Initial Preference Ballot for 2016 Federal Election concluded

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Pirate Party Australia has completed its initial member ballot for our preference orders for the 2016 federal election.

These results will inform the parties and voting order we suggest on our How to Vote materials and will influence any possible deals made with other parties.

In keeping with the Pirate Party’s commitment to transparency and participatory democracy, last election the Party pioneered a form of preferencing unprecedented in Australian politics. We have continued to use that process for subsequent elections and this election.

We sent all full members of the party an electronic ballot in which they could rank all registered parties* in order of how they should be preferenced. The ballot allowed for equal rankings and to leave parties with no vote to rank them equal last.

Should any party offer us deals that result in changing this order we are able to run subsequent ballots state by state to approve any such deals.

A final decision on how many parties we list on our How to Vote materials will be made soon.

The resulting order of party preferences are as follows:

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Pirate Party Australia: A Free Internet For All

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“Pirate Party Australia is proud to announce that digital rights are central to our campaign in the 2016 Federal election. Campaigning under the slogan ‘Transparency Liberty Digital Rights,’ or TLDR (Too Long Didn’t Read), we aim to reverse the trend of governments operating under an increasingly dense veil of secrecy, whilst subjecting citizens to increasingly intrusive surveillance.” said Lachlan Simpson, Pirate Party candidate for the Victorian Senate.

“The Internet has been under attack from successive governments. The Abbott/Turnbull government has passed a mass surveillance regime and legislation to enable Internet censorship, with the support of the ALP,” continued Lachlan. “We pledge to fight tirelessly for Internet freedom. Pirate Party Australia has an extensive platform on digital liberties[1] and was formed precisely to oppose such attacks on our rights.”

Since 9/11 Australia has passed more than 40 different terrorism related pieces of legislation. These have generally been passed with bi-partisan support and include many attacks on basic human rights[2]. We are now under warrantless mass surveillance[3], journalists can be jailed for reporting on investigations[4], citizens can be detained without charge[5] and ASIO can theoretically hack the entire Internet under a single warrant[6].

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Pirate Party announces candidates for the 2016 Federal Election

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The Pirate Party has completed it’s pre-selection process and can now announce its candidates for the 2016 Federal Election. In keeping with the Party’s democratic principles, all members were entitled to nominate themselves, and all members were entitled to vote on the preselection of candidates in their state.

The Pirate Party will be contesting for the Senate in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria, as well as the House of Representatives seat of Bennelong. The party will receive its own column on the Senate ballot, as there are two candidates for each state they are contesting.

The campaign will be using the slogan “Transparency, Liberty and Digital Rights” or TLDR (Too Long; Didn’t Read in ‘Netspeak) and will be focused on providing an alternative narrative to terror, corruption and surveillance being peddled by the major Parties.

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Pirate Party Australia Webcast – Episode 13

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The webcast returns for a new season this week and Sam introduces new co-host Brandon Selic to the show. They discuss the coming election, Pirate Party Australia’s senate candidates, the 2016 federal budget and asylum seekers. Subscribe to the feed, or view past episodes.

Link mentioned in the budget discussion:

Guess whose electorate negatively gears the most…

Podcast (webcast): Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:41 — 58.3MB)

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