Pirate Emergency Congress 2021/Minutes

The raw text-chat log may be found here: Pirate_Emergency_Congress_2021/Minutes/Log

= Day 1: Saturday =

Formally opened 10:41 AEDT

 * Housekeeping notes
 * Acknowledgement of Country

Adoption of Standing Orders 10:43 AEDT

 * Miles walks through the rules
 * Comments in chat, things to be read on stream to be prefixed with COMMENT or QUESTION
 * Preselections are tomorrow (Sunday)

Motion: adopt standing orders

 * Ayes: Miles Whiticker, Roger Whatling, surprised, jedb, Andrew Downing, zach__, Motion, mandrke, Fred Gerner, Star_Tube, TaniaB, idcrisis
 * CARRIED unanimously (10:52 AEDT.)

Party updates
Miles Whiticker:


 * We've had lots of activity and drive recently, which is great. I've always been looking to increase that
 * Watch out for burnout though - it hurts you and it hurts the party
 * Highlights include the...
 * International Relations Committee - livestreams with both Euro and US Pirates
 * Policy Development Committee - big surge of interest and we always have to keep them up to date
 * Other promotional livestreams, including one just last night
 * Finally Miles would like to thank the NC over the last six months, extremely active and engaged

Alex Jago:


 * I just want to thank everyone who steps up and does something. Thank you, we need you, you matter.

Andrew Downing (PDO)


 * Not a lot of pure policy today
 * Lots of energy right now is naturally going in to Fusion work

Roger Whatling


 * It's been a privilege to be working with people who've been putting in so much effort
 * We ran a sticker drive, T-shirts are available for purchase...

Constitutional Amendment Motions (11:00 AEDT)
Miles: Fusion is an electoral coalition; a soft merger between us and three other small parties. This is incredibly exciting for me - it's not just us saying to the big parties "we're still here", it's an acknowledgement of our commonalities. This is us saying that our differences are our strengths. So we've been working with Science, Secular and Vote Planet to form Fusion. This won't be a bland mindless collective, I've been working to ensure we'll all retain our vibrancy and identity. That's the single biggest reason we're here today - we're asking the party to formally ratify the changes we'll need to make to formally proceed.

CAP-1

 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Emergency_Congress_2021/Constitutional_Amendments

Miles: these are changes to allow us to work better in the Fusion structure. There are still decisions to make and work to be done within the Fusion structure - this is what we're at. You might not always agree with the name; I'll be candid - this was the name we picked because it's a compromise that we could agree to to ensure that we could work together and continue to contest elections. If we find a better name after the election, we'll switch to it.

Star_Tube comments that the 6-18 month timeframe to leave is quite restrictive (yes it is -AJ).

Star_Tube proposes to rework proposed wording around nomination fees (14.9.a). Andrew Downing comments on nomination fees: all four subparties will retain control over their budgets. The expectation is that PPAU will fund our candidates and other branches will fund theirs. I'm not sure whether we need to engrain that though.

Miles encourages all party members to start getting more involved with Fusion-level organising.

Andrew: I'd like to comment further on what we've done in the Fusion constitutional working group. We've stamped out a core set of things.


 * First, at Fusion's NC equivalent, each branch will have equal entitlement to representatives
 * Secondly, branches in Fusion will be free to pursue their own goals, explicitly. We get to pursue digital rights issues, Vote Planet get to pursue environmental issues, etc. This is a federation, not just a merger

But at the same time, there is a huge degree of overlap in what we agree on.

MOTION: Approve CAP-1 (11:27)

 * Ayes: Andrew Downing, Miles Whiticker, idcrisis, Star_Tube, jedb, zach__. Gold, mandrke, David Kennedy, surprised, Riger Whatling, Fred Gerner, twisty, Mark Gibbons, Alex Jago, TaniaB, Motion, milspec, molzy
 * Carried unanimously (11:30)
 * CAP-1 proceeds to full membership vote

Some time later, 'surprised' asks how policy differences and other issues will be resolved at Fusion level. Andrew answers: we're working carefully through the process we want to have, including e.g. the Fusion DRC should be able to declare a complaint vexatious.

CAP-2 (11:33)
Miles: This CAP is to clean up some inconsistencies between our constitution and the NSW Model Constitution. We're an incorporated association under NSW law so differences introduce compliance risk. This largely quite dry and has minimal impact on the day-to-day running of the organisation.

(Tangent from talking about member liability to thanking members for their financial support and what we could do with more money.)

