Sydney Meetup 2014-01-25

• Week long "pay anything you want" promo
  • Let's do it every year!
  • We now have over 1,000 members
  • NSW is now over half way to its required membership of 750 members for a state branch
  • Suggestion that we might want to do this permanently.
• Coward's Punches
  • NSW is considering draconian laws for curfews and police powers.
  • QLD already has VLAD (Vicious Lawless Association Disestablishment) which allows police to arrest *anyone* in a group of three or more.
  • VIC is also moving in this direction.
• Brendan is working on state-based sign-up forms
  • All renewals have been deferred until the state based forms are working, so that people don't need to renew and then fill in their details again once the state based forms are working.
• Griffith by-election (KRudd's old seat)
  • Our goal is to get 4% of the 1st Preference votes. This gets us much needed extra funding. Running a campaign is expensive.
  • Brendan will go to QLD for a week during election time.
  • Anything else NSW can do for QLD?
  • HTV images:

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• PDC (Policy Development Committee) Summary (more at Policy_Development_Committee):
  • Slow movement due to elections
  • The PDC is looking for members.
  • Policies in progress include Universal Healthcare, Universal Childcare, Universal Education
    • e.g. Co-operative childcare, where government provides seed funding to start small co-operatives to take care of children.
    • e.g. Revenge Porn: set up a federal framework instead of different laws across states; treat it like legislation for sexual predators.
    • Tort of Privacy - There's no central privacy law for civil cases, this is to try and improve that situation. Exceptions to privacy tentatively structured after "fair use exceptions" in copyright -- give a judge the ability to decide if a violation of privacy is "fair".
    • Policies for First Australians, and adding constitutional and bill of rights amendments.
    • Policies regarding digital startups
    • Policies regarding Agriculture and Patents (we already have policies in this area, this would be more clarification and additional structure).
• The PDC is now also responsible for responding to enquiries:
  • TIA Inquiry: Telecommunications(Interception and Access) Act 1979
  • E-safety "protect the children" enquiries
  • We are ignoring the "submarine protection" bill.
    • IP Laws Amendment and trademarks review
    • E.g. We will argue for allowing compulsory licenses for generic medicines
  • Emerging issues: Trademarks (e.g. Opera House is now trademarked), and Design Rights.