Category: Press Release

Press releases

Pirate Party Announces Candidates for WA Senate Election

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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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Planned responses to piracy are “overkill” says Pirate Party

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Pirate Party Australia opposes the push from Attorney-General George Brandis to coerce Internet service providers into becoming copyright police[1]. Threats to take legislative action to institute a graduated response (“three strikes”) regime and website blocking will be ineffective to curb illegal file-sharing of copyrighted material and are an unnecessary, reactionary measure.

“Creating a censorship regime and cutting people off from the Internet are non-solutions which are attempting to solve a problem that does not exist,” said Simon Frew, President of Pirate Party Australia. “Censorship is overkill, and graduated response regimes have been shown to be totally ineffective in practice — last year France dropped its controversial HADOPI scheme, and a recent study by Rebecca Giblin from Monash University’s Faculty of Law indicates that graduated responses are neither successful or effective, and that the future of such schemes should be reconsidered[2]. For the Attorney-General to suggest this as a way forward is absurd and flies in the face of available evidence, as per usual.

“In his opening address at the Australian Digital Alliance Forum this February the Attorney-General cited the Great Gatsby as an example of why we need to protect the Australian film industry from file-sharing[3]. He claimed that piracy is putting content creation at risk. If this were the case, the Great Gatsby would not have made more than double its production budget at the box office alone[4]. The film industry does not appear to be suffering from file-sharing, despite their claims, considering 2013 was the biggest year for box office takings in history, and broke the record which was set only the previous year[5].”

Evidence suggests a large proportion of illegal file-sharing is actually driven by lack of access in markets like Australia, and that it is possible to compete against piracy if you’re willing to adapt your business models[6]. Consumers who cannot access content in a timely, affordable and convenient manner are more likely to turn to piracy as an alternative. Panellists at the Australian Digital Alliance Forum representing Google, Ericsson, and InternetNZ all pointed out that markets with easily accessible content are likely to see a much lower proportion of consumers relying on file-sharing for their content.

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Pirate Party crowdfunds to field candidates in WA Senate campaign

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Pirate Party Australia is using Pozible, a crowdfunding website, to raise $10,000 in order to wage a strong campaign and field candidates in the upcoming WA Senate election[1].

“Crowdfunding is a model that has worked well for us in the past, raising over $1,000 in about one hour to have a freedom of information request fulfilled,” said Simon Frew, President of Pirate Party Australia. “Our election campaigns have been very low-cost so far, and there is plenty of support for us out there. We’re confident we can reach the goal of $10,000 for this campaign.”

The Pirate Party has launched its democratic preselection processes, which will conclude this weekend. All Western Australian members will decide who will be the candidates, and in which order they will appear on the ballot. The Party is also progressing its preference discussions and preparing to continue with its transparent, democratic preference model where the resulting preference order and deals are voted upon and determined by the relevant body of members (in this case, the WA membership).

In light of the Party’s results in the 2013 Federal Election and the Griffith By-Election earlier this month, where the Pirate Party achieved 0.31% (national average across all states and territories) and 1.5% respectively, the Western Australian Senate Election will be the first indication of how much electoral support the Pirate Party has in the state of Western Australia. The election will be even more interesting given rising distrust of opaque and undemocratic preference deals, which the Pirate Party has deliberately avoided.

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Pirate Party Calls for Human Rights to be Respected on Manus Island

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Following the escape of detainees at the Manus Island Detention Facility that resulted in the death of one asylum seeker, Pirate Party Australia supports the call by Amnesty International for an independent investigation into the incident[1]. The Pirate Party also calls on the Government to seek humane alternatives to mandatory detention that encourage the proper treatment of asylum seekers in the region. The situation is of particular concern as there have been reports of Papua New Guinean police and locals attacking the fleeing escapees[2].

The scale of the riots and the magnitude of the breakdown in our handling and processing systems are unprecedented, and a full investigation is warranted. Pirate Party Australia objects to the concentration camp conditions which led to the rioting, and is critical of both the current and previous governments’ approach to asylum seekers.

“People should not die when seeking asylum,” commented Melanie Thomas, Deputy President of Pirate Party Australia. “Regardless of whether they are genuine refugees or not — though almost all asylum seekers are genuine refugees — we should never be in a situation where those in our care are killed. It is simply not good enough that we are subjecting asylum seekers to conditions that could result, and now have resulted, in their deaths.

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Vast majority of Australians reject warrantless surveillance

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Statistics from a recent online poll conducted by Essential Research indicate that 80% of the population is opposed to warrantless access of phone and Internet records by the Government. The poll surveyed 1,017 respondents between 14 and 17 February, and a final report is expected to be released soon. The results come as the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee is conducting a comprehensive revision of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 to address such concerns[1].

Pirate Party Australia holds the view that any surveillance conducted by law enforcement and intelligence agencies must only be carried out when there is enough evidence for the investigators to obtain a warrant. Every use of surveillance is an intrusion of a citizen’s personal privacy and the statistics show the vast majority of Australians believe there must be sufficient evidence that the privacy breach is necessary before surveillance can be undertaken.

“This is a vindication for everyone who is working to put a stop to the warrantless surveillance that has become prevalent over the last few years,” commented Simon Frew, President of Pirate Party Australia. “In the last telecommunications and surveillance annual report there were over 300,000 uses of Australians’ metadata without a warrant[2]. This could amount to about 1 in 70 Australians having their privacy breached with no judicial oversight. This needs to be put to a stop immediately.”

The results show that 71% of Coalition voters oppose warrantless access, suggesting that it is in the Government’s best interests to prohibit warrantless access to communications records to maintain public support. The Pirate Party and other activist organisations have been concerned about the lack of judicial oversight, and Essential Research’s poll suggests that the bulk of Australians are too.

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