Minutes/Special PPI Meeting/2014-06-10

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

Agenda

• Greetings
• PPAU's grievances
• PPAU's suggestions
• Quick rundown of PPI's Board's current plans
• Assurances

Attendance

• Brendan Molloy (PPAU)
• Koen De Voegt (PPI)
• Mozart Olbrycht-Palmer (minutes)

Minutes

• Meeting opened: 20:15:15 UTC+10

Greetings

• BRENDAN: Pirate Party Australia was formed 2008
  • Registered in 2013.
  • Has slightly more than 1,000 members at present.
  • Has contested three separate elections in the past 12 months:
    • September 2013: Federal (Senate) Elections (avg 0.5%).
    • January 2014: By-election for ex-Prime Minister's House of Representatives seat (1.5%).
    • April 2014: Western Australian Senate re-election.
      • 2,000 ballots were lost in 2013 so a new election was needed.
  • Pirate Congress in July.
  • QUESTION from KOEN: "Any plans to participate in local elections?"
    • REPLY from BRENDAN: Yes, but this is more complex. The current goal is to register in each state, which requires approx 12,000 members nationally. Different numbers for each state, different forms, different voting systems. Aiming to complete all of this by 2017.
  • Elections in Australia are very expensive:
    • It costs $2,000 per Senate candidate, and you must run two in each state you contest totalling $4,000/state (approx 2763 EUR).
    • PPAU ran in 5 states
• Brendan Molloy, Councillor of Pirate Party Australia, an elected position on the National Council.
  • Pirate Party Australia's National Council has nine positions, two of which are "Councillors" with no defined responsibility, but take on work as necessary.

PPAU's grievances

• Brendan has asked to speak with Koen because Koen is the first Co-Chair of PPI to actually attempt to engage with members, which PPAU finds disappointing.
• PPAU has never been able to effectively be represented remotely, and the PPI Board has never made an effort to rectify this, nor listened to PPAU's constructive criticisms, nor offers of help.
  • Every year there is a complaint signed by several parties that is never responded to by the PPI Board.
  • PPAU's representative at Kazan was unable to put PPAU's vote in for Co-chair, and this is something that should never happen.
  • Agreement that things like voting for the Board and accepting new members could easily be done online, however statute amendments will require more discussion.
• The website is dated and doesn't provide a clear pathway to useful information, such as meeting minutes, how to get involved, etc.
• Social media is a concern.
• There is no public registry of PPI officials, people with email addresses, etc.
• Pathways of communication could be clearer, such as what working groups exist.
• Communication is low
• Limited campaign time is spent on anything relevant to our region, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.
• The primary concern is not being able to engage whatsoever with the General Assembly.
  • PPAU is capable of writing great amendments to statutes where, but there is no arrangement where that would be of benefit.

