Pirate Party Australia’s ACT branch aims to run a candidate in the October election. The Pirate Party requires 100 members who are registered to vote within the ACT before Thursday 28 June midnight on Saturday, 30 June, in order to register the Party within the ACT. However, if they do not achieve the necessary numbers by Thursday, they plan to still field independent candidates.
The Pirate Party stands for individual privacy, and feels that constant surveillance is a violation of the presumption of innocence. The Party believes that only those suspected of criminal activity should be monitored, and only for a limited time.
“While we consider individual privacy to be extremely important, we also push for greater transparency of Government,” said Stuart Biggs, co-ordinator of Pirate Party ACT. “Our representatives need to be accountable, and hiding behind exceptions to the Freedom of Information Act is an inappropriate method of governing.”
The first Pirate Party was formed in Sweden in 2006, and since then over 40 international groups have adopted the “Pirate Party” name.
“By calling ourselves Pirates, we have appropriated the name. If intellectual property lobbyists are allowed to use it in such a misleading manner, branding people who share things they like with that label, then we are more than happy to use it ourselves. If pirates want freedom, then we are Pirates,” Mr Biggs continued. “Pirate Party ACT in no way advocates the illegal duplication and distribution of copyrighted materials. We simply recognise that the copyright mechanism as it stands currently does not work. It doesn’t compensate artists properly and it doesn’t foster creation of original works. Human culture ignores the artificial limitations it tries to set, and it just isn’t enforceable. We want to fix this.”
Pirate Party Australia liken the ACT to Berlin, Germany, where the local Pirate Party there had a major breakthrough, securing 8.9% of the vote and 15 state parliament seats. Like Berlin, the ACT is a comparatively small electorate and uses a proportional representation system, two elements that may have been responsible for the success of the Pirate Party in Berlin.
“We are not expecting to duplicate Berlin, though it would be fantastic if we could. But there are similarities. We feel that there are a high percentage of voters sympathetic to our message and ideals, and are currently unrepresented in ACT politics,” Mr Biggs concluded.
You can sign up as a member of Pirate Party Australia for free at https://join.pirateparty.org.au. By signing up as a member within the ACT you show your support for individual privacy, government transparency, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of association, and have a real chance of seeing these issues represented within the ACT.
Join before Thursday 28th midnight on Saturday, 30 June if you want to vote Pirate in October.