissions to reviews, but there has been some debate since about what sort of reform we would like to see.
 * Thus, this discussion topic which, regardless of any planned meetings or otherwise, is a topic getting air time and it would make sense to have a formal position ratified by the party as a whole on electoral reforms etc (some background: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/greens-aim-to-pressure-government-with-bill-on-senate-voting-reform-20150628-ghzuao.html)
 * Brendan has created a pad for participants to contribute what our positions might be.
 * Based on media reporting the issue seems to be coming down to an abolition of the "Group Voting Ticket" (ie above the line voting) and replacing it with "Optional Preferential" above the line voting.
 * This is the starting point; there could be more.
 * The position of our party has never really been solidified insofar as whether we are before or against it.
 * Previous submissions were based on what the executive thought were in the best interests of the party at the time, but we'd like to develop a party position on this.

[2:18:30]
 * A "Group Voting Ticket" (GVT) is where one of the Registered Officers of your party fills out a "below the line" voting ticket in advance and provides it to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) and when you vote "1" above the line for a party it automatically fills out all of the boxes below the line as per how that Registered Officer filled it out.
 * Called a Group Voting Ticket because its a voting ticket that applies to that group.
 * What they want to do is replace this mechanism with "Optional Preferential Voting" meaning that if you marked a "1" above the line, then it wold automatically fill out all the numbers below that line (ie each candidate in that group) as 1 to 6 (assuming 6 candidates in that group) then if you put a "2" in another box it would fill out each candidate under that group as 7-12 and so on.
 * There are obviously pros and cons to all of these things, but in the larger scheme of things ...
 * Changing this one aspect of the electoral system has a blow on effect of making things a lot more difficult for minor parties.
 * Particularly in the sense that the 6th seat in most Senate elections has become effectively a Lottocracy
 * People have different opinions on that, but ultimately the Greens proposal would almost guarantee that the 6th seat would go to either them, or one of the two majors.
 * So it would actually limit representation in the parliament for minor parties and would be a very bad move.
 * We could potentially agree to this, conditional upon certain other changes that would make things easier for us.
 * In NSW we came about 15th out of 110 candidates on first preferences, so we are still able to get a fair share of votes, we aren't a nothing, and if there were fewer other parties because they were getting nothing because they can't do preference deals anymore then our proportion of first preference votes would go up.
 * But this does not mean that our chances of winning a seat would go up because the number of votes you need is still about 14.3% of the vote to get a single seat in that state.
 * So what I suspect we would actually like to see is if we accept the removal of the GVT then we at least get something in return, for instance perhaps:
 * The distinction between parliamentary and non-parliamentary parties is entirely removed from the (Electoral) Act. WHich would mean that those parties that do have representatives would still need to prove that have 500 members, go through all the audits, & all the bureaucracy that other parties have to.
 * We'd soon notice that those rules would disappear since they wont want to play the stupid games they invented to keep everyone else out.
 * We'd be against raising membership requirements from 500 to 1500, even if that wouldn't be an administrative burden for this party, it's a privacy burden because then we are handing over 1500 people names to a bureaucracy not known for computering very well.
 * So these are the sorts of things we'd like to go through today.

Questions and comments
Comment from Frew: There's always a chance the Greens could be concerned about media reports that we were meeting with the progressive small parties forum (a non-right alternative to the Druery minor party alliance). We weren't a part of the Druery minor party alliance due to it's requirement to preference fascist parties above the Greens, and we also have our member vote preferencing and we voted to place the Greens very highly in that. So this could be a concern. s

Question from Simon_mobile: How do we know that the Greens proposal put minor parties at a disadvantage?

Answer from Brendan: Maths

Question from Simon_mobile: Wouldn't it be better to at least have a Democracy for a Lottocracy on prinicipal even if PPAU is disadvantaged?s

