Minutes/National Council/2013-12-18

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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

Attendance

  • Simon Frew (Chair)
  • Brendan Molloy
  • Ben McGinnes (Hasimir)
  • Mark Gibbons
  • Mozart Olbrycht-Palmer
  • Daniel Judge
  • David Campbell
  • Glen Takkenberg (taco)

Apologies

  • Melanie Thomas

Minutes

Ratification of previous meeting's minutes

Preselection by-law amendment

  • Simple amendment to create a "Returning Officer" for preselections.
  • Gives greater flexibility to appoint different officers for different preselection meetings
  • With the level of regionalisation we're going for, it's a good idea
  • The bigger difference is defining the expectations
  • Creates greater flexibility for the form of applications for preselection.
  • More flexibility, less burden on the National Council
  • See motions

Preselection for Griffith and WA

  • There is a pending by-election for the Seat of Griffith and potential WA Senate election
  • Should vote formally to start preselection for Griffith
    • Must be a Qld local candidate
  • Brendan nominated as Returning Officer for each preselection meeting.
  • See motions

Stripe for payments

  • American company that is slightly cheaper than Pin
  • Finally available in Australia
  • Brendan seeks permission to start using it for forms coding and donations interface
  • Stripe allows subscriptions, and doesn't require merchant banking account
  • Treasury will be given all necessary access details
  • No significant difference to Pin, but slightly cheaper — generally a better deal.
  • See motions

Inquiries process

  • Mozart and Frew do all our submissions to inquiries
  • We don't tell members as much as we used to do
  • Propose to inform members when inquiries happen
  • Automatically create working groups for inquiries we're going to submit on
  • A template email should be used to indicate the group being formed, the deadline and first meeting.
  • First meeting should be the non-General Meeting Tuesdays.
  • This is the Secretary's responsibility
  • Add inquiries to the calendar
  • Three inquiries coming up
  • Secretary or Deputy Secretary to be default chair of working groups unless someone else volunteers.

Acting Secretary/Deputy Secretary

  • Brendan spoke to Mark about Mark potentially being Mozart's deputy
  • We need a "Deputy Deputy Secretary" as Daniel is still incapacitated
  • Ben is willing to share Mark with the rest of the NC
  • Emergency fill in until Daniel is better
  • Suggesting that Mozart becomes Acting Secretary, and MarkG becomes Acting Deputy Secretary until Daniel can return to full duties.
  • Daniel hoping to be back in action mid-January — 30 days, and estimates might be inaccurate
  • We need a clear chain of command
  • Should only be 6 weeks
  • Four years ago, at Christmas, Conroy put forward his Internet censorship plans
  • See motions

Returns update

  • Electoral system is strange
  • All donations and expenses were under the Party banner, therefore you have to put in returns for $0 for all individual candidates.
  • All the returns are nil.
  • Everything will go in the next annual return, except for things already done.
  • The Party does not need to make a return until the end of the fiscal year.
  • Called and confirmed this with the AEC.
  • We should still have a quick report for transparency showing how much we spent and the highlights
  • Should be prepared for the NC meeting after next (four weeks).
  • Next NC meeting will be Thursday, January 2.

Banking update

  • Everything that we can and should do is already on the record
  • All that matters now is what the NC wants to do.
  • If we pass a temporary/operational constitutional amendment, an ANZ account can be applied for forthwith.
  • We need a corporate credit card
  • Brendan proposes we have a savings account and a transactions account
    • Credit card would be linked to the transaction account
    • Moving money from the savings to transactions account would require two signatures
  • Mark will look into interest rates on ANZ Business Extra accounts

Congress 2014

  • Item skipped.

Party history

  • https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/History
  • Glen — ACT budget was significant less than $5K
    • Mark — Was actually less than $1K
  • Could add previous activism
  • Maybe a list of major submissions could be added
  • Fighting the [Internet] Filter

Membership renewals

  • Membership renewals for founder members are in January.
  • There's no code to handle it yet
  • Worst case scenario: members will get a letter later than January for membership payments.

Motions

  • MOTION: Accept the minutes from 2013-11-20 and 2013-12-04.
    • Put by: Brendan
    • Ayes: 6 (Frew, Hasimir, Brendan, MarkG, DanielJ, Mozart); Nays: 0 (); Abstains: 0 ()
      • Motion carries.
  • MOTION: Accept the preselection bylaw amendment as written.
    • Put by: Brendan
    • Ayes: 7 (Frew, Brendan, David, Hasimir, Mozart, MarkG, taco); Nays: 0 (); Abstains: 0 ()
      • Motion carries.
  • MOTION: Open preselection for the seat of Griffith with the Preselection Meeting to be held January 11 2014, with voting on preselection candidates limited to members from Queensland.
    • Put by: Brendan
    • Ayes: 8 (Brendan, David, MarkG, Frew, DanielJ, Hasimir, taco, Mozart); Nays: 0 (); Abstains: 0 ()
      • Motion carries.
  • MOTION: Should the Court of Disputed Returns call for fresh elections for the WA senate, preselection shall be opened for 4 weeks + necessary days for the Preselection Meeting to fall on a Saturday, from the date of declaration.
    • Put by: Brendan
    • Ayes: 7 (MarkG, Hasimir, Frew, DanielJ, Brendan, Mozart, David); Nays: 0 (); Abstains: 0 ()
      • Motion carries.
  • MOTION: Appoint Brendan Molloy as Returning Officer for Griffith by-election and WA Senate preselection.
    • Put by: Brendan
    • Ayes: 7 (Brendan, Hasimir, Mozart, Frew, taco, MarkG, DanielJ); Nays: 0 (); Abstains: 0 ()
      • Motion carries.
  • MOTION: Allow the opening of a Stripe account for handling transactions.
    • Put by: Brendan
    • Ayes: 8 (Brendan, MarkG, Hasimir, taco, David, Mozart, Frew, DanielJ); Nays: 0 (); Abstains: 0 ()
      • Motion carries.
  • MOTION: Temporarily appoint Mozart Olbrycht-Palmer as Acting Secretary and Mark Gibbons as Acting Deputy Secretary until Daniel heals.
    • Put by: Brendan
    • Ayes: 6 (Hasimir, Brendan, DanielJ, taco, Frew, David); Nays: 0 (); Abstains: 2 (MarkG, Mozart)
      • Motion carries.
  • MOTION: Close meeting.
    • Put by: Brendan
    • Ayes: 6 (Hasimir, Frew, Brendan, taco, DanielJ, David); Nays: 0 (); Abstains: 0 ()
      • Motion carries.
      • Meeting closed.

Action items

  • Mozart and MarkG to prepare the skeleton email for sending out when inquiries are announced that creates the working groups.
  • Ben to provide election transparency report in the NC meeting after next (15 January)
  • Mozart to work on a good constitutional amendment for the purposes of making PPAU meet ANZ requirements.

Notes

By-law 2013-02 - Preselection

The motion is to accept the following amendments:

  • Amend the titles to prefix them with numbers (1, 2, 3, 4).
  • Replace paragraph 1 and 2 under "Administration & Responsibility" with the following:
1. The preselection process is to be overseen and managed by a Returning Officer appointed by the National Council, whose responsibilities include:
* Working with the relevant committees to have the relevant systems put into place,
* Attending and overseeing the relevant preselection meetings,
* Announcing the final result of the preselection process, and
* Ensuring the integrity of the preselection process.
2. Nominations for preselection must be provided by the means determined by the National Council.
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