Election Day 2019

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Election day. A time to reflect on what business as usual has delivered for Australia over the last 20 years:

  • More than sixty bills attacking civil liberties
  • Rising inequality and stagnant wages
  • Unaffordable housing
  • Record mass extinctions across our continent
  • Water pillage and gross corruption
  • Bungled wars of choice that never end

It doesn’t have to go on like that.

Today we can take a stand for freedom and civil liberties, a bill of rights, a shift of power back to communities, a basic income and better treatment for our poorest, proper environmental stewardship, action on climate change, transparency in government, a freer public domain and culture, decent digital age infrastructure, a national science plan, serious economic reform and a solution to parasitic rentierism, stronger animal welfare protections, an end to the war on drugs, and decent treatment for asylum seekers.

Vote for policies with actual citations. Vote to do things differently.

#votepirate

Our top 6 preference recommendations for all four states we’re contesting today.

Hope and Solidarity with Christchurch

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The vicious attacks on the Al Noor and Linwood Mosques in Christchurch yesterday are wholeheartedly condemned by Pirate Party Australia. We send our heartfelt condolences to the victims and their families, and to the Muslim communities of Australia and New Zealand. This atrocity will not go unanswered and the Pirate Party will continue to fight to remove far right extremists like Fraser Anning and Pauline Hanson from our Parliament.

The comments made by Fraser Anning shortly after the act of terror, shifting the blame to a fantasy view of an “increasing Muslim presence” and claiming that Islam is a “Violent Ideology” are utterly condemned by the Pirate Party. The racist and insidious comments of politicians like Anning and Hanson must be held to account. We must not elect such people into government in Australia’s future, as they will never represent Australians as a whole and multicultural nation.

Pirate Party Australia includes people from many different beliefs and backgrounds and it is our hope that this is what makes us stronger as a nation and to help support the people we represent. Today, our Muslim New Zealand cousins deserve that same support, love and respect.

It is our job as a nation to call out racism, hatred and bigotry wherever it festers and to bring it into the light so that it does not survive. Our politicians must lead from the front. Hatred trickles down, and yesterday we saw the consequences.

We strongly support the actions of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her immediate call to change gun laws in New Zealand.

With love and respect,

Sara Joyce
Senate Candidate (NSW)
on behalf of Pirate Party Australia

Standardised vehicle modification legislation will make for a fairer Australia

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Pirate Party Australia endorses 4WD Queensland’s push for harmonisation of motor vehicle modification throughout Australia.

The Pirate Party has long had the view that Government and its regulations should enable the community, rather than limit them. We are particularly concerned about the growth of needless and contradictory laws and regulations, something that grows all too readily as both political parties lazily ignore festering problems while aggressively pursuing issues on their respective ideological agendas.

We see the conflict over vehicle modification as a prime example, one which the 4WD Club of Queensland has drawn attention to, harnessing the support of motoring groups all over Australia.

Individuals who are enthusiastic about cars should have the freedom to modify their vehicles so long as they take personal responsibility and do not put others at risk. However, the inconsistent regulations between different states cannot be seen to manage this tension, rather just implement needless layers of contradiction. We therefore endorse the requests of 4WD Queensland:

  • Amend the federal Motor Vehicle Standards Act to allow “Mutual Recognition” of all individual state engineering, approved certifiers and certification schemes, to be recognised and accepted by all state registration authorities;
  • Establish a National Vehicle Modification and Certification Program for in-service registered passenger vehicles as recommended, to be implemented federally and in parallel with ADRs; and
  • Ensure industry and community engagement is a key basis for the Vehicle Modification Framework.

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The security state makes Australia insecure

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Australians have witnessed a shocking erosion in their civil liberties over the last 17 years. The Labor and Liberal parties, working together, have imposed additional restrictions on civil liberties every year since 2001. These have included:

  • Internet censorship and web blocking, with the list of websites rapidly expanding.
  • Criminal penalties for investigative journalists who view documents which government agencies wish to conceal.
  • Laws forcing ISPs to collect metadata for warrantless access by authorities. After promising tight controls, the law has created an open slather, with Australians’ internet histories now being trawled more than 1,000 times a day by dozens of agencies not mentioned in the original law[1].
  • New powers to monitor private communications, retrospective warrants, higher penalties for whistleblowing, extra powers to cover up scandals such as the East Timor bugging, and many more besides.

One of the worst of these laws came along at the end of 2018, when the major parties colluded to rush through the new Assistance and Access Bill.

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Pirate Party Australia is shocked and puzzled that the recent site blocking bill has been passed by all Australian major parties

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Earlier this week, the Copyright Amendment Act 2018 passed both houses of Parliament with members from the Liberals, Nationals, Labor and Greens all speaking out in support. Despite attempts by lobby groups to push the bill through without consultation, a two week period was given for the public to offer submissions. Pirate Party Australia joined with Electronic Frontiers Australia, Australian Digital Alliance, Google, Internet Association of Australia, Digital Industry Group, Communications Alliance and Dr. Matthew Rimmer to criticise this bill. Together we represented a wide cross-section of tech sector and civil society bodies.

We raised multiple critical concerns with the bill, including an expansionary terminology and critical lack of judicial oversight, which will lead to insidious degrees of government-endorsed censorship in Australia by private corporations. Our previous press release covering this amendment can be found here[1] and the full text of our inquiry submission here[2].

We are particularly disappointed by the position taken by the Federal Greens who, while criticising the site blocking provisions, joined with elected members of the Australian Labor Party and Coalition to support passage of the bill. We have consistently endorsed the position of former Greens Senator Scott Ludlam with his support for fair use copyright reform and in opposing creeping surveillance. We hope his resignation does not represent a reversal of the Green’s pro-technology policies.

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