MELBOURNE — At 6:30 pm today, Pirates of all persuasions will descend upon Federation Square to engage in a swashbuckling pillow fight. Money raised by the event, organised by Pirate Party Australia, will go toward the charity Childhood Cancer Support. The charity’s website can be found here: http://ccs.org.au
“Despite perceptions of parrots, swords and eye-patches, when Pirate Party Australia talks like a pirate it usually means discussing copyright and patent reform, and other policy areas,” said Pirate Party Deputy President Melanie Thomas. “While it’s not always fun and games, we are more than happy to have a bit of fun for a good cause!”
By hosting a pillow fight on Talk Like a Pirate Day, Pirate Party Australia is hoping to draw attention to the need to better enable research opportunities in the field of health and pharmaceuticals. The Party is agitating for reform of patent laws to assist medical research across a range of illnesses, including cancer, and enabling cheaper access to medication and treatment. It is an unfortunate effect of drug patents that they shut down free market competition which might otherwise drive improved manufacturing and delivery techniques.
“The granting of a 20 year monopoly on pharmaceuticals inadvertently causes a number of negative effects,” Ms Thomas continued. “A guaranteed monopoly might provide an incentive to research and innovate, but at the same time it greatly reduces the incentive to reasonably price pharmaceuticals, or to research cures and treatments for less lucrative illnesses. Likewise, the incentive to continue developing, or the ability for others to build on previously patented pharmaceuticals, is diminished.”
The savings of replacing brand-name patented drugs on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme with cheaper generic drugs could then be directed towards funding new research in areas considered priorities for the public good. Pirate Party Australia advocates trialling a ‘bounty’ system in which rewards are offered for the development of drugs that meet an identified public need and the resulting treatments would be placed in the public domain, keeping prices down and ensuring people can access the best treatment regardless of their financial situation.
Pirate Party Australia’s patent reform policy can be found here: https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Policies/Patents
Pirate Party Australia recently contested its first federal election running for the Senate in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania and polled over 35,0000 votes nationally[1]. It looks forward to building upon this success and contesting future elections at all levels of government so as to bring further attention to important issues such as pharmaceutical patent reform.
Those interested in participating in the Federation Square pillow fight can find details on the event’s Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1399353590292941/
[1] http://vtr.aec.gov.au/SenateStateFirstPrefsByGroup-17496-NAT.htm