Minutes/National Council/2016-03-16

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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

  • Previous meeting's minutes
  • PO Box Renewal (DanielJ)
  • Investigate how to convert the organisation from a NSW incorporated association to a Federal corporation (dcrafti)
  • Election committee meeting report back (Frew)
  • MemberDB/Collectiva fundraising
  • Rename Vote proposal
  • Census privacy campaign (Frew)
  • Congress venues (Rundll)

Start: 20:32 AEST
End: 22:14 AEST

Attendance

National Council

  • Simon Frew
  • Daniel Judge
  • Mark Gibbons
  • Fletcher Boyd
  • Peter Fulton
  • David Crafti
  • Thomas Randle

Apologies

  • Michael Keating
  • Ben McGinnes

Minutes

Previous meeting's minutes

PO Box Renewal

  • PO Box costs $126 for 12 Months
    • $121 if we pay before 31 March
    • DanielJ will send details to Treasury
      • Any dramas with Treasury paying will pay himself and seek reimbursement
  • See Motions
  • Note also, some outstanding invoices from ITWG to Treasury to pay, regular payments, reminder. Details in email from ITWG to Treasury.
  • Note also, Thoughtworks invoice will be discussed further and voted on at a later meeting

Investigate how to convert the organisation from a NSW incorporated association to a Federal corporation

  • The one problem we need to solve is not knowing whether we'll continue to have multiple NSW-based board members.
    • To solve this, the structure we'd be looking for is a corporation limited by guarantee (as opposed to shares). Each member would have to put up a guarantee, which is usually nominal, like $1 or something.
    • We'll probably need to get all of our members to re-agree to join (the law is apparently not settled). I'm not sure if they'll need to fully re-submit applications, or a simple acknowledgement will be enough.
    • We'll need to reserve our name with ASIC.
    • We'll need a special resolution passed by at least 75% of the members who attend either our congress, or a special congress (AGM or EGM) to change structure.
      • Normally physical attendees, but online doable. (75% of attendees, not all members)
    • Then, there's heaps of paperwork with ASIC to actually do the change.
    • We'll have to make sure we keep our Deductible gift recipient (DGR) status.
    • And the NC will become a board of directors, and they'll all have to understand directors duties properly, so as to not end up personally liable for debts or in jail if stuff hits the fan.
    • And we'll need to appoint an auditor
    • This is a really basic outline, which convinced me that we should really get a proper lawyer involved.
    • Due to potential lawyer costs etc may need wait til after election.
      • note to see if Brandon can assist.
  • David Crafti will contact a recommended firm for a quote
  • Needs to be done eventually
  • Maybe can combine with the renaming exercise as some sort of overall party reboot?
    • We are dropping one legal entity, and creating another, the name on the other side matters not at this point
    • Renaming isn't such a big deal, because we can always be, for example, Pirate Party Australia trading as Non-crazy Citizens Party, or something like that.
    • Although, from what I understand, and this could be wrong, the party name doesn't have to be connected to our entity name.
    • I'm not sure that any separate legal entity is even required for a political party.
    • The AEC decides on suitability and distinctiveness of party names, and ASIC does an equivalent job for corporation names, but I don't think there's any crossover, hence one of the steps being that we would have to lodge a form to reserve our name, because someone else could register a corporation with our party's name, or the incorporated association's name, in it.


Election committee meeting report back

  • We had an alright turnout
    • decided to call a strategy meeting for next Wednesday to plot the overall course for the election
    • We will get state committees doing booth allocation for HTVs, local issues for campaigning materials, some of the candidate wrangling
    • will investigate local printing options, but I recall it being cheaper to courier the HTVs from the cheapest place
    • Its a good start
  • we need to work out where we will run presumably
    • and need to start working on finding candidates/preselection
    • and whether we'll do combined tickets (perhaps not looking likely)
  • At the moment we are not part of AfP discussions on joint ticket proposals, presumably due to fallout over our 'distancing' re Minor Party Alliance
    • Despite this we should not burn our bridges as it could still be a viable/best/doable option.
    • We will seek to remain part of the conversation for now.