Jedb raises there's a distinctinction in wording between Special and Emergency national congresses. Alex clarifies: they're both SGMs, effectively, but have different motivations. Specials are NC-initiated, Emergencies are member-requisitioned.

Motion: Approve CAP-2 (11:46)

 * Ayes: Andrew Downing, surprised, zach__, Star_Tube, Miles Whiticker, Roger Whatling, mandrke, David Kennedy, Gold, idcrisis, Motion, Tania, milspec, Mark Gibbons, Alex Jago
 * Abstain: jedb
 * Nay: twisty
 * Carried 15 for, 1 against, 1 abstention
 * Motion carried; CAP-2 proceeds

FM-1 (11:50)

 * This is the motion to formally affiliate to Fusion.
 * We've discussed this to a fair extent with CAP-1, which was the supporting structure.

Miles: "Hopefully everyone is well aware of what we want to do and what we've been working towards by now."

Andrew points out that working together our joint volunteer pool will be much more capable. One person with sign, eh, three people with a sign is a movement!

Motion: approve FM-1

 * Ayes: Motion, Andrew Downing, Miles Whiticker, zach__, Roger Whatling, twisty, jedb, David Kennedy, Gold, surprised, Fred Gerner, Star_Tube, TaniaB, Alex Jago, molzy, mandrke, MarkG, Justine123, milspec
 * Nays: idcrisis
 * Motion carried: 19 for, 1 against
 * Motion carried 12:01

PM-1 (12:03)
Andrew Downing reads through the policy and speaks to it: In the PDC we saw what e.g. Norway was doing and thought it a good idea. Australia's economy is very heavy on primary industries - but once we did those rocks up, they're used and gone, we can only take royalties once. The industry also needs regulatory certainty - these are multi-billion-dollar projects with substantial upfront investment on decadal timeframes.

So we don't want to reduce employment or exploration, but we do want to retain more of the value from resources. Proposal: reduce mining corporate tax but increase royalties to compensate. Fossil fuel taxes would increase in line with existing policy. Manage the Australian Sovereign Wealth Fund as an accumulatory fund - withdraw only profits, not capital - and run it as an "ethical-type" fund. This is not a hugely new system - we already have royalties - it's just that those go to state governments presently.

'surprised' asks: (1) how would that impact existing stakeholders? (2) What is the current effective tax rate on mining companies? (3) how do our mining costs compare?. Star_Tube asks why gradual?

Andrew: It should be revenue neutral, and it's gradual to give predictability. Currently the tax rate is the same for mining companies as any other company (30% of profits -AJ). I can't comment on international comparisons, I'm interested in what happens here. Mining has boomed here so I don't think it has problems.

surprised: Further question: so this is a redirection from state governments - how should we compensate them? Gnippots: Norway only invests overseas, thoughts?

Andrew: yes, investing internationally has anti-corruption benefits by avoiding conflicts of interest. Norway also have a bunch of ethical requirements around their investments. Regarding the state-government funding, it's only proposed that the additional royalties, over and above what are currently charged, go to the SWF.

Miles: ok, that probably needs some work to avoid being demonised.

Andrew

Mark G comments: Australia gets less public benefit from its resource wealth than any other major resource country. Many resource companies are multinational, and abscond with the profits.

surprised asks: OK, so the money isn't coming from state governments. but also mining company taxation is meant to go down, to offset. So isn't the money effectively coming from federal corporate tax income?

Andrew: that's a fair comment. The clear message from the mining companies is that what they mostly care about is consistent pricing over time. So it's possible to leave corporate tax alone and just increase royalties, if someone wants to put that motion.

jedb comments: "This seems quite similar to the Mineral Resource Rent Tax..." Andrew: this is explicitly royalties-based, not profit-based or price-linked. jedb: "Yes, I bring it up to be aware of the predictable opposition."

Star_Tube: "This doesn't seem to go into much detail re SWF management?" Andrew: yes, it necessarily can't be too prescriptive.

Justine proposes a clarification: Amend PM-1 so that "As royalty payments increase, redirect them into an Australian Sovereign Wealth Fund (ASWF)." now reads "As royalty payments increase, redirect the increase into an Australian Sovereign Wealth Fund (ASWF)." Andrew accepts the change; no further vote required.

Andrew: I see this as a good foray into economic policy, which will prompt further and wider discussion than our current offering does.

