Pirate Party Australia is pleased to announce that its application for registration as a federal political party passed all tests by the Australian Electoral Commission and is now on the register of political parties[1].
The Party quietly submitted its application in late 2012, and objections to the Party’s registration closed on the 14th of January this year.
“Organising and validating a membership database to then submit to the AEC for the purposes of registration is a daunting task. Fortunately, we had a team of volunteers who were prepared to spend many weekends ensuring that the list we sent to the AEC was entirely valid, and I thank them for their effort,” said Brendan Molloy, Secretary of Pirate Party Australia.
The Party will now turn its attention towards developing policies and the pre-selection of candidates for the upcoming federal election.
“With this milestone reached, refinement of our policies will become the focus of our development teams leading up to pre-selection of our candidates later this year.” said David W. Campbell, President of Pirate Party Australia.
The Party thanks all those involved in the process leading to registration, particularly those who spent vast amounts of time ensuring member details were up to date.
“More than ever before there is a necessity in Australia for a Party that holds empowerment, participation, free culture and openness as its central tenets. A Party that understands the modern emerging information society and the imperative for political transparency that ensures meaningful engagement.” said Rodney Serkowski, the Party’s founder.
“A Party that respects fundamental rights and freedoms. As the Prime Minister condemns whistleblowers and publishers without trial, the spectre of data retention looms, policy is laundered and Australia’s interests are sidelined by faceless diplomats and bureaucrats through ill-considered trade pacts there has never been more reason to put pirates in parliament” he concluded.
“On this momentous occasion, I would like to thank all of those who have supported us through the long-running registration process: our members, our families and supporters from around the world,” said Molloy.
“Of course, the work doesn’t stop here. The Pirate Party will be fielding candidates in the upcoming election, so we need your support. Join, donate, and vote Pirate!”
Congratulations everyone! Bring on the election.
Congrats
Hope you guys don’t shun away minorities , like the Shooters Party and de Greens at one stage , did . If you play your cards right , fair winds all the way to Canberra…
I’ll be voting pirate.
Great news. 😀
This is great! Looking forward to being able to cast a meaningful vote 🙂
Looks promising. Will you be fielding candidates in both houses?
aaaaaargh, tsk goodly news indeed
Congratulations Pirate Party.
I’ll be voting for you now. Sick of labor and liberal party.
Again, Congratulations. Thank you for all who made this happen.
As far as I know the main plan is to concentrate on the Senate. (Not that that rules out candidates for lower house also, but if any it’d be a couple seats here and there. For future elections that could change of course, but for now I believe the Senate is the target.)
Arghhh, me Parties, welcome aboard the bad ship politics, where self interest rules the waves and big business and noisy minorities rule self interest.
This is great news. Pirate Party Australia has my vote when the Federal Election rolls around.
Does anyone here know what parties the Pirate Party will be preferencing for their above-the-line senate votes?
I’m sure I wouldn’t be the only one interested to see this.
I’m a Liberal Party member but want to see more sensible policy out of my own party. I’ll be voting Pirate if my party does not take a sensible stance on IP and internet freedom.
Congratulations. I also dislike how big-business media cartels and the parties that support them have highjacked the copyright laws to use them as a weapon against the citizens and stifle scientific investigation and social development and choke the freedoms of the individual we used to enjoy.
But I want more than this one subject: I’d like to know what your policy on the National Broadband Network will be. If it’s in favour of the full implementation of the existing Labor plan I may vote for you; if you’re neutral or will support the coalition’s opposition to the NBN, well, that’s not too good.
Looks like they do support the NBN 🙂
http://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Platform#Support_for_Fibre-to-the-Premises_Infrastructure_Projects
It’s a bit too late to back out on the NBN. I don’t think PPAU would do that.
I think I may actually vote this time around.
looks good? has to be better than what’s out there?
Amazing news, good luck from the Netherlands.