MemberDB/Collectiva fundraising

  • We need money for memberDB infrastructure
  • This needs to be done now
  • Pozible text mostly written though could use another review
    • awaiting screenshots and possible video
  • http://pad.pirateparty.org.au/p/ThoughtWorksCrowdfundText
    • everyone revise and contribute and lets get this up and launched

Rename Vote proposal

  • as per Brendans email to NC arising from proposal from Tim
    • Tim's proposal was:
      • 1. A referendum of name change (without specifying a particular new name) to ensure the whole party is on-side with a rebrand, for the reasons you have outlined.
      • 2. A subsequent vote on what the new name should actually be.
  • if it gets slapped down at this stage we'll know not to waste loads more effort on it
  • Also do not want this to be an NC driven change, needs to be member supported and driven
  • If we go down this path I think we will need a final approval of the winning name
  • Some discussion on names was had but: take it to the forum.
  • If like a referendum it should have supporting and unsupporting statements
    • We'd need the people advocating for and against to come up with a paragraph & vice versa
  • We cant change names without it going through a congress, it is just to investigate if it is what people want
    • basically a straw poll of the membership to decide if we progress.
  • Maybe eventually, if vote gets up, have a committee formed etc?
  • Maybe also a poll of strength of opinion. Like if 80% agree half-heartedly to a name change, but 20% will definitely leave the party, then it might not be a good idea.
  • See Motions


Census privacy campaign

  • http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-15/berg-census-privacy-threat/7244744
    • For info if anyone has no idea what this is
  • Basically, do we want to call for boycotting the census unless names will be removed from data?
    • Frew wanted to tweet that etc, but thought it better to check whether anyone has issues before he put stuff out on official accounts
  • Questions on legality of advocating boycott.
    • Need to check
  • Rundll made about as an inflammatory a post as I could on FB about this and it didn't seem to track as well as most other posts do on issues our FB followers tend to be into
  • we should do a PR, but there is a sense this won't really be a strong basis for a campaign
  • dcrafti suggests we should be respectful to the ABS, as they're not politically motivated. Maybe just highlight scenarios in which census data has been misused in other countries in the past, or could be misused here in the future.
    • Names, connected to religious affiliation, for example, can be used to exterminate people under bad political conditions
    • full names - absurd. No possible use as a data source
    • like hell ASD/NSA aren't all over this already
    • Is there some technical solution, using hashes or something, that would only allow the names to be remarried up with the other data after a certain amount of time has elapsed, or a certain amount of computing power has been developed?
    • we had a good approach with the data retention, giving people a practical step to help them avoid it. we can maybe do the same here
  • If someone wants to start a PR go for it
    • dcrafti will start putting down notes in pad for PR
  • So, can we support the goal itself, but with the understanding that privacy has to be adequately protected, and if that cannot be technically done, then we don't support the implementation?
  • Legalities: https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2015C00247


Congress venues

  • Thomas (Rundll) currently going through venues in Hobart looking for something suitable
    • crossed a few off, getting quotes from some, visited one today
    • will pull what contacts he has for audio/video/streaming gear.
  • Budgetwise, bad timing with election, so cheap as possible.
    • Last years:
      • Sydney city RSL was around $220 per day for two days so $440
      • (this was quite a bit cheaper than the previous year in Brisbane which was $650 total for the two days)
  • The place looked at today was good, though it's about $400 a day
    • Had fibre NBN though
    • Hopefully the Basslink thing will be resolved ;-)

General Business

  • none

Motions

  • MOTION: Accept Minutes for 2016-03-02 as presented
    • Put by: Frew
      • Ayes: 5 (Frew, dcrafti, MarkG, DanielJ, CAPT-Irrelevant); Nays: 0 (); Abstains: 1 (Rundll)
    • Result: Motion carries.
  • MOTION: Pay Australia Post $121 for PO Box renewal
    • Put by: Frew
      • Ayes: 7 (Frew, dcrafti, MarkG, DanielJ, CAPT-Irrelevant, Rundll, Fletcher); Nays: 0 (); Abstains: 0 ()
    • Result: Motion carries.
  • MOTION: Use the online voting system to put a strawpoll to the members regarding renaming the Party, with the question: The Pirate Party should develop proposals to rename the party for consideration at the upcoming National Congress
    • Put by: Frew
      • Ayes: 7 (Frew, dcrafti, MarkG, DanielJ, CAPT-Irrelevant, Rundll, Fletcher); Nays: 0 (); Abstains: 0 ()
    • Result: Motion carries.
  • MOTION: Close Meeting
    • Put by: Frew
      • Ayes: 5 (Rundll, Fletcher, DanielJ, CAPT-Irrelevant, Frew); Nays: 0 (); Abstains: 0 ()
    • Result: Motion carries.


Action Items

  • DanielJ to email treasury with PO Box details
  • dcrafti to contact Moores for legal quote
  • Get Pozible launched
  • Thomas to keep looking for Congress Venues
  • Look at getting rename strawpoll organised (NC)
  • dcrafti and Frew to start work on Census PR.
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