PPAU's suggestions

• Andrew Norton's online General Assembly proposal — https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12594568/PPI%20online%20GA%20proposal.pdf
  • Koen has discussed it at length with Andrew before he sent it out, but has not actually gone over the text.
  • The core concept is a General Assembly that is held over a month.
    • This attempts to ensure deliberation.
    • Proposals are put forward for the first few weeks.
    • There is a cut off point for new proposals, but the existing proposals can be amended by discussion.
    • Amendment closes, and voting by email occurs.
    • All votes are published and the General Assembly concludes.
  • This could be hosted as an extraordinary GA that doesn't require an election.
  • PPAU is in favour of this, as it would give PPAU an equal opportunity to put forward proposals and be in a position that requires others to engage with PPAU.
    • Parties cannot be ignored simply because they aren't present.
  • QUESTION from BRENDAN: Koen, are you open to hosting an online GA in the next six months? Not necessarily this exact model, but an online GA of some kind.
    • REPLY from KOEN: Yes.
    • QUESTION from BRENDAN: Can I get an assurance that you will put this to the Board for discussion, and say that PPAU is strongly in support of such a measure and is quite happy to offer material assistance in its organisation?
      • REPLY from KOEN: I would like to find some best of both worlds solution actually. An online GA that ends with a real life meeting or something.
      • QUESTION from KOEN: Why do you want a GA in the next six months? Why not wait for the next one in April?
        • REPLY from BRENDAN: The Europeans want their yearly meetup, they can keep it. If we have a meeting in the next six months we can offer substantial structural improvement proposals. I also note that in July a motion in being put to the members to resign from PPI or fall back to an observer member. PPAU is very angry with PPI, it's not me. I'm the only one who keeps try to find constructive members, hence you meeting with just me and Mozart, and not the whole board. They're over it.
• PPAU's online process to combat the enormity of the country and sparse population — https://discuss.pirateparty.org.au/t/where-can-we-apply-for-national-council-and-officer-positions-before-national-congress/42/2
  • Summary:
    • All it requires is one person sitting next to the physical chair with a laptop and IRC.
    • Standing orders/rules of procedure suited to include digital engagement.
  • PPAU has presented this to three consecutive boards and has been ignored each time.
  • QUESTION from KOEN: So there is only one person that takes care of the online stuff?
    • REPLY from BRENDAN: Yep.
• Other suggestions:
  • Pirate Party information goes out of date quickly. Brendan proposes monthly form emails asking people to update party details. He is happy to do that if the Board is interested in the concept.
    • COMMENT from KOEN: Monthly may be a bit much.
      • Agreement that quarterly (every three months) would be appropriate.
  • More in-depth information would be good: a real table of parties, showing relative sizes, policy coverage, etc.
    • Agreement that this would be good.
  • COMMENT from KOEN: the best overview is made by Pirate Times.
• QUESTION from KOEN: What was the problem for you at the Paris Conference?
  • REPLY from BRENDAN: We didn't even try. We had no delegate, no way to interact, no way to offer comments. The minutes are a farce, by the way. We do not accept the funding motion, it is in breach of the statutes, twice, and doesn't actually make sense. Funding motions must be two-thirds majority, it wasn't. Funding is stated to be fixed proportionally to party size in the Statutes. Up until you guys got on the Board we had no idea what situation the accounts were even in. I am stating clearly right now that PPAU will not be paying fees to PPI this year.
  • REPLY from KOEN: You shouldn't pay at this time that's for sure. PPUK has offered has offered to make a quick fix for a new temporary bank account but that also hasn't been completed yet. At the moment there is still no working bank account.
• Brendan suggests that if an online GA cannot happen, PPI offers to fund a native English speaking person to come to the GA and run PPAU's variant of an online GA.
  • Native English speaking is required primarily to 'demangle' the comments.
• COMMENT from KOEN: You can also offer to do the next GA in Australia.
  • REPLY from BRENDAN: Nobody would come here due to the cost. We would rather it just work in the first place.
• COMMENT from KOEN: I don't think the native English speaker is the problem.
  • REPLY from BRENDAN: I have not been able to have someone on the other end interpret me for three years in a row. Lack of English proficiency is a massive problem. The statutes are poorly written. We once tried to put forward a motion for gender neutral wording but that was stifled by the technology and the lack of care for the opinions of the remote delegates.
  • REPLY from KOEN: That's the nature of statutes to be a mess.
    • REPLY from BRENDAN: I disagree — https://pirateparty.org.au/constitution
    • REPLY from KOEN: There is indeed a lot of work cleaning up the statutes of PPI.
      • REPLY from BRENDAN: That's why we need a GA soon, so we can put work into cleaning up the statutes instead of "networking." PPI GAs seem to be all about the partying and not the organisational capacity to do its job. It can be both, but that needs structural separation. PPI could be required to host two networking events per year, and one online GA each year for statutes, etc.
      • REPLY from KOEN: What we need in my opinion is to set up some work meeting specifically about the statutes.
        • REPLY from BRENDAN: Hence why an online GA for statutes only.
• Brendan wrote this a year ago: http://brendan.so/2013/04/21/building-a-better-political-international/
  • It's a proposed radical rethinking of the structure.
• Communication:
  • Unclear purpose of the pp-leaders mailing list.
    • Seems that anybody considered a "leader" in anything considered "pirate" is on it.
  • A pp-delegates list of only registered representatives may be useful.
  • COMMENT from KOEN: I have no problem with who is currently on the leader list.
    • REPLY from BRENDAN: There are people on the pp-leader list who are not PPI members. This is a formal request for a mailing list that includes only formal delegates of PPI members. What is the point of having the organisation if we can't even have a members-only list? I had assumed pp-leaders was a delegates list, and apparent it wasn't.
    • REPLY from KOEN: Not every party has a fixed delegate. PPBE, for example, rotates that based on availability of people wanting to travel.
      • REPLY from BRENDAN: You could, however, appoint a fixed point of contact for the purposes of PPI who can forward messages to and fro, or even have multiple persons if necessary. My point is that I don't want to spend time arguing with people who aren't PPI members about PPI strategy. It's a waste of time.
      • Agreement that an official delegates mailing list is a good idea.