Answer from Brendan: Comment from MarkG: I concur. Comment from Brendan: I agree. My position has always been against GVTs on principle. They are awful, and we only have 24 hours to complete and return them. Not fun. I'm also not fundamentally against the idea of optional preferential, the problem is that if you don't set it proportionally enough you end up with a system with more exhausted votes than actual votes, and it mucks up the actual proportionality of the system. (this was in response to some online comments, as listed below)
 * The problem is that it effectively disenfranchises voters and it changes peoples behaviour because at the point that it becomes optional preferential you have the concept of exhausted votes.
 * Exhausted votes means that once it hits a certain point, that persons entire ballot is removed from the quota entirely.
 * Imagine 35% voted Liberal & 35% voted Labor and they both managed to get enough quotas to get two seats each, the Greens got enough to get a quota, and then in the end about 50% of the final votes went to all these small parties, they just disappear. And the last seat either defaults to the Greens or defaults to Labor or defaults to Liberal.
 * There has also been a proposal for a minimum threshold for votes, which would be completely anti-democratic because that would guarantee those votes never actually touched a party
 * We already have a 4% threshold for getting deposits back
 * The deposits are already $2000 per candidate, you need two candidates for the Senate to even have a box above the line so that means we're already paying $4000 (per state) to take part in the election
 * So on balance it is already an extremely undemocratic system and it would only get less democratic; it would make it less worthwhile for any group to try and represent their values because the chances of ever getting any airtime to discuss these issues would be even lower because you would actually have fewer chances
 * We need to be aware just how incredibly stacked the deck is against minor parties in Australia.
 * A 14% threshold is (i think) one of the highest of any rich country in terms of entry into its parliament
 * It's artificially high because of the state system in conjunction with the reforms that have been done in the past
 * There are various ways you could reduce that threshold [2:25:45]
 * You could have 3 year senate terms which would cut the threshold by half
 * You could remove the States system and just have a national proportional senate.
 * We should not take the counter position to abolishing GVT's but we should seek a compromise position which says that yes we'll give this u in exchange for some other reform that allows for minor parties to be represented.
 * Because if you shut them out, which is what will happen, ie if you abolish GVT's and that's the entire extent of your reform, the only effect will be to shut minor parties out of the system altogether.
 * And then there is nothing to negotiate from. We'll have no power, the parliament will be completely locked down to the major parties for all time.  They'll have no reason to ever change again.
 * This is the only leverage we'll ever have, we have to use it carefully.
 * If we fail, 25% of people who currently vote for minor parties, will have no representation at all. They (minor parties) will not get up.
 * We would be changing a random representation of minor parties, which is not ideal, for no representation, which is a net loss no matter how you look at it.
 * We should be careful to ensure we are clear we are not against anyone on this, unless their goal is to drive minor parties out of politics.
 * Any other position, we should be happy to talk to and compromise with.
 * What is happening now with this 'alternative minor party alliance' which is "left" progressive socially liberal parties, who are a fractious lot; not the type of parties you can organise into one super party under a single banner; what starts as a preference negotiation could become something more productive over time. We are building bridges with those parties, may be able to spread our policies to them, maybe adopt some of what they've got going on, & that's how GVT's as they are now allow for socially liberal votes to 'combine'.
 * There's a lot wrong with GVTs but our position should be a compromise position; not a concession allowing minor parties to disappear, and not outright opposition to reform, but a compromise.

Comment from tserong: if someone doesn't number all the boxes, with optional preferential, then that person is choosing to risk their vote exhausting, i.e. that part is individual choice, they're not being forcibly disenfranchised

Comment from Brendan: Which is fine, if you are using an electoral system which was designed with exhausting in mind, which 'Single Transferable Vote' was not designed to do. So they have to hack it and change it to do weird stuff to it to make it actually work. Then you end up with a quota that actually changes, ie the number of votes you need to get a seat actually changes in each counting round which is very very weird. And then you need to end up having back up rules for if the final quota doesn't actually ever achieve... it ends up being whoever had the highest proportion of votes left at the end. So someone could get a seat with something like 4% of the vote anyway - so it doesn't ultimately solve the problem, it just kind of changes peoples behaviours such that they won't vote for minors.

Comment from Brendan: Remember that we do still live in a system where people still think that have voting for a minor party is a wasted vote despite us having a preferential system. Many people dont fundamentally understand what the system is.

Comment from Simon_mobile: Wouldn't it be better to exhaust the value of the vote than for it to count towards a party against the wishes of the voter? I agree that no votes should "default" to any party

Comment from Simon_mobile: Agree compromise

Comment from Brendan: Yes on the compromise, ie we say "Yes, but only If..." . We know it's a bad system, but we don't want a worse system.

Proposed motion from Brendan: The Party is willing to compromise on the abolition of the group voting ticket as long as certain conditions are met.

Comment from Brendan: Then we will go on to propose what those conditions will be.

Questions and comments (continued)
Question from Andrew D: Can someone give us a simple, dumb run through of what it would look like for parties entering into this (ie with GVTs removed and with Optional Preferential STV), and for voters voting on it, and for the people counting it?

Answer from Brendan: Comment from Andrew D: I would also suggest as a condition then, please publish the (vote counting) code.
 * Single Transferable Vote (STV) is the voting system used in the Australian Senate.
 * We have a specific type that is defined in our legislation that differs from all the others, so it has something called a 'fractional transfer' which means that once a quota is filled (which means that 14.3% of the vote is filled by a single candidate) that candidates votes are then redistributed but not as one whole vote, but as fraction of their vote. So it's already a hyper-complex system & that's why we use computers to do it these days because they mucked it up a lot (because they had to mark on the ballot what the current value was and it kept having to change)
 * Historically however they just did what was known as a random 'something or other' where they just took out a random number of ballots that were a fraction of it, so you had non-deterministic elections. You could potentially have a different order of candidates elected if there was a close ballot. And NSW still uses this. The Legislative Council is still elected using that old system.
 * So what would happen is we would be in a situation where if someone, let's say there were 110 candidates but people only filled out the first 6, we'd be in a position where on the 6th round a lot of these votes would just start going blank, so they then have to withdraw those ballots from the election entirely and change the number of participants in the election, minus however many they just removed in the round. And then recount and see if a quota has been met.
 * So it makes things a little bit weird, they would have to change the code, which would be mildly displeasing but maybe they'd finally release it (heh).
 * But for someone filling out the form, it would look the same as it currently does, the only reason the length would change is because less parties would see the point of registering.
 * They seem to want to treat the symptom of minor parties, instead of the cause, which is disenfranchisement with a busted system and broken parties.
 * So the problem isnt the length of the ballot, if that was actually a problem and they wanted to fix that problem then they could change the laws so the ballot could be a different shape, because length is something controllable.
 * All it would change is people could out numbers above the line, and potentially below the line without having to fill them all out.
 * And the counting would change very little in practice
 * It just changes how people behave, and the incentives for actually joining the system.
 * It just makes the system practically less democratic, but not functionally less democratic.
 * Because as I said the GVT is bad because it is opaque and hides what the value is of putting "1" above the line, so changing it puts the voter directly in control, but if the voter no longer has a choice between anything but Coke or Pepsi, then they haven't got any more democracy.
 * The trade-off is a "better" system, but with fewer choices. And that is what we want not to happen.
 * Which is why we've now agreed to conditionally abolish GVT
 * So we can rebalance the system so it is further in everyones favour, so we actually have the power to select good candidates, not just the ones given.

