Minutes/National Council/2013-07-31

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


Agenda

  • Ratify minutes from last meeting
  • Banking, finances, and other transition-related loose ends (Brendan)
    • Secretary forms
    • Recent Congress invoice
  • Access to membership database (Brendan)
  • Policy amendments (Mozart)
  • Ratify platform as amended (Mozart)
  • Ratify policies as amended (Mozart)
  • Social media handling (Brendan)
  • Official conduct guidelines (Brendan, Mozart)
  • Guidelines for Member Activities (Frew)
  • WA Co-ordinator (Daniel)
  • Mandatory membership of announcement lists for members (Brendan)
  • Action plan for state/territory branch development (Brendan)
  • Campaigns Committee/Election Committee cross communication (Daniel)
  • Add Joe Miles to Campaigns Committee (David)
    • David Kennedy to Press Team?
  • IT Working Group changes
  • FOI (AFP Social Media Surveillance) http://pad.pirateparty.org.au/p/afp-foi-appeal
  • Pull-up Banners

Start time: 20:04 AEST 31/07/13

Finish time: 22:19 AEST 31/07/13

Attendance

  • Brendan Molloy
  • Mozart Olbrycht-Palmer
  • Simon Frew
  • Glen Takkenberg
  • Daniel Judge
  • Mark Gibbons
  • Ben McGinnes
  • Melanie Thomas (late — arrived 8:15 pm)
  • David Campbell (late with apology — arrived 8:30 pm)

Minutes

Previous meeting minutes

  • See motions

Banking, finances, transition elements)

  • Need to change the signatories of the bank account
  • Public Officer residing in NSW must be appointed, excluding the Party Treasury as they aren't residents of NSW
  • Ben will do all the paperwork, but a NSW person will sign it
  • Formal Change of Secretary form is yet to be sent to the AEC
  • Lead candidates for each state are meant to be dep Registered Officers (has not yet occured)
  • Proposal that current signatories pay invoice for Congress - See motions
  • Propose that David campbell be the NSW residing Public Officer and the 4th Bank Signatory
  • Ben will need paypal logins etc, Brendan will provide necessary details

Access to membership database

  • As Brendan is programming officer and responsible for the technical maintenance of the membership database, his continued access is necessary for functioning of the system
    • This is merely a functional provision to ensure the database remains easily accessible to the Secretariat.
  • See motions
  • A user interface is also being developed (currently access is command line)
    • timeframe of a possible 6 months
    • will also include specialised views for treasurer, auditor for managing payments

Policy amendments

  • see motions
    • Policy amendments done as a block motion

Social media handling

  • We need to properly handle our social media presense
  • Ideally specialised role, competent team etc
    • Twitter needs interaction
  • one option: social media wing of campaigns
  • for now Mel to present a plan to next NC - see action items

Official conduct guidelines

  • Use your Pirate Party account for official correspondence.
    • important to reaffirm that anything that might be construed as official should come from an @pirateparty.org.au account.

Email Signature

  • See Motions
    • Note [] items are optional
    • facebook, google+, twitter intended for personal accounts

Guidelines for Member Activities

  • More Autonomy can be good, but there need to be limits
  • Swarmwise: need more emphasis on the "wise"
    • unchecked swarms have had a negative effect on movements in the US
  • Frew will look into updating

Mandatory membership of announcement lists for members

  • communicating with the memebrship is currently fraught with fail
    • suggestion that there should be no option to unsubscribe from the announcement lists and that if you want to unsub, resign or learn to filter emails.
    • it's too easy to blame the NC for not communicating and this would fix that
  • we need to automate new members being added to announce too
  • 1) automate adding them
  • 2) make unsubscribe not a thing and members only the list
  • note that this does lower transparency a little
  • proves that members are at least engages enough to confirm their membership if acts by AEC for example, also needed for contact purposes re renewals etc
    • they can claim because we let them unsubscribe we breached our requirements under the act to inform them of the AGM
  • note also that none of this breaches Spam Act as political parties are exempt
  • unsubscription through resignation
  • Propose to Subscribe all unsubscribed members to the announcement lists, leaving unsubscribe intact.
    • what this ensures is if someone isn't on the list, as it will be autosubscribe it means they chose to unsubscribe so we know that if they're not on the list it was by choice not by ignorance

WA Coordinator position

  • technically vacant since Krsytin Dix did not renominate at congress
  • have emailed but not response yet
  • brendan to call

Action plan for state/territory branch development

  • Target 1: make a template constitution
    • work with the coordinators of each of those states to get their act together
    • ACT will need to either make some amendments to their constiution or adopt new template
  • Target 2: wiki page on how to do it right
  • Target 3: update join form to handle various state requirements
  • Target 4: allow the UI for the member database to give each state secretary segmented access to membership list for their state
  • Target 5: form the parties as working groups initially so they don't need bank accounts etc
  • Not necessarily in that order

Campaigns Committee/Election Committee cross communication

  • some concerns voiced re communication between committees,
  • Aim to increase transparency of activities
  • Note David Campbell and Thomas Randle on both committees, can facilitate info
  • While there is some crossover of activity, elections is much broader/more

Add Joe Miles to Campaigns Committee

  • See motions
  • Vacancy available due to Sam Clark's resignation

David Kennedy to Press Team?