Current Board's plans

• Brendan would like a quick rundown of PPI Board's current plans.
  • What are Koen's personal goals, and what is the Board working towards?
    • For Koen, fixing the bank accounts and statutes.
    • For others, an academic conference in Istanbul at the end of August talking about Pirates and related topics.
    • When the bank accounts are arranged, there should be a major IT overhaul.
• COMMENT from BRENDAN: More policy decisions should be delegated to member parties and less to the Board. It hasn't worked, and it's overburdensome to try to make good decisions on behalf of a large body of members.
  • REPLY from KOEN: Yes indeed, we should engage more people. PPI need volunteers to do things like maintain websites.
  • REPLY from BRENDAN: Monthly mailouts of things that need doing would help, and mailing out the minutes to remind the members that the Board still exists.
• COMMENT from BRENDAN: The Statutes imply the Board has the power to create by-laws to correct or extend the Statutes. I would recommend suggesting to the Board to draft a proposal to ensure elections cannot be closed before parties have responded and reasonable attempts to find out why they haven't occur.
• COMMENT from KOEN: The thing that has been holding me back from a GA in Istanbul is that I haven't found a person who can give me legal advice about the statutes, because they are in a legally dubious state now.
  • REPLY from BRENDAN: PPI doesn't technically exist as an organisation. The statutes are a gentleman's agreement (ie not binding, except in honour) and nothing will change that. This is why clear wording and a common agreement on purpose is essential to the functioning of the organisation.

Summary of discussion

• Grievances: poor ability to take part in GAs for remote participants, lack of social media strategy, unclear status of PPI projects such as working groups, no updates on needed assistance, lack of public registry put of PPI email addresses (a note that Mozart still has access to his PPI email address which he could use to claim he represents PPI official despite resigning from the CoA approx 24 months ago), website is dated and needs reconsidering, pathways of communication need to be clearer, limited campaign time is spent on anything relevent to PPAU's region, such as the TPP Agreement. The primary concern is not being able to engage whatsoever with the General Assembly.
• Suggestions put forward: online GA, multiple models, PPAU happy to assist, alternatively a native English speaking "remote delegate representative" using PPAU's IRC model, introduction of a by-law disallowing dodgy things happening like closing elections early, a pp-delegates list for PPI delegates, quarterly requests for updated information (personally conducted by Brendan if desired who will provide the output), more asynchronous mechanisms for interaction. PPAU has put forward significant suggestions on social media policy, and is happy to contribute further such as by drafting strategy documents.