Comment from Brendan: One thing to keep in mind is the code is a bit of a different issue as that is up to the AEC in some ways since they are a statutory body and they own the code. They are arguing it is 'commercial in confidence' BUT the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) is currently hearing a case in Tasmania to have this code made public and we'll know more at 10am on Monday.

Question from Andrew D: If passing legislation to change the voting system and so on, then we could put that requirement in there.

Answer from Brendan: Sure.

[2:37:30]

Suggestion from pad: Lower deposits for candidates in HoR and Senate (currently $1000 and $2000 ($4000 as you need two candidates!))

Suggestion from pad: Restrict the maximum candidates that a party can propose

Comment from Brendan:
 * It is already restricted to 6, cant have more than that.
 * If you are thinking of more it is NSW elections which is different.
 * It doesnt make sense to propose more candidates than available seats.
 * Unless in Europe where they have an open party list.
 * Open party list is a concept where, in Europe they dont have preferential so you just vote for one candidate.
 * They dont have above the line or below the line but they just have party lists.
 * So you can vote for any candidate in that list and it counts as a vote for that party, and a vote for that candidate.
 * If that candidate doesnt win, the vote goes to the candidates from that group that may have enough votes to win.
 * So if 4000 people vote for any candidate in that party group, that group gets 4000 votes and the candidate in that group that got the highest number of votes is the first elected from that group. So it is like approval voting within a group.
 * That's one of the systems they use.
 * Quotient based proportional representation systems that do divisions to work out who has the quotas.
 * Not that we want to get into that, just that it is an example of a different system.
 * Our system is entirely number based, so not punching a hole in a card, and we want to keep the preferential system as far as I understand.
 * I havent heard anyone suggest that we don't want that.
 * And even if we said that I don't think we'd get it.
 * I don't think limiting the number of candidates is helpful.
 * If 100% of people want to vote for 100% of your party then let it happen, otherwise they will just create front parties

Comment ''from mandrke': What about independents?

Comment ''from jed': insisting on adding robson rotation to the reforms would discourage the major parties from pursuing them without opposing reform outright

Comment from Simon_mobile: is there a preferential system that we can look to from overseas?

Comment from tserong: yes! to adding robson rotation

Suggestion from pad: use a better vote counting method (to allow equal preferences-no mark is to be treated as equal last)

Comment from Brendan: Comment from MarkG: Comment from Brendan: Comment from Frew:
 * We did suggest something like this in our submission, because there are variants of Single Transferable Vote that fix situations such as what happened in WA before the recount when it was approx 13 votes difference and when you change those 13 votes it didnt just change which candidate won next but it changed the 6th one as well because of how the counting rounds run.
 * Basically it changes the preference order just enough that the lumps of votes went to different people.
 * There are certain modifcations to STV.
 * CPO-STV that tries to run multiple different versions of STV in parallel, effectively testing what happens when you randomly remove a candidate then it averages them out to work out which was the most likely outcome.
 * So it fixes the randomness and makes it more deterministic
 * However it is very computationally intensive so humans could never actually verify it themselves, they need to actually trust the code.
 * So it wasn't necessarily appropriate, but something that should have been investigated.
 * Another option is to introduce a system that uses a condorcet voting system which means it's more likely to find the least divisive candidate. not the most popular candidate. Tries to find a compromise candidate. That's also a completely different discussion.
 * Maybe we should be willing to select several possible compromises that we would be willing to live with.
 * None of those compromises should be in exchange for something administrative, like lower deposits because once the amjor parties have what they want they can easily welch on any such deal and there's be nothing to stop them.
 * Sure. That's part of why I was saying to remove the concept of parliamentary and non-parliamentary party. You are either a registered party or not.
 * That way all the rules apply to both types of parties, and they dont get away with just having had one person elected years ago before implementing the laws.
 * Just to clarify, a donkey vote and equal last are two different things. Where a donkey vote is just numbering sequentially down the page, and we dont ever want donkey votes as a way to resolve elections (eg LDP being first on ballot helping them get elected)
 * A reason preferential voting as in our system is preferable is as opposed to situations like the USA with First Past the Post voting where there's little point to smaller parties existing since votes to them can be considered wasted since you can be in effect taking a vote from someone who may otherwise be a preferred candidate insofar as lesser of two evils.

