Minutes/Policy Development Committee Meeting/2014-05-28

Meeting Minutes

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

Agenda

Korea-Australia Free Trade Agreement
Submission to JSCOT due on 13 June
For an overview of the treaty process see http://olbrychtpalmer.net/2013/12/10/resolving-australias-treaty-making-democratic-deficit/
Submission has been started, read only link: https://www.writelatex.com/read/wcsxyqtgkqmj
- Contact [email protected] for the read and edit link or check Discourse.
General issues:
- Contains investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions.
- Contains intellectual property rights (IPR) provisions
- Nothing has been done about the Productivity Commission's recommendation against including IPRs in agreements
- Furthers the vertical integration of IPRs
  - AUSFTA required Australia and the US to be party to 13 different IP treaties.
  - Each FTA adds another layer, making it impossible to reform domestic laws without renegotiating virtually every trade agreement.

Mark emailed around proposed amendments for the education policy.
- http://pad.pirateparty.org.au/p/education_insert
Please read over and correct/offer feedback.

We have launched a new forum, Discourse, available at http://discuss.pirateparty.org.au
It's slowly being spread across the membership: NC and Officers are on it already, PDC may as well start using it.
- Logical to get the entire PDC on it as it's useful for policy issues.
There are a couple of topics in the policy category already.