Pirate Party Australia comments on bushfires, climate, and misinformation

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This was not the way to welcome the new year…

The bushfire crisis has put a spotlight on how the Coalition Government has tried to portray their diversionary heel-dragging as strategic action. It has exposed their hypocrisies in foreign and domestic policy, and shown how barren and self-serving their whole approach to governance has been and continues to be.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison previously waved around a lump of coal in Parliament, and former Coalition Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull lost the leadership when an anti-climate-change faction within the Liberal Party flexed its muscles.

Longstanding advice from the CSIRO has been ignored. [1] Ross Garnaut’s report has been ignored. [2] Recent attempts at communication by retired fire chiefs warning of the danger were also ignored. [3] Yet Prime Minister Morrison did find the time to talk to about 20 people in order to develop his religious freedom bill.

It all speaks to a Federal Government which has no credibility in engaging with the very real threats to Australia.

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Pirate Party Australia is amazed and disappointed at recent events concerning publisher Julian Assange

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“Since his arrest and imprisonment by UK authorities, we have seen the US Government take the draconian action of compiling charges which would result in the imprisonment of Assange for 175 years [1], an assessment by a UN body seeing Assange as the victim of concerted abuse involving 4 democratic nation states over numerous years [2], and a misleading statement being issued by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) over accusations of its failure to protect a citizen [3]”, said John August, Deputy President of Pirate Party Australia.

Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Professor of International Law, University of Glasgow, speaks to the effect that Julian Assange’s situation has had on his mental health, with his comments that “in addition to physical ailments, Mr. Assange showed all symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture, including extreme stress, chronic anxiety and intense psychological trauma.” He further comments that: “In the course of the past nine years, Mr. Assange has been exposed to persistent, progressively severe abuse ranging from systematic judicial persecution and arbitrary confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy, to his oppressive isolation, harassment and surveillance inside the embassy, and from deliberate collective ridicule, insults and humiliation, to open instigation of violence and even repeated calls for his assassination.” [2]

Along with two medical specialists, Professor Melzer visited Mr. Assange in Belmarsh high security prison in early May, concluding: “The evidence is overwhelming and clear. Mr. Assange has been deliberately exposed, for a period of several years, to progressively severe forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the cumulative effects of which can only be described as psychological torture.” Further, he comments: “I fear if that pressure is not alleviated soon it might escalate in terms of the psychological consequences – and I think that’s what we’re now seeing.” Commenting on Australian assistance for Assange, Mr. Melzer said: “Australia is a glaring absence in this case. They’re just not around, as if Assange was not an Australian citizen. That is not the correct way of dealing with that.” [4]

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Election Day 2019

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Election day. A time to reflect on what business as usual has delivered for Australia over the last 20 years:

  • More than sixty bills attacking civil liberties
  • Rising inequality and stagnant wages
  • Unaffordable housing
  • Record mass extinctions across our continent
  • Water pillage and gross corruption
  • Bungled wars of choice that never end

It doesn’t have to go on like that.

Today we can take a stand for freedom and civil liberties, a bill of rights, a shift of power back to communities, a basic income and better treatment for our poorest, proper environmental stewardship, action on climate change, transparency in government, a freer public domain and culture, decent digital age infrastructure, a national science plan, serious economic reform and a solution to parasitic rentierism, stronger animal welfare protections, an end to the war on drugs, and decent treatment for asylum seekers.

Vote for policies with actual citations. Vote to do things differently.

#votepirate

Our top 6 preference recommendations for all four states we’re contesting today.

Hope and Solidarity with Christchurch

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The vicious attacks on the Al Noor and Linwood Mosques in Christchurch yesterday are wholeheartedly condemned by Pirate Party Australia. We send our heartfelt condolences to the victims and their families, and to the Muslim communities of Australia and New Zealand. This atrocity will not go unanswered and the Pirate Party will continue to fight to remove far right extremists like Fraser Anning and Pauline Hanson from our Parliament.

The comments made by Fraser Anning shortly after the act of terror, shifting the blame to a fantasy view of an “increasing Muslim presence” and claiming that Islam is a “Violent Ideology” are utterly condemned by the Pirate Party. The racist and insidious comments of politicians like Anning and Hanson must be held to account. We must not elect such people into government in Australia’s future, as they will never represent Australians as a whole and multicultural nation.

Pirate Party Australia includes people from many different beliefs and backgrounds and it is our hope that this is what makes us stronger as a nation and to help support the people we represent. Today, our Muslim New Zealand cousins deserve that same support, love and respect.

It is our job as a nation to call out racism, hatred and bigotry wherever it festers and to bring it into the light so that it does not survive. Our politicians must lead from the front. Hatred trickles down, and yesterday we saw the consequences.

We strongly support the actions of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her immediate call to change gun laws in New Zealand.

With love and respect,

Sara Joyce
Senate Candidate (NSW)
on behalf of Pirate Party Australia

 

 

Standardised vehicle modification legislation will make for a fairer Australia

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Pirate Party Australia endorses 4WD Queensland’s push for harmonisation of motor vehicle modification throughout Australia.

The Pirate Party has long had the view that Government and its regulations should enable the community, rather than limit them. We are particularly concerned about the growth of needless and contradictory laws and regulations, something that grows all too readily as both political parties lazily ignore festering problems while aggressively pursuing issues on their respective ideological agendas.

We see the conflict over vehicle modification as a prime example, one which the 4WD Club of Queensland has drawn attention to, harnessing the support of motoring groups all over Australia.

Individuals who are enthusiastic about cars should have the freedom to modify their vehicles so long as they take personal responsibility and do not put others at risk. However, the inconsistent regulations between different states cannot be seen to manage this tension, rather just implement needless layers of contradiction. We therefore endorse the requests of 4WD Queensland:

  • Amend the federal Motor Vehicle Standards Act to allow “Mutual Recognition” of all individual state engineering, approved certifiers and certification schemes, to be recognised and accepted by all state registration authorities;
  • Establish a National Vehicle Modification and Certification Program for in-service registered passenger vehicles as recommended, to be implemented federally and in parallel with ADRs; and
  • Ensure industry and community engagement is a key basis for the Vehicle Modification Framework.

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