Suggestion from pad: A royal commission into the electoral system

Comment from Brendan: A royal comission is an interesting one, especially since that is what New Zealand did. And we can't be worse than New Zealand. So that's a strong argument and could actually do something. If instead we say refer it to the Law Commission we'll get really really good reports, and noone will ever read them. Royal commission higher profile, more newsworthy. You really want reform? Demand a Royal Commission. If Greens demand it in light of WA where they won, and Libs refuse despite calling it a 'corrupt vote' then it looks like they are supporting a corrupt vote.

Suggestion from pad: Elect entire senate every 3 years

Question from Melody: are all states fucked or is just NSW more fucked, it seems to come up how bad NSW is a lot

Answer from Brendan: NSW is more fucked, but they are all fucked. Queensland you have to put like 19 different things saying you've never breached the Electoral Act into your constitution as if it's relevant. Plus only one house of parliament... which is worse, but the bureaucracy to get registered is less, so easier to get registered in QLD than NSW, pointless though as you'll never get a seat.

Question from Brandon: Do we have a break down of the voting system in Australia on the Pirate Party website? Given there seems to be some misconceptions about how it works.

Answer from Mozart: This page may suit but could use some additions/revision/be adapted - https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Voting_in_Australia

Comment from Brendan: I had also hoped to write a blog post on this at some stage

Question from Henry: I have no problem with putting the voter in more control of their preferences. What sort of changes would you propose?

Answer from Brendan: I can accept ruining STV to make it optional preferential as long as there is a sane minimum number you have to put in, say, 10% of the total candidates so you don't have stupidly exhausted ballots. You need to trade off the difference between voters interests and the fact that most voters dont fully understand the system and likely never will. You have to keep that in mind when building these systems that you want them to express their vote as well as possible within the confines of their actual understanding of the system. A preferential system, for whatever reason, is very complex to most people. This is why you'll get the Liberals complaining 'we got 51% of the vote nationally but we only got 12 seats out of 100, oh the system is broken'; no the system is just actually constituency based and you create that number out of thin air after adding another number that has absolutely no relevance to this system. Even with First Past the Post they'd have still gotten the same number of seats. But remember the point of this dicussion is to figure out what we'd want in exhange for giving up GVTs, but we could ask for a box that we can tick that says 'we hate them all' but I dont see the point of arguing for these things now, but if we got a Royal Commission then that could be the place to argue for all sorts of things. These stances arising today on the other hand is mianly in regard to a potential negotiation with a single representative of a single minor party, not walking into parliament tomorrow and throwing bricks of logic at people.

Comment from AndrewD: Regarding the 4% funding threshold, can we just eliminate the entire concept of the threshold? This many people voted for you, therefore you get this much funding for next time.

Comment from Brendan: Brilliant yes, because otherwise it never allows you to get ahead. If you get only 0.05% of the vote you get like $60. Not a big help, but if you get 0.5% like us then that couple thousand there would be enough to cover our costs and give us more of a starting point to look at a parttime staff member. So it would actually assist you. And they are never going to go for full public funding, so this is the next best thing.

Comment from AndrewD: In talking about government funded media like the ABC, then also perhaps some kind of mandated coverage level for minor parties, since they largely get ignored in the media. So get an actual forum in which can be heard rather than a random novelty puff piece here and there.

Comment from Brendan: Note that we cannot change the size of the Senate without a constitutional amendment, but the voting system can be changed arbitrarily since our constitution is just a patchwork of nightmares.

Comment from John A: An out there suggestion in regard to the suggestion of limiting number of candidates... perhaps if you vote above the line you are only giving your vote to say 4 of the candidates for that party before it moves on? If you want to vote for all 6 then you fill out below the line. So you can vote above the line but it limits the influence.

Comment from Brendan: That was part of the same argument for introducing the GVT in the first place. And same counter argument for getting rid of it in that it doesnt often represent the true intent of the voter since they often just want to represent that "I want to just vote for this entire column", but many wont then understand they've only voted for part of that column, and then eventually you could get peoople mixing above and below the line in awkward ways which im sure would happen but may not be catered for correctly. So you end up with invalid votes. My position would be to abolish the above the lines entirely because it gives an unfair advantage to non-independents. It doesnt actually make sense to have above the line at all if you are going to have Optional Preferential anyway. fill out 10, 3, 6, however many you want to have as a minimum. So there is this whole fundamental misunderstanding where everyone is looking at too low a level for how to fix above the line, instead of how to get rid of above the line and fix the system. Above the line doesnt need to be there, it's a red herring.

Comment from John A: So you could just mandate a minimum of say 15 below the line and just get rid of above the line.

Comment from Brendan: That's exactly what I would like, but Greens will not go for that as they seem stuck on this above the line concept. But we'll add this to the list.

Comment from Frew: The other problem with limiting the number going to candidates is you'd get the front parties. For instance it seems the LDP has a number of front parties. Such as Smokers rights party, Outdoor Recreation/Stop the Greens etc

Comment from Brendan: Yes, I got to deal with them during the election and the Registered Officer for about 4 parties was the same guy.

Question from DanielJ: In regard to Registered officers, would it make sense to disallow a single person from being Registered Officer for multiple parties?

Answer from Brendan: I think this was in the recommendations and being added anyway, but it doesn't really matter. If anything it is better since it lets you more easily see who the front parties are. Banning the ability to find the front parties is probably not ideal for us.

