Federal Election 2025/Preselection Meeting 2024-06-02/Minutes

Preselection meeting 2nd June 2024

Start: 3pm AEST

Welcome

Business commenced approx 3:05
Questions around quorum - there isn't one for this
Simon wonders if he could put forward another candidate
- ChatGPT roleplaying as a candidate
- the Secretary determined that the prospective candidate was not actually present at the meeting and had not lodged a nomination prior to the start of the meeting

Living in Brunswick E, which looks like it will be in Wills
Professional background: CompSci/robotics, moved to Seattle with Amazon, NY in consulting, startups, now in NFTs, which let me move back to Australia
Melbourne is vibrant!
In the US I got more politically aware - what aspects of our culture can be changed?
In 2020 I founded the Non-Human Party to stand up for animal & robot/AI rights
By embracing a more software-first government we can do a lot better in terms of efficiency and effectiveness
Covid as an example, the govt doesn't have much in house expertise
- marketing budget on covid app far exceeded developent cost - due to perception
Contrast Estonia which has focused on tech literacy, up to digital residency
- Best country in Europe for doing business!
- It's received some tax-haven criticism but it has its welfare system still and a happiness ranking above IT or ES!
Since joining Fusion I've focused more on digital innovation
See eg my Senate submission a few years ago or our AI submission earlier this week
Since joining the Pirates specifically my eyes have been opened to UBI, copyright reform, enshittification
In conclusion I think I have a strong affinity for Pirate and Fusion values
In terms of Wills, I chose to live here. And I meet the stereotypes - I'm a gay immigrant cyclist!

Miles: Open-source is core to the platform but we don't always discuss it. Can you talk about your relationship with OS?
- Owen: Take banking for example. A login form for a bank seems like a solved problem but they all have to do it again. Why can't we just share the code? The incentives aren't always there. Of course, FOSS can succeed - see Linux. crypto. So in talking about a commons tragedy, governments are best placed to resolve that. In my ideal situation all govt created software should be open-sourced. Why should the benefits be limited just to using it? Also good for trust. And it even allows us to improve services - see the GovZero movement in Taiwan, where user-created websites became official.
- Andrew: going back to the banking eample - how do you think the AU govt digital ID system works with that?
- Owen: with Non-Human Party I was hoping to use OpenID with their Australian government account. Often today we use phone numbers as a method of keeping one account, one person. But the government has a register of births, deaths & marriages, so they're the best positioned people to de-duplicate citizens. So I asked if I could get this - I was disallowed. Now it might be more possible. Compare using Google for OIDC.

Andrew: on education, did you notice that Singapore introduced some new education for digital left-behinds. Should we bring that here?
- Owen: sounds well-meaning. I remember in the crypto boom, in the Coinbase app there were offers to get $1 USD of a new coin if you went through that tutorial. So I'm skeptical about throwing money at this. If they don't care they don't care, and if they do they'll self-educate. Oh, and the government has a history of giving out bad advice.

Miles: we've got a lot of interest in Victoria at a council level. What are your thoughts on using your federal campaign to intersect with local?
- Owen: well, Yarra now looks like it will overlap with Wills. I've been focused on getting the Fusion website redone rather than work on local govt things but it's time.

MOTION: support Owen's candidacy and proceed to Victorian membership vote
- Ayes (Alex Jago, Andrew Downing, Miles Whiticker, Simon Gnieslaw)
- Motion carried 15:43.

Miles: interested in streamlining preselection processes within Pirates. Everyone else in Fusion is just exec endorsement. So I'm interested in options there - can the Presel meeting be replaced with just NC endorsement prior to going out to Pirate memberships? Alternatively can the Pirate membership approval requirement be met by Fusion membership approval?

Andrew: if a candidate is endorsed at a Fusion level we support them right?
- Process is for Pirates to endorse, then Fusion