2017-18 PDC Working Groups

Policy
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PDC meetings happen at 8:30pm (AEDT) on the second Tuesday of every month. Working groups should meet at least once a month (even if only briefly) and then have at least one delegate (or “chair person”) from each working group report on progress and/or issues at the PDC meeting.

The PDC meetings themselves should be able to be kept fairly brief, given now we’ve got a whole series of working groups under way.
Meetings will start with working group reporting, then any potential issues which need to be discussed regarding particular working groups.
From this point the formal component of the meeting will conclude, and allow for any additional agenda items, policy discussion, suggestions, “in the news” issues, general discussion etc. On this basis I’ll now start writing up formal agendas for the PDC meetings and cease running them in an ad hoc manner. With all the additional participants, upping the PDC organisational standards is now imperative in my view.

*Note, additional recruits for any/all working groups are always welcome and in many cases sorely needed. Pirates please get on board… Arrrrrr!
List of this year’s Working Groups and participants:

Agriculture Policy - Twisty, Jesse_H (mothballed - low priority, but still recruiting)
https://discuss.pirateparty.org.au/t/agriculture-and-farming-policy-discussion/?source_topic_id=1433

Patents - Creative Methods Act - revision - AndrewD, CameronM, MarkG, BillM, Jesse_H
https://discuss.pirateparty.org.au/t/creative-methods-act/?source_topic_id=1433

New Diversity & Equality Policy - SimonG, AndrewD, jedb et al. (RECRUITING, on hold until more diverse)

Startup and Innovation Policy - AndrewD, SimonG
https://pad.pirateparty.org.au/p/Start_Up_policy_brainstorm

Rent Collection Policies - Jesse_H, MarkG
https://pad.pirateparty.org.au/p/rentcapture

Job Guarantee Policy - Jesse_H, MarkG, CameronM
https://discuss.pirateparty.org.au/t/universal-job-guarantee-program/?source_topic_id=1433
https://pad.pirateparty.org.au/p/PDC_Job_Guarantee
Video Gaming Policy - SimonG et al. (RECRUITING, to be determined)

Electoral System Reform Policy - jedb, AndrewD, alexj, SimonG
https://discuss.pirateparty.org.au/t/electoral-system-reform-policy-discussion/?source_topic_id=1433
https://pad.pirateparty.org.au/p/Electoral_System_Reform

Space Policy (sub category of National Science Plan) - MilesW, alexj (RECRUITING, on hold until more members)

Please link relevant pads for each working group below when established.

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Video gaming policy?

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Existing pads:
(Currently a place-holder for everything):
https://pad.pirateparty.org.au/p/Regional_Policy_Brainstorm

https://pad.pirateparty.org.au/p/Start_Up_policy_brainstorm
https://pad.pirateparty.org.au/p/PDC_Job_Guarantee
https://pad.pirateparty.org.au/p/foi-reform-policy-notes
https://pad.pirateparty.org.au/p/Electoral_System_Reform
https://pad.pirateparty.org.au/p/rentcapture

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SimonG will elaborate, organise and chair - he forgot to bring it up at the meeting.

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Could use more diversity.

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Video Gaming Policy (TBD)
Brand new policy set to address issues specific to Video Gaming.

There is a hot topic about microtransactions/gambling style games at the moment which completely bypass current gambling laws and are totally targeted towards children.

There is Civil Liberties aspect where we would want these games to exist, but a Social Protection aspect where we would want resources to be available to those who have a problem or are vulnerable (i.e. Children).

Volunteers needed to join the group

Diversity & Equality Policy

More volunteers needed to join this group

I don’t think that this one could really be as broad as I’d like it to be unless we get members from a diverse range of viewpoints to begin with. We need a bigger pool than just who’s active on these Discussion Boards at the moment to find more people with more viewpoints to do this.

Current Ideas:

Anyone who has experience about being of a different culture, religion, race, social ability, gender or sexual orientation than what they would consider as “typical” within the Pirate Party would be particularly helpful (as would anyone else).

I want to look at not just sociological impacts, but emotional is important too. We want everyone to be happy as much as possible, while being balanced and fair in-line with our core principles. That is the beauty of our Pirate policies, and the tackling of such a topic which has been a “Clusterfuck” will let our strengths come out (if we can do this, we can do anything).

There is a lot of baggage on this topic, those will need to be left at the door and you will have to force your mind to be open.

The amount if active Pirate Party is quite small at the moment, so I will try reaching out to the broader member base (monthly newsletter will be getting off the ground), and also if you have any friends who might be interested in this and would make a good fit to our culture and way of doing things, please let them know we are doing this (party membership might be required, I’m not entirely sure, I’d have to check on that)

edit: The end wording will also be critical to the success of the Diversity & Equity Policy, already some of the words I used have set off some emotions, as neutral as I’m trying to be. It is imperative that anyone in the group leaves those things at the door, and assumes positive intent or what they are trying to say even if particular words have special meaning to you.

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2 posts were merged into an existing topic: The “Google Manifesto” which got a Google employee fired (FULL)

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Yes, please keep discussion of particular policies out of this thread. I too have opinions of my which I will not clutter with here.

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As an aside, is everyone in each working group on the policydev email list? If not how do we fix this? I’m not yet familiar how our email lists function. Still need to get up to speed on all the whiz bang PPAU IT tools I have at my disposal.

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I don’t have much to contribute here. It’s a distraction from my primary role. I’ll be an observer more than contributor. Same for the other WG’s.

We need more Pirates, not policy.

edit: but, have at it.

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5 posts were split to a new topic: Monthly News Letter

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Okay that is a good point.
I too don’t feel adequately qualified to lead and work alone on this. My thoughts are we at least produce a short list of things we think are relevant (largely completed) and worth having a basic stance on. MarkG suggested we perhaps just make a preamble of the policies which relate to agriculture but fall under different categories, and then tie in anything which can only fit under agriculture.

This way we should be able to keep the time and resources spent on this to a minimum, given most of it will be a rehash of existing policies with a few new ones thrown in. It should take only 2 WG meetings tops to write up something basic. We can then expand it in future as more pirates want to get involved. I think it’s useful to have something minimal to show we’re interested in farming/agriculture policy and want to hear more from (potential) pirates in these areas.
The only issue here will be incorporating evidence and citations to support any additional policy in this area. Not insurmountable though.

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13 posts were split to a new topic: Electoral System Reform Policy discussion

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All these Policy Working Groups! It’s going to be a busy year for the Pirate Party!

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Yes definitely.
As a starting point, the present group should probably commit to not starting WG activity until group membership achieves at least better than token diversity.

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Fine with me. Won’t commence policy making until recruiting is done we have enough people in a position to present the side from a first-hand minority perspective.

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You’ll receive a summary of current members in the next week as part of a scheduled audit, anyone not on the list can be added by asking the NC to add them to the PDC. (give me a poke on chat/email if you get stuck)

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Putting the diversity working group on hold until there is more diversity is fine. Probably a good idea given there are people working on multiple working groups which means there’ll have to be some prioritising anyway.

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Leadership comes to those who deserve it when they want it least but swarmwise model suggests everyone is a leader for the things they are passionate about. The things which I think motivate you are having a platform of professional, community developed, evidence based policies and that’s one of our greatest hidden strengths as a party and a movement.

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