G’day Pirates,

I hereby invite you to Pirate Party Australia’s 2022 Annual National Congress!

The National Congress is an opportunity for members to propose and debate new policies and constitutional amendments, hear nominations for Party Officials, and meet Pirates from around Australia.

It is the paramount decision-making body of Pirate Party Australia.

Date: Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th of July, 2022

As befits a digital-rights party, Congress is held entirely online! You can attend from anywhere by video call and text chat.

Watch parties and Friday night meetups are a distinct possibility! If you’d like to meet up with your local pirates, drop me an email at [email protected]. With any luck, I’ll be able to put you and a mate or two in touch! Better yet, make a post on the forums for more visibility.

I urge everyone – this means you – to consider running for National Council. As always – we’re a party for everyone and we want people from all walks of life in our leadership team.

Details of the National Congress, including the agenda, new policies, nominations, constitutional amendments and details on how to participate online are available on the Wiki:  Pirate Congress 2022

The National Congress is followed by a seven day online voting period to ratify the substantive motions passed at Congress. This voting is open to all Full Members, who will be emailed ballot information. Ensure your party membership is up-to-date!

There are a number of dates and deadlines and procedures to follow if you wish to submit items to the National Congress or declare candidacy for positions.

Constitutional Amendments:

• The deadline for amendment proposals is Saturday 25th June 2022 09:00 am (AEST)
• Email your proposals to [email protected]

Policies and Policy Amendments:

• It would be appreciated if policy proposals could be submitted at least 10 days before National Congress so that they can be allowed for in the agenda.
• Email your proposals to [email protected]

Nominations:

• Positions up for election are all nine National Councillors, the Policy Development Officer, and two positions on the Dispute Resolution Committee.
• Nominations can be accepted up until the relevant agenda item at National Congress.
• Nominations for electable positions can be made by following the instructions here: Pirate Congress 2022/Nominations

We thank you for your continued support!

Please feel free to discuss National Congress or any other matters in our discussion forums at https://discuss.pirateparty.org.au/ or on our Discord.

Yours sincerely,

Alex Jago
Secretary
Pirate Party Australia

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