Minutes/General Meeting/2014-04-08

=General IRC Meeting (#ppau)=

Start: 20:01 08/04/14 AEST

Finish: 21:30 08/04/14 AEST

Agenda

 * General announcements
 * National Congress (Mel)
 * PDC report (Mozart)
 * State reports:
 * QLD
 * NSW
 * ACT
 * Tas
 * SA

National Council, Co-ordinators and Officers

 * Melanie Thomas (Chair)
 * Mozart Olbrycht-Palmer (NC, PDO)
 * Glen Takkenberg (NC)
 * Tim Serong
 * Bryn Busai
 * Michael Keating

Apologies

 * Simon Frew

General Announcements

 * Contact page provides sparse contact details.
 * A directory for internal communications is available here: https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Party_Structure
 * Applications for Tasmanian Coordinator and Social Media Officer received, will be voted on by the NC on Thursday.
 * Tasmanian Coordinator, Craige McWhirter, resigned due to moving interstate. Thanks go to Craige for the effort he put in during his short time as Coordinator.

National Congress

 * Congress date is still to be confirmed
 * It will be in late June/early July, no later than the weekend 12–13 July (Constitutional requirement)
 * A suitable venue appears to have been found. Date to be confirmed when booked.

WA Election result

 * Election was another win for us
 * 0.49% of the vote.
 * Senator Ludlam has retained his seat, and so far everything has gone according to plan.
 * Most parties experienced a swing against them, but PPAU actually managed to pick up votes.
 * Ludlam managed to get in on first preference votes, the Greens managed to get quota without needing preferences.
 * Both ALP and Coalition (Libs and Nats) suffered swings against.
 * Left likely swung to the Greens, and the right to Palmer United.
 * Interesting links:
 * http://prestoninstitute.com/2014/04/06/spinningofgreenresult/
 * http://left-flank.org/2014/04/07/wa-result-normal-anti-political-programming-resumes/#sthash.tC5EQfw1.dpbs
 * Will Palmer United force a double dissolution?
 * Unlikely, but hard to tell.
 * Unsure at the moment if they will stir things up, or simply serve Clive Palmer's interests.
 * Concern that Palmer United will give deals to parties on spurious grounds
 * http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/clive-palmers-preference-deals-open-door-to-political-fringe-20140407-zqrug.html
 * PUP vote collapsed in Tas between elections there: "yeah, on PUP in tas, someone said 'there's only so many sharks you can jump in one campaign'"
 * may remian strong in mining states?
 * rumours PUP may merge with KAP (likely false)?
 * Some wonder, did ALP and Libs spend too conservatively on advertising as a result of expecting a new election (ie DD) soon anyway?

PDC report

 * The PDC develops policies
 * At the moment we have a handful of policies under development.
 * Topics include: privacy, constitutional reform, energy and agriculture. (immediate at the moment ones)
 * A full list is available here https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Policy_Development_Committee#Policy_working_groups
 * We are a party of participation.
 * If you want to contribute, please feel free to drop in to attend meetings.
 * Working groups are flexible, there's no formal joining process. You just attend the meeting.
 * If you can't attend the meeting or want to help but no meeting is scheduled, email policydev@pirateparty.org.au
 * Myself or whoever is responsible for the working group will get back to you about how you can help out.
 * Also: https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Minutes
 * This is a catalogue of minutes for virtual every meeting we've had since mid-2012. Towards the end it has minutes for the Policy Development Committee and it's WGs.
 * If you miss a meeting, minutes are published there, usually within three days.
 * Note also: The PDC is responsible for submitting to inquiries and reviews.
 * So if you want to contribute to those, the list is on the PDC wiki page, and if you find a review we should submit to, get in touch either via email, or IRC in #ppau-pdc.
 * In an official capacity on behalf of the party: ie It's the body responsible for making sure the submissions get done and are to the required standard.
 * It's essentially just advocating for getting our policies adopted through reform processes.
 * There is no particular background or experience people doing that would be expected or needed to have
 * Just an understanding of the issue and the ability to write. - Or at least express the ideas in a way that someone else can clean up.
 * General guide: https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Policy_Development_Committee/Terms_of_Reference#Committee_Members
 * If you think, after helping out a bit, you might want to actually join the committee, shoot the National Council an email applying.
 * We also have an Internet Engineering Committee.
 * Interested nerds, please see https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Internet_Engineering_Committee/Terms_of_Reference