Motion: approve PM-1 (12:53)

 * Ayes: Star_Tube, Miles, Andrew, zach__. MarkG, milspec, twisty, jedb, RogerW, DavidK, idcrisis, mandrke. Gold, surpriosed, Motion, AlexJago, Justine123
 * Carried unanimously (12:55)

PM-2 (12:56)
Miles has been studying educational theory this year. There's a phrase in our policy about "learning styles". This is a specific term - "visual learning", "kinesthetic learning", etc. Learning styles are also a neuromyth - and not what we originally meant when we wrote the policy. So the update is to fix that.

Motion: approve PM-2 (13:08)

 * Ayes: RogerW, Motion, jedb, zach__, surprised, DavidK, mandrke, MilesW, AlexJ, AndrewD, milspec, Star_Tube, Gold, Justine123, twisty, MarkG
 * Nays: idcrisis
 * Motion carried: 16 for, 1 against.
 * PM-2 proceeds

Procedural motion: move the discussion topics forward to this afternoon

 * Ayes: RogerW, MilesW, zach__, AlexJ, AndrewD, DavidK, mandrke, twisty, idcrisis
 * Abstain: jedb, Star_Tube, Gold, milspec
 * Carried:

Procedural Motion: break for lunch for an hour (13:18)

 * Carried unanimously

Electioneering and Strategy
Miles: The major parties started their election campaigns months ago. It's ideal if we start as early as possible too. Something else valuable is to have a coordinated campaign; specific people within the party as designated spokespeople on a topic. I think 2-3 issues per candidate is reasonable.

Spokespeople thus far (not necessarily candidates): John August on IP issues and bureaucracy and right to repair, Brandon Selic on law and justice, Miles on democracy.

We still need someone to really take Civil Liberties on as a portfolio.

Miles: I'd also like someone to take on privacy and encryption, separate to the rest of civil liberties, because that's such a major item for us.

Then there's all the other policy topics... energy, climate, welfare and basic income...

Roger adds: on our core Pirate topics, our spokespeople should be assisting other parties - and the converse might be true as well. Miles concurs - PPAU spokespeople should, effectively, be Fusion spokespeople too.

Roger (who intends to nominate) will probably take up PPAU's environment spokesperson role (though probably not the Fusion-level role, considering). Also interested in digital rights things, which isn't really "claimed" yet.

Andrew adds: we'll need to develop some nomenclature for this. We already have it graphically, now we need textual.

Some discussion over CAP-1's 14.7 and 14.8 -- it's largely a declaration of intent. We won't leave without a long notice period, and we commit not to screw our partners over. The NC sees this as a necessary step to work together and a show of good faith. This isn't locked in forever, but it's what we need for now.

Roger has a question for discussion: "you've already talked about spokespeople. Is that broken up over states? How does it relate to state campaigning?" Miles: in terms of state-government-level policy, we haven't really had the bandwidth for that yet - and it's easier to project national-level policies down to state. Hopefully with more resources in Fusion we can get more done. State level policies are much more localised though, so it's tricky.

Andrew: "What drives Fusion forward is people engaging with each other outside of their branch. We've done lots of outreach to Science so far - it's easy, they have a Discord too. So should everyone else in PPAU, and not just with Science. This is what will form the community and it's what will let us campaign together properly."

jedb asks: have any other parties been approached for this Fusion thing? is there a list?

In short: yes. This started around National Congress in July and really intensified after the 500-to-1500 law changes. Those of us in Fusion were the ones who were willing to make a coalition work...

surprised asks: we have emphasised commonalities - can anyone say what the key differences are between, say, Pirates and Science Miles: "it's often largely a difference of focus - e.g. we talk about NBN, they talk about high speed rail. We're both committed to evidence-based policy." Andrew: "Also, my experience is that they aren't necessarily across our core issues - until explained. Our alignment comes about from how you think about these issues once you're fully across them."

(Alex explains the Four Questions we ask candidates.)

Alex gets into electioneering

- Postal voters need to be reached now til February - in-person voters need to be reached by people with signs and flyers -- and early voters need to be reached up to three weeks before Election Day

Kitchener.gif

Star_Tube asks about flyer validation - Alex comments that each party will be supplying candidates primarily where they are strong, so once we've established the shared branding we can invidudually run from there.

Miles puts the call out: We have work to do and about 5 different working group meetings on every week. Come along and contribute!


