The election has been called for the 21st of May… and campaign season steps up another level.

As part of Fusion, Pirates will be on the ballot in New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia, with other Fusion candidates running in Victoria too.

How can you help? Well, there’s two key things it takes to fight an election: time and money.

Volunteer for the campaign!

Can you help out on the big day? Can you help out beforehand? Can you write, or design, or script?
Polling places with volunteers get double the number of votes as compared to those without.

Donate to the campaign

It costs $2000 to be on the ballot. Per candidate. We’ve got enough in the bank to pay for nominations, but to run a good campaign beyond that, we need to have shirts, signs, flyers and digital ads. All of this costs money and we’ll need it in a hurry.

Please donate $20 to your local Pirate-Fusion candidate today.

• Brandon Selic – north Queensland
• Roger Whatling – south Queensland
• Adam Woodings – Western Australia
• David Kennedy – South Australia
• John August – NSW (Bennelong)
• Kammy Cordner-Hunt – Victoria

All donations to candidates are tax-deductible.

Last but not least, check your voter enrolment as well!
https://check.aec.gov.au/

Preselection part two!

Hi Pirates,

Since our last round of preselections, we’ve had one more serious EOI. So this Sunday afternoon, we’ll hold one last preselection meeting to find out what our prospective candidate is all about!

Date: Sunday, 3rd April
Time: 3pm AEST (2:30pm ACST; 1pm AWST)
Location: online:  in PirateIRC / Discord and streamed online on YouTube
Voting: A 6 day online voting period will open following the meeting, closing at midnight Perth time, Saturday 9th April.

For more information, refer to the Pirate wiki page.

Kind Regards,

Alex Jago 
Secretary
Pirate Party Australia

Over the weekend of 8th and 9th January 2022, Pirate Party Australia sent a delegation from the Foreign and International Relations Committee (FIRC) to observe the General Assembly of Pirate Parties International (PPI)[1]. With excitement and pride, we observed fourteen member parties convene to hear updates from the Pirate movement around the world and carry out half-board elections[2].

From the report of the chair of PPI, Bailey Lamon (Canada), we heard that the PPI submitted a quadrennial report to the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) outlining the work that the PPI has been doing to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). One of the major areas has been to advocate for expanding internet access to everyone to provide equality of communications and access to information. This follows on from Vice Chair Gregory Engels’s (Germany) statement delivered to the ECOSOC’s Commission for Social Development in January 2020 advocating for increased access to crowdsourcing, apps and internet enabled technology to better address homelessness[3].

The PPI also had a booth at the Internet Governance Forum 2021 in Katowice, Poland from 6th to 10th December where Gregory Engels held a lightning talk on the European Citizen’s Initiative to legalise file sharing in Europe[4]. Vice President of the European Parliament and Czech Pirate Marcel Kolaja also gave a talk on free speech and innovation in social media[5].

And more recently, PPI submitted a statement in preparation for the UN’s Ad Hoc Committee to Elaborate a Comprehensive International Convention on Countering the Use of Information and Communications Technologies for Criminal Purposes to be held on 17th to 28th January 2022. Bailey indicated they would advocate for policy to reduce surveillance and other digital crimes, while empowering individuals with digital tools for privacy[6].

Internally, the PPI accepted the membership of the Pirate Party of Serbia and heard a proposal from Keith Goldstein (Israel) to develop a DAO (decentralised autonomous organisation on the blockchain) to support the PPI’s internal governance. PPI currently accepts Bitcoin donations on the Kraken wallet.

The National Council of Pirate Party Australia endorses the international Pirate movement, and is considering membership status in the PPI. To give your opinion, please reach out to the FIRC chair Jay Stephens via [email protected] or contact the National Council directly via [email protected].

References and further reading

1: https://pp-international.net/2022/01/global-pirates-elected-new-leadership-for-the-coming-two-years/
2: https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=PPIGeneralAssemblyJAN2022
3: https://pp-international.net/2020/01/pirate-statement-on-homelessness-for-the-united-nations/
4: https://pp-international.net/2021/12/ppi-stand-at-the-internet-governance-forum-dec-6-to-10-in-katowice-poland/
5: https://twitter.com/PiratKolaja/status/1469243185834639363
6: https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/cybercrime/adhoccommittee/home

With Julian Assange fighting another appeal for extradition from the UK to face charges in the US for exposing evidence of war crimes, the threat of suppressing free and honest journalism has never been more pertinent.