Suggestion from pad: Change voting method to Schulze-Condorcet ;)

Comment from Brendan: That's my favourite system but i wouldnt support that in this contect since it's too big a change, too many possible confusions, and there are better options for fixing the system.

Comment from Brendan: I have my suspicions some of the Greens would like to see a more proportional House of Reps and sacrifice the Senate to get to that point. If that is indeed the strategy then it is likely a sane strategy for them, but doesnt help the rest of us, or the actual country in practice if that strategy fails because it'd be an 'all or nothing'. So i do think a Royal Commission is probably one of the best ideas to come up so far since that could break it all down and have a proper discussion. The system is not working, everyone agrees that it is not working and it would finally have an 'authority' to report on the matter.

Suggestion from pad: Robson Rotation <-- attemptes to fix (or at least mitigate) the donkey vote problem

Comment from Brendan: Yeah there's no reason not to do it except it is really expensive fromwhat ive heard. One of the main reasons for not implementing it in the Senate due to issues with either printers not being fast enough or within the time limits set out in the Electoral Act or something to that effect. But it is worth discussing.

Suggestion from pad: Elect entire senate every 3 years (this will halve the 14% quota)

Comment from Brendan: That would require a constitutional change as it si currently specified in the constitution that they are elected every 6 years in an A&B cycle. It even has a provision for how they started doing that... actually it was historically every three years, but they moved to 6 years so it was shuffled less often. So a change in the electorates hate for one party didnt cause the entire majority to shift within 3 years. Because it's not the House of Government, it's the House of Review.

Suggestion from pad: Remove state-based groupings and allow national proportional senate representation (this will break the 14% quota down completely)

Comment from Brendan: Yes, that is also something worth bringing in, although I think that is unlikely to happen since it also requires constitutional change. A massive one since it says the "federation" is now a lie and we become a unitary state.

Comment from Mozart: Pretty much anything beyond how they are elected requires constitutional change. So keep that in mind.

Suggestion from pad: how anti-democratic would it be to negotiate that a party has to exist for a period of time ie say 2 yrs before they contest an election to address the issue of "pop up" parties that disappear after an election

Rebuttle from within pad: Would be problematic IMO. Governments often leave their most objectionable acts to later in their term, would simply cause problems for people organising in opposition of such moves.

Comment from Brendan: The problem with that is you could have existed for say 5 years and then get registered like us, we wouldnt have been able to contest the 2013 election even though we've been around since 2008. Problematic... No.

Question from Brandon: Anything we can add to proposals to eliminate those sort of front parties?

Answer from Brendan: You get rid of the front parties when you get rid of the GVT because there is no longer any benefit from any 'secret' way of votes going to them since it now requires a person to actively number that box.

Comment from MarkG: I also like the idea of a Royal Commission, but it needs to be an 'and' and not a sole condition. Obviously they'll be free to ignore whatever it says.

Answer from Brendan: Yes. ... add "and implement the results"...

Comment from Frew: Depending on time this afternoon, the stuff that requires constitutional change can also be discussed in the constiutional reform discussion topic.

[2:57:15]

Comment from Brendan: Putting a series of motions as a means to come to a party position.

Proposed Motion: Remove the concept of a non-parliamentary and parliamentary party, and merely consider registered and unregistered parties under all legislation.

Comment from DanielJ: This also prevents sole senators from registering their party on easy mode such as Jacqui Lambie creating a party with herself as an almost sole member just so she can get an above the line box on the ballot.

Comment from Brendan: Because she was elected she doesnt need to get 500 members, doesnt need to pay money, doesnt need to be audited while she is in the Senate. Or the Nick Xenophon group, it was easy for him to create a party just so he could run again.

Comment from MarkG: This is a good thing to be pushing for, but not as a sole exchange for GVTs

Comment from Brendan: This is not as a sole exchange, this is one of many positions/things we want, so doing a motion here for each point to resolve that it is something we want to include in the greater whole.

Question from AndrewD: If by equalising this do you create a disincentive for people to become independent by breaking away from a party they may disagree with because then they'd need a bigger party behind them?

Answer from Brendan: But we're not proposing that, because this doesnt cover independents at all, that is a completely different issue. Independents are a 3rd entity, neither a registered nor unregistered party. independents protected by the Constitution, parties arent mentioned in constitution but in the Electoral Act. So that is not the problem here, the problem is that we are a registered party but because we are a non-parliamentary party we have all of these extra bureaucratic obligations that those parliamentary parties do not have. That is pretty much the only distinction. The other bit though with why Independant Senators create a party is because there are different obligations for them to run as an independant such as needing 100 signatures every single time they want to run even if they were already elected. So there is a completely different rule set for independents which we should consider dealing with, but that's not what we are dealing with now.

Comment from DanielJ: Also if in some other reforms we also get rid of above the line voting that would also lessen their desire to create a party since they wouldnt then feel obliged to create a party to get that above the line box.

Comment from Brendan: yeah, the only incentive to have a party is to have that above the line box to run as a group. There's no mechanical benefit to independents, that's why they all register parties as soon as possible.

Comment from Brendan: To clarify again, "non-parliamentary party" literally just means: shit ton of bureaucracy and fees. Independent is a separate concept.

