Category: Elections

Pirate Party Australia is pleased to announce that its Western Australian members have voted to preselect former WA Senate candidate Michelle Allen as its candidate for the Canning by-election.

Michelle Allen has lived around the Canning electorate for most of her life. Michelle is currently working as a Software Development Manager for a Perth based company where she has over a decade of experience in all areas of Information Technology. She has a long history of advocating for equality, human rights and copyright reform in Australia. Michelle believes all Australians should be treated equally, regardless of race, gender, sexuality, social status or belief, and has campaigned to ensure that everyone in Australia is given a fair go.

“This is a chance for us to show both the current government, and the so-called opposition, how unhappy we are with their constant efforts to quash our digital liberties and basic human rights,” said Canning candidate Michelle Allen, “We will show them we won’t stand by while they simply kowtow to the interests of their corporate donors while pushing policies that benefit their mates or appeal to fear rather than the well considered evidence based policies that the country needs to progress.”

This is the Pirate Party’s second run in a House of Representatives seat. Melanie Thomas came 4th in a field of 11 candidates in the 2014 Griffith by-election. Pirate Party Australia also ran candidates for the Senate in a number of states in the 2013 Federal election, as well as in the 2014 WA special Senate election. Co-incidentally, the date of the Canning by-election is the same day as “Talk Like a Pirate Day” which Pirate Party Australia hopes will be another reason for voters to “Vote like a Pirate”.

“While we know that this is quite a different situation to Griffith, we hope that when voters see our evidence based, common sense policies they will consider supporting the Pirate Party. In my experience, once people see what we stand for, and see that we are serious about becoming a viable political alternative to the major parties, neither of which represent the interests of the average Australian, voting Pirate just makes sense,” continued Michelle.

While the Pirate Party was founded with a focus on digital rights, civil liberties, privacy and copyright reform, the party has since expanded its policy set to a wide array of science based, evidence driven policies in areas that concern many Australians. These policies include, but are not limited to, support for marriage equality, better education outcomes and support for science, a sensible and humane approach to asylum seekers, drug law reforms, comprehensive support for renewable energy, and a comprehensive tax reform & welfare policy that both massively simplifies the tax system but maintains fairness and progressiveness. The full Pirate Party policy platform can be found at https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Platform.

Pirate Party Australia is a federally registered political party founded in late 2008, and contested its first Federal Election in 2013. Pirate Party Australia is part of a worldwide movement that began in Sweden in 2006, and has since spread to more than 40 different countries. Pirate Parties have been elected to all levels government — local, state, national and supranational — with 44 state seats in Germany, three seats in the Icelandic Parliament, and a member of the European Parliament.

Candidate Page: https://pirateparty.org.au/candidates/

Yesterday Pirate Party Australia met its campaign funding target of $10,000 entirely through crowdfunding, in preparation for the WA Senate election on 5 April.

Following the announcement that fresh elections would be taking place, the Pirate Party launched the fundraiser using Pozible, a crowdfunding website similar to Kickstarter, and has reached the $10,000 goal in just under two weeks. Supporters of the Pirate Party are still able to contribute to the fundraiser via Pozible, and all money will go directly towards purchasing campaign materials for the election.

“This is a fantastic show of support for Pirate Party Australia,” said Fletcher Boyd, lead candidate for the Senate in WA. “We are very thankful to our supporters for providing us with the funds to seriously give this election a go. Despite lacking wealthy sponsors, celebrity candidates, or a massive membership base, we have an enormous amount of grassroots enthusiasm as demonstrated by how quickly we were able to reach our goal.”

The Pirate Party would like to thank all those who contributed, especially those who contributed more than $250 to the campaign — Mitchell Carr, Adam Thomas, Matthew Schmidt, Dennis Au, Georg Sinn and Mark Walkom.

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Pirate Party Australia is pleased to announce that it will contest the Western Australian Senate Election on 5 April, 2014, and has completed preselection of its candidates. Western Australian members of the Pirate Party voted to field Fletcher Boyd and Michelle Allen, in that order.

“2014 is the year Western Australia can take a stand,” said Fletcher Boyd, lead candidate for Pirate Party Australia. “This election offers our state the opportunity to say ‘no’ to the human rights violations being committed in our name. To say ‘no’ to reactionary legislation designed to placate, and not to solve. To vote instead for policies based on scientific evidence, dedication to transparency, and protection of human rights.”

“Pirate Party Australia offers Western Australians a chance to take this stand. As a candidate I will uphold the Pirate Party’s beliefs in equality and freedom, beliefs the majority of our politicians do not seem to share.”

The Pirate Party’s policies cover a broad range of issues. Apart from the Party’s core policies of intellectual property reform, protection of personal privacy, increased governmental transparency, and opposition to censorship, the Party has developed policies on asylum seekers and refugees, energy, the environment, welfare, taxation and foreign affairs[1]. Pirate Party Australia supports a fibre-to-the-premises broadband network[2] and the introduction of an Australian Bill of Rights[3].

The Party is yet to decide its preference allocations, but will be using the same democratic process it pioneered at the Federal Election in September 2013[4]. In accordance with this process, all members from Western Australia will vote to determine the order in which the Pirate Party’s preference are to be distributed. This will include any preference swapping arrangements proposed by other parties.

In order to raise funds to contest this election, including the $2,000 nomination deposits required for each candidate, the Pirate Party has turned to crowdfunding for its election campaign. More than $7,000 of the $10,000 target has been met in just over a week[5].

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