Since his arrest from the Ecuadorian embassy by UK police in April 2019, he has been held prisoner, mostly in London’s Belmarsh correctional facility.

“This is a blatant attack on free journalism, making a mockery of government responsibility, and thwarting accountability for the actions of elected representatives and military operations acting on our behalf”, said John August, Candidate for New South Wales and Pirate Party Australia Treasurer.

Efforts to extradite and prosecute Assange have so far failed, yet the US persists with appeals to keep Julian incarcerated, while his health continues to deteriorate.

Australian government officials continue to turn a blind eye to his plight. His family and legal representatives have made it clear that little effort has been pursued by Australian leaders toward bringing him home.

“Marise Payne, minister for Foreign Affairs, should release an immediate statement condemning the extradition of Julian Assange to the US”, said David Kennedy, civil liberties spokesperson for Pirate Party Australia.

If elected into government, we will place pressure on major parties who have shown blatant disregard for the health and wellbeing of an Australian citizen, still being held on remand in London pending legal appeals regarding his extradition to the US.

Pirate Party Australia supports free and open journalism, and promotes transparency across the actions of our elected representatives. We will continue to work toward a culture of civil liberty, and government transparency.

With your support, we can pursue a future which protects journalistic integrity, freedom of thought, and open discussion.

In a world leading move, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has again declared his intent to crack down on human rights in Australia, by announcing restrictions to online anonymity¹. Privacy is a fundamental right of free and open democracies, so the Pirate Party has defended privacy in Australia since its inception in 2008. This is despite the fashionable excuse to look tough on socially unacceptable trends, the latest of which is online trolling. But the Prime Minister’s falling polls are simply not a good enough excuse. Privacy is an essential underpinning of human dignity, encompassing the freedom to control your cultural presence, and manage your own identity. A free and trusting society cannot exist without the protection of an individual’s private life.²

“While back benchers set up anonymous profiles to undermine their critics, the Government points the fingers at others doing similar. Of course, it’s fine when the Government does something dodgy – it’s only wrong when others do it,” said Pirate Party justice spokesperson Brandon Selic.

The Pirate Party stands with the approximately 26 million Australians who do not have access to parliamentary privilege and maintain a right to anonymity in the face of so called “SLAPP” lawsuits designed to discourage public criticism of government figures. This is especially notable given Minister for Immigration Peter Dutton’s recent defamation suit against refugee advocate Shane Bazzi.³

Despite vagueness of the announcement, these new powers are likely only to be enacted through civil court cases, meaning it is out of reach for any Australians without the time, energy or financial resources to pursue. Communications experts claim this will not help 99% of victims of trolling in Australia.^4,5 Even advocates for ending online abuse are claiming the measures will be ineffective, such as non-profit Reset Australia.⁶

“The right to criticise governments and elected representatives is a necessary freedom in any democracy. Increasingly restrictive legislation and the threat of legal action have a very chilling effect on free speech by suppressing the opinions of ordinary Australians and concentrating the control of public discourse to a small number of media organisations and online social platforms, ” said Pirate Party civil liberties spokesperson David Kennedy.

So the Pirate Party accepts Scott Morrison’s war against human rights, on behalf of ordinary Australians who understand that to the failing Liberal-National government, “criticism” and “bullying” are indistinguishable. Twitter user @marleyhodgman put it best: “It is, of course, not designed to prevent online bullying. It’s designed to enable offline bullying, by the Duttons of the world.”⁷

References and further reading:

1: https://www.pm.gov.au/media/combatting-online-trolls-and-strengthening-defamation-laws

2: https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Platform#Privacy

3: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-06/peter-dutton-defamation-case-against-refugee-advocate/100517922

4: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/federal-government-social-media-big-tech-crackdown-trolls-defamation-law

5: https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/morrison-s-war-on-trolls-offers-a-tantalising-future-20211129-p59d6i.html

6: https://au.reset.tech/news/troll-hunting-isn-t-solution-to-social-media-s-hate-problem/

7: https://twitter.com/marleyhodgman/status/1465403511810637824