Pirate Congress 2017/Nominations
National Council
President
Emily Sievers
As a Councillor I have worked alongside the incumbent President for the past twelve months and have insight into how the National Council operates. I have a track record of integrity and honesty and I make a point of being approachable. I am always keen to listen to my team, whether it be for brainstorming or complaints, and I act to remedy their concerns. That said, I have low tolerance for bullshit and will cut to the crux of an argument rather than waste everyone’s time on problems that only serve to shit-stir.
I don’t consider myself a politician or a boss. I see myself as a regular pleb trying to make the country a better place. I stand for transparency and keeping the bastards honest.- Sometimes I’m interesting on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/emilythepirate/
Luke Housego
Member of Pirate Party Australia since a little after its inception. Experienced in building organisations both internally focused and externally focused.
Pro science. Evidence and data is almost everything. Acts of will is the rest.
Charming, slightly smarmy, surprisingly nice in person, oddly enough a little humble when offline. Makes many mistakes, usually not shy of admitting it, nor shy of taking advice. Deeply respectful, despite many and vocal disagreements of efforts of previous executive leaders.
Professional strategist and communicator. Apparently in corporate psych testing profile things they make you take for some jobs I score exceptionally highly in verbal logic whatever that means.
Lawful Evil.
The party needs strong leadership, a clear vision and someone to turn that vision into reality using a mix of inspiration, effective strategic engagement and hard pragmatism.
I am on record, excessively so for agitation towards accelerating internal improvements as a priority for the party. I stand by this, and this is the primary reason I think I am a necessary candidate. The party has made nearly no progress in the last twelve months. Who you vote into the executive is the choice you are making to change this.
Our current momentum is not good enough for what should be the pinnacle Australian political party for digital and civil liberty.
Won preselection for PPAU senate candidacy for Victoria, but withdrew to other commitments. Other commitments no longer exist.
Came 2nd last year for PPAU Secretary in the most contentious election for a long time ("ever" was one tweet) for PPAU. It was twittered a lot.
Recently re-wrote vision statement of Pirate Party AU with help and guidance from Tom Randle. I recommend him, even over me should there be a choice for a position on the executive.
Please note as stated elsewhere I have not donated a cent to the pirate party, and am not poor nor miserly. This is still true. I do not donate to charities on principle, but do give support including financial to professionally run organisations that are pursuing important agendas. There is a difference.
Last year my secretary candidacy was strongly attacked, arguably the only one attacked with such vigour, and yet still secured a significant portion of the votes. I am a candidate that does not shy from controversy, nor from standing on their principles in the face of adversity. If you want a "Hold the door!" self sacrificing leader, your looking at one.
I remain in the Pirate Party because its founding focus and culture I believe is fundamentally representative of my own core belief systems. I am left socialist leaning, but with economic pragmatism and believe more than anything that digital liberties are the most important issue facing us into the future.
I am a technology activist, and have been at times linked to various movements in that space. I do not however classify myself as an anarchist. Not here to smash the system, I'm here to make it better.
Formerly member of Australian Liberal Party (to see what its like from the inside, was offered factional support from the dominant faction to take secretary or president role for Richmond / Kew branch)
Formerly member of Australian Labor Party, Left Faction. Second to the then scarily effective backroom young Labor master deal maker, who was my mentor.
Built and led a Young Labor faction that took control of student organisations of Southern Cross university for 3 years.
Involved in helping a candidate running a Bill Of Rights campaign successfully get elected to the senate in NSW.
Involved in national and state elections as an organiser for ALP.
Involved in ALP and union activities and protests in an organiser perspective.
I do not ever apologise for my culture and being from the internet. This is often confused with being a troll, a chauvinist, homophobic, ignorant etc. I'm sane, educated, sophisticated, saavy even and still choose this culture.
Pirate Party Australia will remain named Pirate Party Australia while ever I am in it. We are the living tradition and culture of the earliest and most professional digital activists and we have never been more relevant to Australia than right now.
- Pirate Party Forum https://discuss.pirateparty.org.au/u/edeity/activity
- Linkedin https://linkedin.com/in/luke-housego-9a418bbb
- Reddit https://www.reddit.com/user/edeity/
- Twitter https://twitter.com/edeity1
- I say a lot online, much in jest or parody. Even I don't agree with a lot of it. But it's there, I don't delete things I write because they are unpopular and always happy to discuss.