 * Constitution and Compliance
 * Policy (commonalities, themes for media and messaging)
 * Campaigns (structure, teams, events)

Sunny asks: how do we know that a candidate from another branch doesn't go off the rails if elected? Alex counters: "how do we know that a Pirate won't go off the rails?" Andrew follows up: "well, if they stand against the party that got them elected, they can get kicked out. At a certain scale, success breeds growth. So you should be reasonably slow to trust newcomers; this is why many parties require you to be a member for however long before getting privileges." Miles adds that we are looking at character tests, a code of conduct, etc.

Star_Tube raises: we need a calendar for all the working groups!

Procedural motion: adjourn for the day (16:07 AEDT)

 * Ayes: AlexJ, Star_Tube, RogerW, SunnyK, AndrewD, DavidK, Gold, jedb, zach__. MilesW, mandrke, idcrisis, surprised, Justine123,
 * Carried unanimously, meeting adjourned 16:10 AEDT
 * See you all tomorrow morning at 10AM AEDT for preselection!

= Day 2: Sunday (10:12 AEDT) =

Miles opens the proceedings welcoming people to Day 2 and summarising what happened yesterday and what the party has recently been up to.

Standing Orders are unchanged from yesterday and still in force.

Nominations for Candidate Preselection (Federal election)
Alex Jago seconds all four nominations (10:18).

John August NSW (10:19)

 * Ref. candidate statement
 * Previous candidate for the Party in Senate-NSW and Bennelong
 * Previously involved with the Secular Party, so helped bring them into the Fusion fold
 * "Fusion seems like the best way of dealing with the situation we're in"
 * John is happy to run either in Bennelong or on the Senate ticket with other Fusion candidates
 * Less capacity than previous election though - warned in advance
 * Interests include basic income, foreign policy, IP issues - see the speeches and videos that John has done

Brandon Selic QLD (10:23)

 * Not a founding member, but almost
 * Previously on Legal Committee, Qld, State Coord, 2x previous candidate
 * "I haven't done as much with Fusion as I'd like, because child #2 was recently born"
 * Extremely pleased that the coalition is happening
 * Considering running in Qld Senate with Roger
 * Portfolio: Lawyer by training, so legislative focus, also interested in environmental and first-nations affairs

Roger Whatling QLD (10:26)

 * Joined PPAU shortly before the last election
 * "My disappointment has increased over the years with our representatives"
 * Big fan of all the policies, happy to provide my voice pursuing them
 * Involved with Fusion organising, on the Constitutional working group (developing the joint Fusion C)
 * and the Policy working group, which is largely about alignment on messaging
 * Looking forward to run in Qld Senate with Brandon - effectively, PPAU is running the Fusion campaign
 * My local electorate is Longman, but I expect we'lll
 * Environment and climate interest - you might've seen me on stream on Friday night
 * Also interested in freedom of culture and civil liberties, being a Pirate

David Kennedy SA (10:29)

 * Joined 2012, NC last couple of years
 * Considering running for SA Senate - PPAU has never really run here
 * Looking to run with Drew Wolfendale (Science Party)
 * Caveat: I am on a full-time contract until the middle of next year, so my campaign time is limited
 * Happy to throw my hand into the mix
 * First brought in by civil/digital liberties policy, tax and econ reforms are good too
 * Environmental concerns aren't foremost for me, but still important

Question and Answer (10:32)

 * Question from idcrisis: "What music do you listen to?"
 * Dave: Well, I play guitar. Big fan of prog metal, alt rock, a bit of jazz. Anything except country and rap
 * Roger is also a big fan of prog metal

Motion: approve all four nominations en banc (10:35)

 * Ayes: Miles Whiticker, David Kennedy, Liam Pomfret, Bryn Busai, Jay Stephens, Alex Jago, John August, Andrew Downing, idcrisis, Fred Gerner, Brandon Selic, twisty
 * Motion carried unanimously; candidates proceed to approval vote (10:39am)

What happens next?

 * Full member ballot for all substantive motions passed this weekend
 * A party preference ballot will also be included
 * Returning Officer will be Dr Liam Pomfret of the DRC
 * If anyone else is considering running, it's not too late - there will be another preselection meeting
 * State campaign teams being set up at Fusion level - we'll be there to help you

Any Other Business (10:41)

 * No other business

MOTION: Close this Congress (10:43)

 * Ayes: Alex Jago, Miles Whiticker, John August, Brandon Selic, David Kennedy, mandrke, idcrisis, Fred Gerner, Roger Whatling, Andrew Downing, twisty, Jay Stephens
 * Carried unanimously (10:45am); Congress closed.
 * Thank you all!