Category: Press Release

Press releases

Pirate Party encourages cultural participation, innovation and dissemination

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Pirate Party Australia offers an alternative to the cultural policies of both major parties and the approach advocated by Liberal Senator George Brandis in the Australian recently. The Party’s policy fosters a participatory cultural environment that promotes greater development and innovation, boosting community programs and outlets while reducing the restrictions copyright law places on our culture.

Contrary to Mr Brandis’ implied support of draconian copyright laws[1], the Pirate Party believes strongly in relaxing copyright to bring it more in line with contemporary needs and expectations. Rapid changes in technology, including affordability and access, have resulted in copyright law from the print era being erroenously applied to contexts where interactions with and uses of copyrighted material have changed.

“If we want people to respect copyright, we must have respectable copyright law,” said Brendan Molloy, Senate Candidate for NSW. “References made to the current state of copyright law by Senator Brandis are troubling in that legal restrictions that prevent artists building on previous works threaten the sustainable development of culture. When we lock culture up for nearly two centuries, we severely limit the ability for works to be reused in new contexts.”

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Pirate Party preferences announced

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Yesterday the Australia Electoral Commission published group voting tickets (GVT) for this year’s Senate election, indicating where parties have decided their preferences should flow. Pirate Party Australia is proud to announce that it has successfully completed this important stage of the election process.

In keeping with the Pirate Party’s committment to transparency and participatory democracy, this election the Pirate Party pioneered a form of preferencing unprecedented in Australian politics[1].

“Our approach had three phases. First, all parties were invited to provide our members with a message explaining why we should preference them. These were published publicly. Second, all members were asked to rank the parties according to how they should be preferenced. Finally, our members were asked whether any deals offered by other parties were acceptable,” said Simon Frew, President of Pirate Party Australia. “This made our preferences entirely democratic and transparent. Pirate Party Australia stands in a class of its own in this regard.”

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Pirate Party tackles Australia’s energy crisis

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Pirate Party Australia is pleased to announce its signature infrastructure project — a renewable energy rollout that aims to provide Australia with 100% reliance on renewable energy within 10 years[1].

The time when renewable energy was unaffordable, impractical, or technologically unachievable has passed. Renewable energy has evolved remarkably in the last few years. Technology has improved and become vastly cheaper, and credible organisations have produced costed, modeled and technologically sound blueprints for a full transition to renewable energy.

Australia’s leading renewable energy think tank, Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE), has developed a clean energy plan which features deployment of concentrated solar power (CSP) facilities supplemented with wind and biomass sources. CSP is already in use in Spain and the United States, and Australia is in a uniquely strong position to transition to solar energy due to its size and natural advantages.

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Pirate Party offers modern, transparent taxation plan

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Pirate Party Australia is pleased to announce the release of its tax policy.

Principles of transparency and accountability apply not just to government spending, but also government revenue, and the Pirate Party has long been frustrated that the present tax system is such a hindrance to this transparency. The current mass of complex and hidden taxes costs our nation vast amounts of time every day and effectively prevents all of us from knowing how much tax we really pay. Absurdly, over two thirds of taxpayers in Australia now have to file tax returns through a tax agent due to the complexity of our laws[1].

The Henry Review provides a powerful blueprint for improving transparency and sweeping hidden, inefficient taxes out of our system, and the Pirate Party has incorporated many of the key recommendations into its plan.

“Under our system the burden of tax will shift from savings, work, and innovation, and towards consumption. Over 90% of Australians will pay less than 30% in income tax under the Pirate Party’s plan. By raising the tax-free threshold to float at a level equivalent to the poverty line, we will remove much of the current tax-welfare churn and free low-income earners permanently from the burdens of income tax, and from the stress and costs of filing a tax return,” said Qld Senate candidate Melanie Thomas. “Under these reforms, income support and supplementary payments such as family assistance would be tax-exempt, allowing struggling families an opportunity to really get ahead”.

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Pirate Party slams Attorney-General for whistleblower comments

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Pirate Party Australia is stunned by the Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, who in a speech to the Security Government conference in Canberra claimed that Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning did not release information related to government ‘wrongdoing.’ The Attorney-General stated that neither are whistleblowers for this reason[1].

“The Attorney-General appears to have forgotten that the ‘Collateral Murder’ video released by Manning clearly shows US pilots firing on civilians in Iraq[2],” said Brendan Molloy, lead Senate candidate in NSW. “What exactly does Mr Dreyfus mean when he says ‘government wrongdoing’? The US President is, as head of government, commander-in-chief of the United States military — is killing civilians not an act of government wrongdoing?”

“Surely covering up mistakes is not the mark of a transparent and competent government that shows respect for the electorate? The secret surveillance programs undertaken by the US National Security Agency do not foster trust between the state and the citizen, and undermines the very fabric of modern democracy.”

The Party believes that while a certain amount of surveillance is necessary, it should have judicial oversight in the form of a warrant, and should only be targeted at those in the warrant. There is nothing wrong with limited telecommunications interception powers being exercised in this manner, but the Australian Government’s approach has been dubious at best.

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