Proposed Motion: Lower the deposits for candidates.

Comment from Brendan: We won't speficy any number, it'll just be a negotiating position.

Proposed Motion: Remove the threshold of 4% of the vote for receiving funding.

Proposed Motion: Ideally abolish above the line voting entirely and replace with below the line with optional preferential.

Comment from Brendan: Just getting rid of above the line as a concept. We'd still have columns, and groups, just no box above the line.

Question from DanielJ: Should we be specifying any amounts such as the minimum amount of bumbers peopel would need to enter.

Answer from Brendan: I think that is probably a separate item, cos that could apply even if we kept above the line. There are also arguments for and againts having a sentinel vote. It comes down to how the system would cope with it.

Question from Brendan: MarkG, I'm curious, why did you vote Nay?

Answer from MarkG: I live in the A.C.T. and with that system we'd be effectively replicating the ACT system which would possibly be an even more rigid lock out of minor parties than you would get if you just abolished GVTs. Great for the major parties. I dont support just getting rid of GVTs as a sole reform with just this in exchange.

Comment from Brendan: These arent sole positions though, these are just ideas we like, and then combine them at the end and see how they go together as a collective group of changes that could possibly be in exchange for GVTs. To then build a strategy out of them all.

Comment from MarkG: I dont know what problem would be fixed by this one.

Comment from Brendan: The problem solved by that is that independents and parties would have equivalency on the ballot without having to find a bullshit second candidate so as to have a box above the line that no longer matters at all.

Comment from MarkG: I dont thnk that has any weight

Comment from Brendan: Oh it has weight. If you dont have that box above the line people dont see you as a real party or a grouping and you arent relevant. People are only going to look above the line. That's what the Greens want, thats what other people want, they want to have their chances maximised. You put a "1" in a box and it fills everything below it, good for you, that's what they want.

Comment from MarkG: It's too large of a change for too small of an outcome

Comment from dcrafti: Actually, I think I agree with Mark. It's lots of boxes to number below the line, so people might just fill in all the boxes for their preferred major party, and be too lazy to number other boxes for smaller parties.

Comment from Brendan: Sure, but that's going to happen either way, if you're allowed a sentinel vote for 1 party then whether you vote "1" Liberal or "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6" Liberal it doesnt actually change the problem, people and their laziness is i think overestimated in a mandatory voting system where people have to attend anyway.

Question from AndrewD: You rejected the idea of Condorcet as too radical earlier, can you explain?

Comment from Brendan: Schulze-Condorcet is not designed for multi candidate elections in the sense that STV is meant to find who wins based on a quota of votes. Whereas Schulze-Condorcet has every single candidate against each other and ends up finding the compromise candidates. You wont have very vivid debates in your House of Review. You also have to consider what the house exists for and what each system is designed to actually give you. And all that is a bigger discussion that im not entirely prepared for. But Schulze is desigining his own version of STV and it's in draft form so it be possible to Schulze system in STV form in the next couple of years. They are computationally intensive, but since we are already using computers to count elections, I don't buy that we cant have a better system because we'd need to use computers to count them, when we only use them now anyway. Remember though this is a negotiating list, not a wish list, we can discuss a wish list another time.

Proposed Motion: Open source the code.

Comment from Brendan: I cant imagine anyone voting against this, it is actually already a party policy.

Proposed Motion: Introduce "Robson rotation".

Comment from AndrewD: I can confirm the printing is easy, I work for a company that makes the printers that can do it.

Comment from dcrafti: Using electronic systems as helpers, which still print out ballots, would help with making a Robson Rotation system that's really fair, and it also opens up possibilities to do things better than either simple above the line or below the line.

Comment from Brendan: We cant do the elect the Senate for 3 years thing, that'll have to be another time (Constitutional change)

Proposed Motion: A royal commission into the electoral system (akin to NZ 1985) with a requirement to implement the recommendations.

Comment from jed: it is noteworthy that new zealand only managed to implement the recommendations of its royal commission in 1993, almost a decade afterwards

Comment from Brendan: A decade is quite good when overhauling an entire country's electoral system. And the US still has first past the post and the electoral college...

Comment from Brendan: We said we conditionally support the abolition of the GVT, that should be taken to also mean that we also implicitly support the continued existence of above the line if necessary. Hence "ideally" in that previous motion. Probaboy the last point in any negotiatiing position but something useful to have for history in case we have to make more submissions to the ALRC or whatever. We don't know what's goingto happen as a result of all this, it might go to another committee. We want to be able to have the authority to throw everything into that report. That way we dont need to invent a wishlist of things for a submission again. We knew they were going to ignore us, it was the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. Literally the wolves were asking you, the sheep, to tell them how they should elect themselves. And they have all the power to change the Act and you dont.

Ten Minute Break

Comment from Brendan:
 * We have one more motion which was missing, from something that was discussed but hadnt been added.
 * That we do not support voting thresholds.
 * These are a minimum votes necessary for votes to count at all
 * If minimum votes threshold to get a seat was 4% and your candidate got 3.8% and all the preferences that other people chose for themselves to give you went to you, but becuase you didnt get 4% as first preferences then you are no longer a valid candidate, so we're against those (if this motion passes).

