Press Release

Joint statement by international Pirate movement on Putin’s aggression against Ukraine

Posted on February 28, 2022

Early on Saturday morning, Pirate Parties International issued the following statement:

“The Pirates of Europe and the world strongly condemn the actions taken by Vladimir Putin. It’s with deep sorrow that we watch the events in Ukraine unfold, and our thoughts are with the people of Ukraine, those suffering the consequences of this conflict, and those opposing the war inside of Russia. We hope for a swift and peaceful resolution to this conflict, and for the immediate end of all hostilities in the region.”[1]

Pirate Party Australia endorses this statement, and repeats the call for the Australian government to add to the international sanctions against Russia in any way possible, blocking their access to Australian markets.

Remembering Aaron Swartz

Posted on November 8, 2021

The Pirate Party commemorates the memory of Aaron Swartz: hacker, activist, and Internet freedom fighter.

Today we commemorate the birth of Internet freedom fighter Aaron Swartz in Brooklyn, New York City on November 8th 1986. As co-founder of Reddit and contributor to the RSS1.0 web specification, he was immersed in computers, technology and internet culture from a young age. But It was his download of hundreds of thousands of academic journal entries in 2010 that became his greatest act of self sacrifice. For the crime of legally accessing journal articles through his JSTOR account granted by Harvard, he was punished with $1 million dollars in fines and a 35 year jail sentence that was never carried out after he died of suicide on January 11th 2013.[1][2] His fight for freedom of access to scientific knowledge is carried on by Alexandra Elbakyan, the founder of https://scihub.org/ [3]

Pursuing online safety, or undermining digital rights?

Posted on October 3, 2021

As part of its latest assault on the right of Australian Citizens to privately access a free and open Internet, the Online Safety Bill 2021 was recently passed by both houses of government.

This lengthy Bill grants extraordinarily broad powers to a so-called “E-Safety Commissioner”, with no statutory limits, in a short-sighted attempt to improve the safety of Australians online. Their rulings are not subject to appeal, and purport to extend across the entire world, regardless of jurisdiction or international borders. They grant the Commissioner near-unlimited power to censor the Internet, and compel assistance from all individuals, internet service providers, hosting services, social media platforms and communications services to facilitate investigations, without any regard for the security of these services or the privacy rights of individuals.

To make matters worse, the Bill is in no way limited to the more laudable objectives of preventing distribution of material that is harmful in its creation or violates users’ privacy (such as child pornography or non-consensual sharing of private intimate video), and instead seeks to apply sweeping restrictions to the entire internet. The Commissioner is empowered to censor or restrict access to any kind of adult content, prevent ordinary people from sharing videos of violent confrontations, intervene in online verbal disputes between school children or Australian adults, construct mandatory industry standards without parliamentary oversight, and indeed “do anything incidental to or conducive to” any of their other goals… all at their sole discretion.

While child pornography and similarly abhorrent material have no place in civilised society, these matters should be handled by Police under judicial oversight and limitation, not by an unaccountable and despotic government-appointed bureaucrat. These laws do not create a “safe” internet for anybody but the government. They harm activists, they harm whistleblowers, they harm sex workers, they harm civilian journalists, they harm free speech, they harm privacy, they harm security, and they harm every single Australian who uses the internet. But for Labour, the Coalition, and the new E-Safety Commissioner, it seems the ends truly do justify the means.

Surveillance Legislation Amendment is the latest in abuse of due process

Posted on September 1, 2021

“This latest bill has bypassed recommendations about oversight, and also stands in the Dark Shadow of past Government abuse. While they talk about the ‘Dark Web’, it’s amazing how ‘Dark’ they themselves have become.” says Pirate Party Australia Treasurer, John August.

The legislation creates “Disruption Warrants” which can be authorised by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, under control of the Attorney General – a ministerial position. Our politicians have just granted themselves the power to hack, change or delete data on any computer or network they like. This sidesteps independent court authorisation, which is supposed to prevent corruption and targeting of political opponents.

“Most recently, the NSW Government’s Fixated Persons Unit, originally founded to prevent terrorism, was used by Deputy Premier John Barilaro as part of a personal political vendetta against public figure ‘Friendly Jordies’. On the one hand it’s NSW not Federal legislation. On the other, it all fits together in an all too familiar pattern, of which this legislation is but one more part”.

Pirate Party Australia vows to repeal the law if elected, and supports any movement to do so.

A petition to repeal the Identify and Disrupt Bill is here: https://me.getup.org.au/petitions/repeal-the-identify-and-disrupt-bill-2021

Pirate Party pans the Coalition’s “Party Pooper” bill

Posted on August 23, 2021

Pirate Party Australia has signed an open letter [1] with other parties, opposing the Coalition’s Party Registration Integrity Bill. The bill introduces new restrictions around party names and triples the registration threshold to 1500 members.

“This Bill is a blatantly anti-competitive attempt to wipe smaller parties off the ballot paper,” said Alex Jago, Secretary of Pirate Party Australia. “Firstly, there’s the name-squatting. The Liberals are full of conservatives, and the Nationals only try to represent about a quarter of the population. If they can’t live up to their own names, then they shouldn’t complain and change the rules shortly before the election.”

The registration threshold change also has other implications than just ballot access.

“The membership threshold increase is directly aimed at cutting down the ballot, but it does so indirectly and with unfortunate side effects,” Mr Jago continued. “Party registration is about more things than ballot access; there’s financial disclosure implications too. A high threshold harms transparency.”