Category: Party News

General news relating to Pirate Party Australia

Changing the game for Australia’s small parties and community groups

Posted on

For several months now, the Pirate Party has been working with ThoughtWorks to develop a digital tool that could change the game for small political parties and community groups in Australia.

“It is hard to run a community group or a political party in this country”, said Thomas Randle, Councillor for Pirate Party Australia. “Anyone in the community group space will know how punishing the red tape has become, and how many different pieces of software are needed to protect membership lists and deal with the administration”.

Not any more though: the Pirate Party intends to launch a new, specialised membership management tool customised for the needs of Australia’s struggling small parties and community groups. This new software not only protects membership data to the highest standard, it also allows a party to easily meet AEC audit requirements. It contains tailored software designed to simplify administration and financial management. It also has mechanisms to manage member communication. It is an all-in-one party management tool which replaces a whole mass of disconnected software programs and also adds a range of new functions which parties and groups need. This powerful software should free up significant resources and time so that community groups and small parties can focus on their important work.

“The best news is, this software will be totally free”, said Mr Randle. “In line with the Pirate Party’s ethos, we are sharing this product as open source freeware, and encouraging anyone interested to get involved in improving and updating it”.

The Pirate Party has started a fundraising drive to help us meet the costs of bringing this project to completion. We are appealing to anyone who wants to make a difference to chip in and help to make this happen.

“A donation to this project won’t be consumed and used up—our goal here is to permanently lift the tide under every community group and small party in Australia”, he noted.

To help and for more information, please check out the campaign page here: http://www.pozible.com/memberdb

Pirate Party distances itself from Alliance for Progress

Posted on

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’.

Read More

Party Update: Jan 2016

Posted on

Ahoy

Pirate Party Australia has held our first strategy meeting last Wednesday the 13th of January. It was a successful meeting and we aim to hold another strategy meeting on Wednesday February 10 to discuss fund raising and anything else that people think we need to discuss.

We had a good discussion about our relations with other minor Parties and have a better idea what we should do going forward. We also discussed how to set up State branches, with the long term aim of participating in State elections. I will go into further detail below.
Here are the minutes from the strategy meeting: https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Minutes/Strategy_Meeting/2016-01-13

State Election Committees

To get the organisational experience to form State branches we have decided to form State based election committees. The aim is to get potential candidates and anyone else keen to help out working towards the Federal Election this year. It will involve fund raising, campaigning to spread the word about our general awesomeness and getting materials ready for the Federal Election. After the election we plan to use the State Election Committees as the basis of emergent State Councils.
The draft terms of reference for State Election Committees is here: https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/State_and_Territory_Election_Committee

If you would like to participate in these Committees and maybe enter the election as a Pirate Party candidate please email the National Council as soon as possible at: [email protected]

Membership Database System

Late last year we put out a tender for a new membership database system. The winning submission was from ThoughtWorks, who are providing a massive discount due to their belief in what we are trying to build. The initial cost will be $10,500 (including Pozible fees) with a stretch goal of $21,000 for a membership database system with all of the trimmings. The completed system will be open source and useful to political Parties and non-government organisations well beyond our own Party.

We have approached the Alliance for Progress and plan to speak with NGOs and other minor parties to help raise the funds. We are also launching a Pozible campaign to assist in raising the money and we will need your help to contribute directly and to help spread the word on social media. We will link to the campaign in the next member mailout.

CS:GO

We held the Counter Strike: Global Offensive Tournament against r/CircleJerkAus last Sunday night. Sadly we were defeated, but we helped raise $609 for the Fred Hollows Foundation and had a good time. We’d like to thank everyone who donated and participated. Despite not winning the funds, it also resulted in some good publicity for the party. You can find links to more information about the tournament and the video replay in our discussion forums.

Treasurers Report

We’ve wrapped up an interesting year on the financial front – with highlights including an epic battle with paypal and a post-election submission to the AEC.
Read all about it here: https://pirateparty.org.au/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/Financial_report_Congress_2015_Final.pdf.
This report is later than usual – we have changed to a Xero accounting system and things should faster and easier in the long run. (This report is an updated version of the interim report submitted at congress)

Now we’re gearing up for another intense year, with an election to contest and lot of funds to raise. Big thanks to every past and future donor!

This announcement has also been posted in our discuss forum here:
https://discuss.pirateparty.org.au/t/party-update-jan-2016-pirate-party-australia/650
If you wish to discuss this announcement, please feel free to do so there.

Strategy Meeting Update: January 2016

Posted on

Happy New Year!

As proposed in the monthly update for December, we are holding a strategy meeting this coming Wednesday, January 13 at 8:30pm AEDT in IRC:
https://pirateparty.org.au/irc/

There are two proposed topics, relations with other Parties and the formation of State branches.

I have written posts on Discuss to give some background and inform debate. They are here:

Relations with smaller Parties:

State Branches:

Please come along and share your thoughts or add them to Discuss, particularly if you can’t make it.

In other current news for the party:

Work is now well underway on our membership management software system, expect more news about that in the near future.

We also have the Counterstrike Global Offensive Fundraiser this Sunday, against r/CirclejerkAus. There is over $600 in the kitty and if we win it will help fund our next election.
If you are an ok CS:GO player and wish to raise your hand to join the pirate team, there is still time.
There is more info here: https://discuss.pirateparty.org.au/t/counter-strike-global-offensive-fundraiser/619

There has been some media attention of the event here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs9w-GxWcQM and “Posty” from r/CirclejerkAus has made a hype video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJjLYQnWiWM

To ensure you stay up to date with future monthly updates and other announcements, please make sure you subscribe to the Party Announcement mailing list here: http://lists.pirateparty.org.au/

Kind Regards,

—

Simon Frew
President
Pirate Party Australia