The Pirate Party is distancing itself from the ‘Alliance for Progress’. The Alliance, an informal group consisting of a number of progressive minor parties, was formed to promote collaboration on common interests and the negotiation of preference arrangements between its members. While these were commendable goals, and the Pirate Party values the cooperative ties that were established with other like minded parties, the Party wishes to distance itself in particular from any activities where Alliance for Progress members may be associating with the so-called ‘Minor Party Alliance’ and their ‘preference whisperer’.

The Pirate Party has always maintained that a condition of its involvement in the Alliance was that any negotiations still needed to pass through the standard party-wide membership voting process[1][2]. This will still hold in regard to any How to Vote materials produced by the party in future elections, with preferences based on policy and the desires of the member base. As such, the Pirate Party sees no value in engaging with the Minor Party Alliance.

The Pirate Party plans to continue to run for the Senate in the next Federal election.

[1] https://pirateparty.org.au/2013/08/18/preferencing-statement-for-federal-election-2013/
[2] https://pirateparty.org.au/2015/09/14/canning-by-election-htv-preference-statement/