QLD

 * Congratulations to Michael Keating in his new role as Qld state coord.
 * Mel was doing this, but as she is also Deputy President, busy with a Qld specfic group the Qld Civil Liberties Network, exhausted by her day job in media and wanting to start part time social science study, she has handed it over to Michael
 * David has just started feeling his way into the role to start with
 * There is a call for submissions for volunteers to form a PPAU QLD Branch Formation Working Group
 * There have been some responses already but if anyone else is interested, the terms of reference for this are available at https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Branch_Formation_Working_Group_ToR
 * Likely won't be able to form branch in time for the next state election but it will be well progressed (hopefully) by then so we can get our teeth stuck in following that!
 * Want to start up the Brisbane PPAU meets again
 * happy to get ideas at this point of what day/night suits people - if Michal doesn't hear anything he'll put something forward and we can roll with it from there

NSW

 * Meetings in Sydney remain regular. Last Saturday of each month.
 * We tend to get a new person show up every other meeting, so it's gradually building up.
 * Come to meetings if you're in Sydney for rants and alcohol!
 * Not much progress on forming a state branch, because all those likely to form a NSW branch are already busy with the NC.
 * And, to be fair, if you were in NSW with its horrendous registration requirements, you wouldn't be too keen either.
 * (Two paper forms for each of 750 NSW members, so 1500 paper forms in total at minimum and done partly via snail mail correspondence)

ACT

 * Glenn has been thinking about how to revitalise the ACT
 * Starting from this evening he'll be sending out fortnightly updates to ACT email list
 * passing back info from the general meeting and other ACT issues of the fortnight
 * Will organise a meeting for next week sometime and gauge the interest for holding a Congress
 * There isn't a lot of point of coming out of hibernation if no-one is interested in filling TC positions, but monthly meetings and fornightly communications should help resurrect interest

Tas

 * Tas are attempting to do monthly meetings again, the next one will be the second in a row, this thursday at the republic bar at 18:00
 * it's in the calendar
 * Tim finally got around to putting the last meeting minutes on the wiki (https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Minutes/Hobart_Meeting/2014-03-13)
 * the things we mentioned there that we wanted raised with the NC have been mentioned (And will be raised Thursday)
 * Tim has put his hand up for the state coordinatior position, pending approval from the NC
 * There are legislative council elections coming up for Huon and Rosevears
 * some commentary here: http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/2014/03/legislative-council-2014-huon-and.html
 * We're not running anybody, but we should watch to see how it all works
 * Other than that, it's mostly quiet on the southern front

SA

 * Bryn has been a little busy with TAFE, so pretty quite for now.

General Business

 * Reminder for National Congress:
 * We elect people at these things.
 * Nine National Council members, eight State/Territory Coordinators.
 * The Policy Development Officer and one or two members of the Dispute Resolution Committee.
 * While you shouldn't take the responsibility of these positions lightly, I think everyone who wants to contribute actively should consider it.
 * It's great to have the same people contributing, but we do need fresh people in.
 * Especially as a lot of people are becoming busier and can't commit the time needed.
 * For example, Mozart will be vacating two positions in July partly to allow this to happen. And would venture that a few other people are considering taking breaks and would appreciate someone contesting their positions.
 * At the end of the day, someone has to fill it, and it will usually be the incumbent if no one puts their hand up.
 * Nominations will be accepted right up until voting at Congress, so have a think about it :-)
 * There is a Draft charter of responsibilities floating around and should be formalised soon.