Proposed Motion: Do not support "voting thresholds" (minimum votes necessary for votes to even count at all).

Comment from Brendan:
 * Now, the final group of positions we have are:
 * Remove the concept of a non-parliamentary and parliamentary party, and merely consider registered and unregistered parties under all legislation.
 * Lower the deposits for candidates.
 * Remove the threshold of 4% of the vote for receiving funding.
 * Ideally abolish above the line voting entirely and replace with below the line with optional preferential.
 * Open source the code.
 * Introduce "Robson rotation".
 * A royal commission into the electoral system (akin to NZ 1985) with a requirement to implement the recommendations.
 * Do not support "voting thresholds" (minimum votes necessary for votes to even count at all).
 * So we are now looking at whether or not this set of requirements is enough for us to consider them a fair trade for the abolition of group voting tickets (GVTs).

Comment from AndrewD: I think that all of that collectively would certainly be, but there would be some combinations of that that would not be. It'd be a question of how you cut it down.

Comment from Brendan: The question would be as a whole group, so assuming we get everything on this list would that be a fair trade and then work backwards from that.

Comment from AndrewD: My gut feeling on that then would be "Yes". If we had all that.

Comment from MarkG: My gut feeling is no. Every one of those is meritorious, but once the minor parties were gone, there would be no power to enforce any of it; or oblige the deal to be kept.

Question from AndrewD:[3:32:10] Given your concern that if we agreed to all that they could then just whittle it all away... what would constitute the sort of guarantee that would make it acceptable?

Comment from Brendan: You could just make it so there is a requirement that it requires 2/3 of parliament to change the Act, or referendum or whatever. There are other measures that could be put in place to make sure that parliament cant just willy-nilly change it.

Comment from MarkG: That would help to add that nothing can be changed without a 2/3 majority of parliament, but you are stil removing minor parties from the system. We just have to keep that in mind.

Comment from Brendan: Potentially, but the argument is if we traded this we would still be in the same situation anyway. That's the point of saying is this a one for one swap with a GVT?

Comment from MarkG: But this would not replace the fundamental role of GVTs in keeping minor parties electable. This would improve the system in all kinds of ways, but not that way (ie it would still exclude minors)

Comment from Brendan: Also simultaneously some people out there would say/have said that they would rather a system that defaults to either the Greens, Labor or Liberal rather than get some unknown random minor.

Comment from DanielJ: The other aspect of that argument though is that i think in some respect if just write a "1" above the box, then you are byyour action in some ways accepting the fact that parties will then allocate your preferences, so i dont see why it should be considered a valid argiument to complain "well i didnt vote for the Motorist Enthusiast Party" if that is where your preferences end up, because you kind if did by saying 'im happy for this party to allocate my preferences as they see fit'. If you really feel that hard done by by your vote eventually going to the MEP over someone else then number the boxes below the line. I know it's a pain in the ass, but if you care that much, then do it.

Comment from MarkG: One reform that might be worthwhile is to remove the requirment to number all the boxes below the line.

Comment from DanielJ: Yes, and which I think that is part of why above the line was put in place to begin with because having to fill out all the below the line boxes was too onerous and resulting in invalid ballots etc

Comment from AndrewD: A wider consideration, the whole idea of preferential voting is not entirely about who gets elected but also another effect of having this in place in that it forces the major parties to pay attention to the minor parties and minors can exert influence that way as the majors adopt minor party policies etc to appeal to them. And many of the measures here would quite strongly increase that effect such as giving more funding to minor parties can give them a louder voice adn more attention which is a key outcome where we'd often be happy if our policies were adopted by majors beyond just us getting elected. How much can you do with one seat anyway, but having an impact through public attention can be just as effective anyway if the issues get absorbed by the majors.

Comment from MarkG: It would be nice not to have to pay deposits, but even so we would still have funds of maybe $10k to $20k which would just be drowned given the amount that is paid to the majors by others with interests in the media etc. It is no in and of itself a solution to the problem of getting our voice out there. I think we just have to keep in mind the consequence of removing minor parties from parliament, because 1 vote (seat) does count at the moment as a lot of votes in the Senate are coming down to 1 vote. And a lot of the surge in minor parties is blamed on exploiting GVTs, ie they are all registering to exploit this system, but the fact is this system has been there for 30 years and the surge in minor parties is coming about as a result of dissallusionment with the major parties, which is a recent phenomena, to the extent that it is happening now. If we agree to this (these proposals over GVTs), and the effect of this would be to remove minor parties from the parliament, even with these changes... if we agree to that we actually make the underlying problem worse because we lock out alternative voices who in many cases, for 25% of voters at least, minor parties are the only parties they have any faith in at all... So if you limit parliament to the major parties exclusively, you'll just be cutting them off even more from any fundamental need to reform the system or further reflect the community's desires at all and you'll be making the disillusionment problem worse. [3:37:45]

Question from Simon: A Royal Commission would never happen, there is not enough support. Wouldn't it be better to make a Policy rather than saying "Too hard, lets get a RC to work it out for us"

Answer from Brendan: With our numbers of senators we'll just push through that policy will we? No. We will either get a Royal Commission or NEVER any such policy. It's the only reason it is there is because the only way to force it is to force it to open up through a higher level even than parliament, a Royal Commission has a higher power than parliament. So a Royal Commission is probably a better move than a policy because it actually has a chance of doing something.