Deputy President
Simon Frew
This candidate has withdrawn their nominationI have served in various roles for the party since its creation and have served as President for the last two years.
I will continue to be involved in various party activities, if the next National Council is cool with it and there is time, I would like to make some inroads into NSW state politics. As mentioned above, I want to work on building member engagement and activity.I support the Pirate Party platform and ideals and will do my best to uphold them into the future.
I have been an activist for the last 20 years, so have participated in a wide range of movements and campaigns. I joined the Pirate Party in its very early days because it aligned with my beliefs and goals and joining was the best way I could contribute to politics in Australia.- None
Secretary
Simon Gnieslaw
This candidate has withdrawn their nominationI am probably not the most qualified person out there, but nobody else has volunteered yet which means I'm the most qualified of those who have volunteered. If someone else volunteers later on, I would not be upset if I miss out and would happily contribute what I can in an unofficial capacity.
I think that it would be a difficult job, and that's probably why no one else has come forward yet, but someone has to do it and I would enlist help from others in the party where I can to help out, rather than to try doing everything myself.
If I win the position, I will definitely commit all the time I can to it, and I realise that this job carries a lot of responsibility.
I feel like in the past year the Pirate Party Australia didn't achieve much, and actually went backwards with a Forum "Data Loss Incident". One thing that I promise is making sure that we have regular data backups and checking them too.
Australian Politics continues to be quite volatile even without an announced election so now is the time to get our message out there before every party and his dog is trying to be heard, and be ready to go for whenever a hot topic in politics (or an election) hits.
I am totally on board with Pirate Party Australia ideals. I have my own personal opinions which are slightly different to the official platform in some areas (I personally agree with about 90%) and I think that's normal to have opinions which not everyone agrees with. Independent opinion is core to enabling the party's platform & policies to go further.
I understand that of I had an official role within the party, then I must always present the opinion of the party as voted by our members when acting in an official capacity.
I have never been part of any other political movement.
Tom Randle
This candidate has won their nominationMy professional and life experience covers theatre and event production, branding and marketing, project management, as well as being a programmer for the last 9 years.
I'm seeking re-election to the National Council to continue the work of our Party and of the National Council.
My focus during the next term of the National Council will cover some themes I've put forward before, and some new ones.
Communications - Community - Participation - Organising - Campaigning
My priorities:
- Continuing to make improvements in our membership communication systems and improving member participation between congresses.
- All our members need better access to tools and the community we have here to fully participate from the day they join.
- Preparing for and reaching a critical mass.
- I want to see people working for us and paid full time as soon as it is financially sustainable.
- Providing our members with the resources and support they need from the National Council to make the changes they can see we need.
In this last year as Deputy Secretary on the National Council I have personally driven major projects and improvements to the Party, they include:
- The redesign of our main website. Which launched earlier this year with a new theme, information architecture, and content.
- A refresh of our social media branding banners, logos etc. across all our primary social media channels, following discussion and feedback on designs and colours.
- Implemented major changes to our Party email mailing lists, including new Party members being added when they join and a merge of our current members. This means we are finally able to communicate properly with our membership via email.
- Finally and most importantly, I took over development of our membership database project after it had stalled. I have put a lot of effort into this project and getting it finished. It is now in production for new Party members and existing members will get account invitations very soon.
Since becoming a member I've contributed across many areas of our organisation.
Other accomplishments I'm proud of:
- being the lead Senate candidate for Tasmania at the 2013 federal election.
- as the Campaigns Officer for a while, as well as running the Campaigns Committee.
- as a member of the Elections Committee.
- as the first Tasmanian State Coordinator.
- helping out on our campaigns and fundraisers.
- continuing to contribute to our social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ over many years.
- producing things! Posters, flyers, designing and building our current website theme and much of the content, letter boxing flyers, contributing to press releases etc.
I agree with our platform, believe in our founding principles and I have not been involved in any other political parties.
- Rundll on IRC
Deputy Secretary
Tom Randle
This candidate has withdrawn their nominationSee nomination details listed under Secretary.
Simon Gnieslaw
This candidate has won their nominationSee nomination details listed under Secretary.