Other matters

• COMMENT from KOEN: we were considering use the term "delegate" for a non-member that has been authorised to represent a party and whose judgment is trusted, while the term "drone" is used for someone who follows instructions from IRC or other online channels.
  • REPLY from BRENDAN: That model is odd and unfair. What happens if you get a dud drone? It's not as engaging either. You cannot communicate directly and have to wait for that person to "feel confident" to represent you properly. For instance, taking into account lag, the speaking list may be closed, because the standing orders don't consider digital issues.
  • REPLY from KOEN: The Chair has to keep time.
    • REPLY from BRENDAN: We run two-day conferences from 9–5 and get through more business than PPI ever has. Last PPAU Congress agenda — https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Pirate_Congress_2013/Agenda. We start with an opening and go straight into constitutional amendments, ensuring that substantive work gets out of the way. A single keynote speaker, with elections conducted afterwards. Elections are online using a voting system. This cannot be done in PPI because the statutes don't allow it yet. If we have an online GA that will definitely be one of PPAU's main proposals. There is absolutely no risk of doing online voting where anonymity is not part of the equation. Public votes make it easy to guarantee authenticity.
• The statutes do not state what constitutes a majority and uses a weird voting system, which results in arguments that waste time and could be avoided.
  • Year after year none of the people physically present propose amendments to fix this — even though they're most affected by it.
  • Brendan would propose using Schulze condorcet, or alternatively STV voting. PPUK likes STV but most other parties use Schulze. Regardless, approval voting has been proven not to work.
• A preferable structure in Brendan's opinion is more like a permanent GA than the board, which delegates the Board's duties to working groups.
  • Instead of Board > Members, it would be Members > PPI duties spread between necessary boards. Treasury could be, for example, 4–5 people.
    • Agreement that it should involve more people.
  • Delegation could occur as needed, dynamically, and with terms of reference guiding them.
  • This was the crux of Brendan's blog post (see earlier in the minutes).
• COMMENT from KOEN: It is important for PPI to write down some handover procedure from one Board to the next.
  • Agreement on this point.
• Brendan can arrange to have Koen discuss with PPAU's IT Team to explain PPAU's IT management.
• PPAU is very happy to help, but needs to know what needs to be done.
• COMMENT from KOEN: There is a culture of secrecy in the Board.
  • Agreement on this point.
• COMMENT from KOEN: To be frank, there is a significant imbalance on the board with a large proportion of German representatives.
  • REPLY from BRENDAN: This is how we've always seen it from the outside. We will propose a statute amendment that limits membership of the Board to two members per nation, otherwise it's just unfair. There's never been representation from the Asia-Pacific.
• Koen is considering regional coordinators in the PPI Board — regions such as Asia-Pacific or Latin America.
  • Agreement that this would be good.
• COMMENT from BRENDAN: PPI was meant to be the communication platform for all Pirate Parties. This IRC network exists because a couple of parties forked the broken Piratenet several years ago. It died and they meshed with us. PPI was not involved at all. So it seems Pirates communicate in spite of PPI, not because of PPI.
  • REPLY from KOEN: Pirate Times at the moment also doesn't want to be part of PPI anymore. It started as a PPI project but became independent soon.
• The PPAU National Council is putting a motion to its members to leave PPI.
  • PPAU would like to offer PPI a right of reply.
  • It would be appreciated if Koen or the Board could write up about 300 words (or however much is desired) encouraging PPAU's members not to leave PPI.
    • This needs to be done before Congress on 19–20 July.
    • Needs to substantially explain why, acknowledge the issues, and explain how they are actually being attempted to be fixed.
  • No motion text exists at present. The choices will be (A) Leave, (B) Observer Status, or (C) Status quo.
  • If the National Council likes the response it may opt to withdraw the motion and instead have a discussion of the issues.
    • Things that would keep us in would be fixing remote participation and optimally having an online GA.
  • COMMENT from KOEN: I would very much like to get you and Andrew Norton involved in organising the online GA/participation.
    • REPLY from BRENDAN: We would be very happy to help!
• Acknowledging the international nature of the organisation instead of perpetuating the seriously Eurocentric nature is a good first step.
  • COMMENT from KOEN: Getting more good board members from outside Europe would help with the focus.
• COMMENT from BRENDAN: PPI has no documentation about how parties are structured. You should be able to open a document and see how parties function.

Assurances

• Brendan seeks assurance on behalf of PPAU that the suggestions discussed be put to the Board, in as far as the Board is capable of acting on them.
  • Of course, the Board cannot do things like statute amendments.
  • REPLY from KOEN: I will discuss these things at the next board meeting.
    • QUESTION from BRENDAN: Is there anything in particular you will push hard for specifically?
    • REPLY from KOEN: To get an online GA in advance of the IRL GA next year seems to be the bare minimum that needs to be achieved.

Meeting closed

• Meeting closed 23:07:31 UTC+10