Question from mandrke: have the GVT available to be viewed at all polling booths?

Answer from Brendan: It already is, at every polling place. It is a book. Every polling place has several.

Question from dcrafti: Could we add something to the policy that acknowledges that every system can be gamed, so that it should be regularly reviewed? This might negate the need for us to have a perfect policy upfront. We need to be able to test different approaches to see what works best.

Comment from Brendan: So Mark's position is effectively: 'even if this whole thing were there it is still worse than the GVT' and Andrews was the opposite for different reasons. In my experience it doesnt matter either way, we are screwed regardless, but we would have more money if we got this through. Lets say the it costs $0 to run a candidate and the threshold goes down as well and we get 0.5% of the vote at about $2.50 per vote we would have enough money to start actually doing useful stuff and start getting our name out there. As Andrew said it doesnt matter that much about getting a seat or not, what matters is getting our policies implemented. That IS in our constitution. If we can get our policies implemented by being loud and annoying enough, then that is half the point. And while we also have Federal, State and Local government, if we only have 3 parties there, we have to consider the stratification of the system as well. It is a very complex discussion we are having here and the question now ultimately comes down to IF we (the executive, party reps etc) end up in a conversation where we are asked 'what can I get you to do to support abolition of the GVT' what do you (the greater party) want us to say?

Comment from MarkG: It's not unreasonable to say that if you remove the ability for minor parties to be represented in one way, that another way should be restored (or that does the same job). To say otherwise is to say that the 25% or so of people who vote for minor parties should not be represented at all. And that's not democratic. So we should take a firmer line than just insist on this small set of administrative changes that could be swept away at whim.

Comment from Brendan: While that sounds fun on the surface, the 6th candidate every single time is ultimately someone that noone realises they actually voted for at this point. So you are arguing that merely "minor party" representation, not representation for actually 25% of voters... because either way 25% of the voters either get one of the big 3 parties, or a random. And you are saying random is mostly better, bit the randoms we've gotten so far haven't im practice been mostly better. Although I must say Ricky Muir has been the most surprising candidate of them all and has actually been very representative of his people and should be applauded for that and he's actually been going into his community and doing things. But that is an anecdote, and not a statistically relevant fact.

Comment from MarkG: If you support the Greens at all, the Greens could not have become a party of note under the system that we are tempted to vote for now.

Question: Does the 25% figure include those who vote for the Greens?

Answer from MarkG: No.

Comment from Frew: One thing to keep in mind, that if the Greens are worried about our preferences due to seeing media articles about us meeting with the progressive alliance parties then they'd have to be pretty receptive to what we want to retain them, keeping in mind however the way we do preferences with the whole party voting to determine preference order. If the Greens behave poorly on electoral reform then our members will likely vote them lower on the preference list anyway.

Comment from Brendan:
 * What i would suggest is hat we keep our points here as party positions for negotiating in general insofar as reforms go. Whether or not it is in exchange for abolition of GVT or not.
 * It would be at the discretion of whatever is happening at the time.
 * For instance if it is two years from now and we are doing another suhmission for the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, and we at least have an understanding of what members want so as to try and fix an already busted system.
 * The next part is to strongly suggest to the Greens that a Royal Commission should be done either way. No matter what. even if we keep the GVT, because the system is busted and we really need to look at it from top to bottom.
 * Also negotiate with other minors to get them all making noise about a Royal Commission. I doubt any would disagree, it's a cross party thing.
 * if we have 41 of the 44 registered parties in NSW all saying "Royal Commission" into electoral reform then that would get some attention.
 * Even if it doesn't end with a Royal Commission, there might end up being someone listening for the first time in 30 years for actual electoral reform.
 * We'll get to this more in the Constitutional Reform topic, but from what ive seen most people want the House of Reps to be the more proportional house andthe Senate as an actual House of Review.
 * So elect the reps that actually form government proportionally, and the ones who review dont really matter at that point as we've already elected people proportinally in the lower house.
 * That's why a lot of European countries are single chamber with proportional representation. They dont see a need for a second chamber when 50% of the seats actually got 50% of the votes.
 * When you have a system like that it becomes a bit of a moot point, at the moment we are arguing about how to grease the square wheel. The wheel is busted either way and we are still screwed even as we chisel the corners.
 * So in summary, these points are party positions for improvement, not as a trade for GVTs and we push a Royal Commission all the time!
 * Make that our main position on electoral reform: Push a Royal Commission on electoral reform so as to open it all up for improvement.

Proposed Motion: Accept these points as party positions in general (not as a trade for abolition of GVT), and push for a royal commission into the electoral system.

Comment from Brendan: MarkG is happy with this too. I even made Mark happy, the world is weird again!

Comment from Frew: We should maybe motion to approach all the small parties in regard to a Royal Commission

Comment from Brendan: We can assume that is implicit in the "and push for" part of the motion.

Comment from Brendan: This discussion went well, the pad we could all collaborate on worked really well! [3:50:00]

Internal party organisation and paid positions

 * dicussion yet to be transcribed [3:51:50]

Constitutional Reform for Australia

 * No Motions arising, topic to be discussed by party over coming years in various ways [more detail to be added]