Treasurer
Mark Gibbons
This candidate has won their nominationI agree with our unique platform and fully support its core precepts including freedom of speech, privacy and liberty, scientific progress, and defence of the commons.
Before PPAU I was politically homeless except for a brief and misguided stint as an ALP-aligned student politician in the 1990s.
Deputy Treasurer
Simon Frew
This candidate has won their nominationSee nomination details listed under Deputy President.
Registered Officer
Alex Jago
This candidate has won their nominationSince 2014 I've been a reasonably active ordinary member. Now, I'm putting my hand up to be more involved still, and to take on some formal responsibilities -- if only to help spread the load!
Outside of my life as a Pirate, I'm finishing up my electrical/computer engineering degree, and for several years now I've been a fundraising officer and now librarian for my choir. So I've got some skills in helping run an organisation.I've been a part of both election campaigns in my area since I joined (Griffith by-election and 2016 general election). In particular, last year I contributed: my time on the day, money, memes, volunteer coordination, and evangelism in my other communities (when it's been relevant). This year I've regularly attended the meet ups that Emily S has been so diligently organising, and we'll be getting some uni-based promo done in the coming semester. I've drawn up a decent chunk of artwork and started an initiative to keep authorisation tags up to date.
As an active user of both our IRC and Discourse platforms, I believe I have a solid understanding of the current state of our internal culture. Our pressing task over the next year remains to grow not just in total members but active, engaged members.
I don't pretend to have a magic solution, but as a councillor, I'll support things that seem like they'll help, with both my time and my influence.Yes. I've never been a member of any party except PPAU, and I hope that never changes.
I've also helped out various Greens campaigns as an HTV-person, door-knocker and map-drawer. (The first two count as campaigning skills development.)I'm alexj on IRC; my Discourse profile is at https://discuss.pirateparty.org.au/u/alexjago and I'm @alexjago51 on Twitter.
Councillor (2 positions)
Alex Jago
This candidate has withdrawn their nominationSee nomination details listed under Registered Officer.
John August
This candidate has won their nominationMy website is at johnaugust.com.au
Simon Frew
This candidate has withdrawn their nominationSee nomination details listed under Deputy President.
Miles Whiticker
This candidate has won their nominationFind me on Twitter @theOtherHatGuy @PPAU_QLD
Emily Sievers
This candidate has withdrawn their nominationSee nomination details under President.
Officers
Policy Development Officer
Jesse Hermans
This candidate has won their nominationI’ve been the stand-in Policy Development Officer for the last 8 months. During this time, I have helped further the work of the PDC through overseeing policy development, organising working groups etc. I have also managed to keep minutes of meetings, and run Policy Development Committee meetings in a participative style.
I am currently on Board of Fair Money Australia, and on the Executive of Prosper Australia, two small NGO think-tanks which deal in research and policy advocacy in monetary systems and taxation respectively. I also am an active member of the La Trobe University Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Society, of which many of the members I engage with are policy wonks with different areas of interest and expertise. I believe this allows me to bring a diverse range of perspectives to the table beyond my own, which assists in facilitating discussion and development in the policy making process.The PPAU platform and ideals were the reason I joined the party about a year ago. I was previously a member of the now defunct Australian Sovereignty Party, which was similar in many aspects to the PPAU but was less established, less democratic, and ineffectively operated with its internal party mechanics. I left the party after a change of leadership and direction I disagreed with, shortly after the party folded - it never made it to its first election. During the 2016 Federal Election (my first federal election) I was searching for a party to vote for, and was thoroughly impressed when I saw the PPAU. Not long afterwards I decided to join the party.
Other political movements I am an active proponent of and work with are:
- Georgism (in a non-partisan fashion via Prosper Australia)
- The Right2Work Coalition (as a founder)
- Modern Monetary Theory and Monetary Reform
- The Australian Unemployed Workers Union
- Proportional Representation (PR Society of Australia)
- Deliberative Democracy
- None
Dispute Resolution Committee Member (1 position)
Fletcher Boyd
This candidate has won their nomination- Senate candidate in the 2014 WA senate re-election
- State Coordinator for Western Australia: 2014-2015
- Party Deputy Secretary: 2014-2016
- Party Secretary: 2016-current
- Press Team 2014-current
- PirateIRC administrator 2015-current
- [email protected]
- PirateIRC: Fletcher