Minutes/General Meeting/2013-04-23

Meeting Minutes This document is a record of a meeting. Do not edit this document without contacting the relevant group first.

General IRC Meeting (#ppau)

Start: 20:00 23/04/13 AEST

Finish: 21:09 23/04/13 AEST

Rules

• Feel free to add anything reasonable you wish to the end of the agenda, and it will be discussed.
• There is one speaker per agenda item noted in brackets.
• Discussion on each agenda item will commence upon the speaker finishing.
• When you have finished speaking on your item, ask for question and comments.
• Wait until a speaker indicates they have finished before making comments.
• People not conducting themselves as if in a meeting will be kicked (out).

Agenda

• Introduction/welcome (Chair)
• Point of order on meeting rules (Mozart)
• PPI GA 2013 Report (Frew)
• Post Policy & Preselection Roundup (Mozart)
• State coordinator reports:
  • Qld. - Liam Pomfret
  • NSW - Simon Frew
  • ACT - Glen Takkenberg
  • Tas. - Thomas Randle
  • WA - Krystin Dix
  • Vic. - Ben McGinnes
• Campaigns Discussion (Rundll)

• Any other business

Attendance

• National Council
  • Brendan Molloy
  • David W. Campbell (Chair)
  • Glen Takkenberg
  • Mozart Olrycht-Palmer
  • Simon Frew

• State Coordinators
  • Ben McGinnes (Vic)
  • Glen Takkenberg (ACT)
  • Liam Pomfret (Qld)
  • Simon Frew (NSW)
  • Thomas Randle (Tas)

Minutes

Point of order on meeting rules

• "Wait until a speaker indicates they have finished before making comments." - interruptions when making lengthy points is disconcerting.

2013 PPI-GA Report

• Simon Frew was the PPAU remote delegate.
• Nightmare of technical errors and dodgy bureaucratic maneuvers expected given past conferences.
• Assurances from the PPI board that there would be an improvement were unfulfilled.
• Policy options were discussed,
• Some alternate PPI options came up
  • Brendans proposal http://brendan.so/2013/04/21/building-a-better-political-international/
    • See also: http://pirateint.org/wiki/constitution
  • Czech republic "Plan B" re a possible disband and restart
• Some other parties internationally are voting to withdraw, others withdraw from the conferences but stayed in to keep their votes available re a disband etc
• Frew proposes waiting to see what comes from the Plan B plan, disband and new start could be best approach, but may not work. Wait and see...
• Kazan location at least contributed somewhat to more remote participants meaning remote issues were more at the forefront than at last GA

Post Policy & Preselection Roundup

• All polices passed, with very small amounts of dissent on certain areas, though these are expected.
  • Most controversial were energy and coal seam gas, but still passed with a more than 85% majority.
  • Policy amendments can be proposed at the next National Congress.
• All nominees met the threshold and we have full Senate tickets in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. More nominations are welcome, and may be made at or before the next National Congress.
• Details of the Congress will be discussed tomorrow night at the National Council meeting and the date of the Congress will be announced as soon as possible. It will take place in Canberra.
• Raw ballot data delayed due to Brendans move and connection issues. Should be available by May 2nd, but possibly earlier.
• The policies are being prepared for placement on the website (and the Wiki).
• NC with Campaigns will discuss best approach for making public/promoting
• Mozart working on updating platform etc, but labour intensive
  • Note that our platform is possibly the only platform of any Australian political party that includes extensive referencing, demonstrating our evidence-based approach that is unmatched by other parties.

• Due to family illness LiamP may not be able to contest election, in this case the 3rd QLD candidate will move up into 2nd place on ballot since he has already passed majority approval.
  • NC will formalise this in writing somewhere (topic for tomorrows NC meeting)

State coordinator reports:

QLD - Liam Pomfret

• Held off on meeting til after Policy meeting
• Next Online meeting early next week
• Next face-to-face meeting in Brisbane next Tuesday

NSW - Simon Frew

• Sydney meeting this weekend, reminder will be sent tomorrow
• David Campbell meeting with Kellie Tranter on Friday, she is on the Board of wikileaks and likely to be a senate candidate for NSW
  • will be interesting to see how they respond to our preference plans (same for all parties)

ACT - Glen Takkenberg

• No meeting this month was organised, one iwll be arranged ASAP

Tas. - Thomas Randle

• Tas held a meetup last Sunday, we had a few last minute drop outs, but still a few new faces turned up, so it was good.
• Another meetup this coming weekend since some of those present couldn't make a fortnight and we're happy to maintain the momentum.

WA - Krystin Dix

• Perth Meeting in 3 weeks
  • Expecting a larger turnout than usual
• New pirate helping out locally

Vic. - Ben McGinnes

• meeting on saturday was the largest since Ben took over as coordinator (twice as many as last month)
• Joe and Geoff want briefings on all the policies so they are adequately prepared to face the media
• Joe Ren has volunteered to translate campaign materials into Chinese
  • may be worth checking with membership for other languages

Other discussion (arising from reports)

• Convene the elections committee in next week or so, possibly in conjunction with general meeting, once policy docs are up and website updated.
• Candidates meeting
  • All candidates will have the platform and policies provided as soon as possible.
  • Announce to all
  • Build up a briefing and policy updates, set a date for all candidates, NC & State Coordinators can attend, once Mozart has the policy stuff sorted. (arrange date via email)
  • Candidate Meeting may use mumble as well to facilitate Candidate discussion

Other business

• Other parties have been making some contacts in regards to preferences
  • Contact from Sex Party and Greens Vic (see also Wikileaks party info in NSW report above)
  • Also invited to a closed door minor party alliance meeting (due to our stance on transparency we either may not attend, or shall attend out of interest but without committing to secret deals)
  • David will set up a pad to write a form letter for responses to preference inquiries detailing our conditions and democratic decision intent (request VJmes to help)