  • being asked

IT Working Group changes

  • Current IT officer is resigning due to personal reasons
  • Nathan Brown and Jack Coulter to replace him
  • See Motions

FOI (AFP Social Media Surveillance)

  • FOI work group proposed
    • Unsure we really need another workgroup
  • for now, just approve Rodney's ability to FOI without NC approval
    • See Motions

Pull-up Banners

Motions

Motion: accept the minutes, both of them.

  • 4 ayes (note: quorum of the previous National Council was used)
  • 3 abstains (note: all abstentions were not members of the previous National Council).
  • Motion Carried

Motion: Allow current signatories to pay the invoice for the last Congress.

  • 7 Ayes
  • Motion Carried

Motion: Continue to allow Brendan Molloy access to the membership database.

  • 6 ayes
  • Motion Carried

Motion: Accept the following policy adjustments:

  • Biodiversity and Animal Welfare policy: remove the words "state and" from the line "Provide a single national environmental approvals process to cover land use changes and replace the current mix of state and federal processes" to accommodate some feedback about the difficulties of bring state processes under the umbrella.
  • Welfare policy: insert, under the line "Recipients of this supplement will be exempted from obligations to study or seek employment," the sub-point "Additional resources will be made available to support voluntary pursuit of education and training" to allow age pensioners to continue to access higher education allowances as it was not the intention of the policy to abolish existing support.
  • Welfare policy: under rent assistance, replace "an additional $25 per week" with "additional support" in order to avoid committing to a single, inflexible amount.
  • Welfare policy: raise the pension supplement to $85 to accomodate changes that have occured since the policy was written.
  • Biodiversity and Animal Welfare policy: to replace the word "hormones" with "growth promoters".
    • 8 Ayes
    • Motion Carried

Motion: Accept the platform as amended.

  • 8 Ayes
  • Motion Carried

Motion: Ratify all current policies.

  • 8 Ayes
  • Motion Carried

Motion: appoint David Campbell as Public Officer (must reside in NSW).

  • 6 Ayes
  • Motion Carried

Motion: appoint as signatories to the bank accounts: Simon Frew, Ben McGinnes, Mark Gibbons, David Campbell and remove all other signatories.

  • 9 Ayes
  • Motion Carried

Motion: Delete the CSG policy and rename the Biodiversity and Animal Welfare policy to "Environment and Animal Welfare"

  • 8 Ayes
  • Motion Carried

Motion: No Comic Sans MS for anything ever anywhere.

  • 7 Ayes
  • 1 Nay (Glen Takkenberg)
  • Motion Carried

Motion: Accept the signature template as mandatory.

  • 8 Ayes
  • 1 Abstain
  • Motion Carried

Motion: Automatically subscribe new members to relevant announcement lists.

  • 8 Ayes
  • Motion Carried

Motion: Subscribe all unsubscribed members to the announcement lists, leaving unsubscribe intact.

  • 7 Ayes
  • 1 Abstain
  • Motion Carried

Motion: Add Joe Miles to Campaigns Committee.

  • 6 Ayes
  • Motion carried

Motion: appoint Nathan Brown and Jack Coulter as IT Officers.

  • 6 Ayes
  • Motion Carried

Motion: to enact National Council Resolution 2013–2 as follows:

All officials of the Party (including, but not limited to: Councillors, Officers, and State and Territory Coordinators), must use the following email signature template: https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/National_Council_Resolutions/Appendices#Appendix_C_-_Email_Signature_Template

Motion: Allow up to $600 for campaigns to have banners printed

  • 8 Ayes
  • Motion carried

Motion: to close meeting

  • 6 Ayes
  • Motion carried

Action Items

  • Brendan to send away Secretary form.
  • Brendan and Ben to discuss financial situations.
  • Recent invoice to be paid by current signatories.
  • Mel to propose twitter guidelines and present at next NC meeting (or can fast track via email if need be)
  • Frew to frame improved "Guidelines for Member Activities" for next NC Meeting
  • Brendan to call Krystin Dix in regard to WA Co-ordinator position
  • Mozart or DanielJ to email reminder to all officers of need to use @pirateparty.org.au emails for anything official/party business etc
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