Standards/National Council/Standing Orders

Official Party Document The veracity of this document is ensured by the National Council and editing of this page is limited to members of the National Council.

Standing Orders

These rules shall be known as the "National Council Standing Orders", or simply Standing Orders herein, and are established under the Party Constitution, primarily Part 3, Section 6 (8).

Nothing whatsoever within these Standing Orders shall be construed as to override any part of the Party Constitution.

Definitions

Agenda means the agenda for a meeting of the National Council as prepared by the Party Secretariat.

Constitution means the constitution of Pirate Party Australia.

Councillor means a member of the National Council.

Quorum for meetings

Meetings of the National Council may only begin after a quorum of Councillors has been confirmed under the rules of the Constitution.

Chairperson

The chair of the meeting must be determined before any business may be considered by the meeting.

The President shall chair meetings of the National Council.

Should the President not be able to chair a National Council meeting or wish to relinquish the chair for whatever reason, the Deputy President shall chair meetings of the National Council.

Should the President and Deputy President not be able to chair a National Council meeting, another Councillor shall be appointed by a motion as chair for that meeting under the rules of the Constitution.

Welcome

After quorum is confirmed and a meeting chair has been established, the chair shall declare the meeting open and welcome those in attendance.

Attendance and apologies

The meeting shall note, and the minutes shall record, those Councillors in attendance and those that provided apologies in advance.

The minutes shall record those observers that wish to be noted.

Order of business

The chair shall put before the meeting business in the order as circulated in the meeting's Agenda, unless the chair determines it reasonable to call business in a different order.

Once a meeting has commenced, the order of business should generally be:

 Motion acceptance of the minutes for the previous meeting
 Correspondence
 Reports
 Action items
 Discussion items, including motions
 General business items
 Motion to close the meeting

Motions

Any Councillor may move motions during meetings when they have been recognised by the chair and have the floor of the meeting, a seconder for their motions is not required.

Once a motion is before the meeting the chair must call for discussion or amendments to the motion. If no discussion or amendments are raised the motion shall proceed immediately to a vote.

When an amendment to a motion is moved but not accepted by the original motion mover, the amendment motion will be voted on first.

Amendments to amendment motions are not allowed.

Procedural motions

Procedural motions may be made at any time, except during discussion of other business. Procedural motions must be dealt with by the meeting in the order they are raised immediately following the business currently before the meeting.

Procedural motions relate to the running of the meeting, including:

• for a break or recess;
• adjusting the environment of the meeting (the room or technology);
• adjourning the meeting; or
• modifying the Standing Orders.

Suspension of Standing Orders

Any Councillor may move motion to suspend Standing Orders to discuss a matter of urgency at any time, with a brief explanation of the matter to be raised included in their Standing Orders suspension motion. A seconder for motions to suspend Standing Orders is not required.

The meeting shall determine the motion to suspend Standing Orders by absolute two-thirds majority before the meeting continues.

Where discussion is to be heard following the suspension of Standing Orders, the mover of the motion to suspend Standing Orders shall have a maximum of 20 minutes to discuss and move any motions to be considered by the meeting before the chair may declare the suspension of Standing Orders to have concluded and return to the normal order of business.

The chair may not conclude the suspension of Standing Orders while a motion is being voted on.

Interruption of business

A Councillor may only interrupt another Councillor to:

• move to suspend Standing Orders;
• move "That the Councillor be no longer heard"; or
• move "That the motion be now put".

A seconder for motions of the above types is not required.

A Councillor silenced by a motion "That the Councillor be no longer heard" may not interrupt the business of the meeting for the remaining duration of the meeting with any of the above three motion types. They may still participate in discussion and vote on motions under the rules of the Constitution.

Voting

When a motion is ready to be voted on, the chair will declare the motion is now put.

Voting on a motion will conclude after a reasonable amount of time has been given for the vote to either carry, lapse or be defeated under the rules of the Constitution.

The chair must explicitly conclude the vote on a motion by stating as such.