National Congress 2022 - you're invited!

National Congress 2022 — You’re invited!

G’day Pirates,

I hereby invite you to Pirate Party Australia’s 2022 Annual National Congress!

The National Congress is an opportunity for members to propose and debate new policies and constitutional amendments, hear nominations for Party Officials, and meet Pirates from around Australia.

It is the paramount decision-making body of Pirate Party Australia.

Date: Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th of July, 2022

As befits a digital-rights party, Congress is held entirely online! You can attend from anywhere by video call and text chat.

Watch parties and Friday night meetups are a distinct possibility! If you’d like to meet up with your local pirates, drop me an email at secretary@pirateparty.org.au. With any luck, I’ll be able to put you and a mate or two in touch! Better yet, make a post on the forums for more visibility.

I urge everyone - this means you - to consider running for National Council. As always - we’re a party for everyone and we want people from all walks of life in our leadership team.

Details of the National Congress, including the agenda, new policies, nominations, constitutional amendments and details on how to participate online are available on the Wiki:

The National Congress is followed by a seven day online voting period to ratify the substantive motions passed at Congress. This voting is open to all Full Members, who will be emailed ballot information.

Ensure your party membership is up-to-date!

There are a number of dates and deadlines and procedures to follow if you wish to submit items to the National Congress or declare candidacy for positions.

Constitutional Amendments:

Policies and Policy Amendments:

  • It would be appreciated if policy proposals could be submitted at least 10 days before National Congress so that they can be allowed for in the agenda.
  • Email your proposals to secretary@pirateparty.org.au

Nominations:

  • Positions up for election are all nine National Councillors, the Policy Development Officer, and two positions on the Dispute Resolution Committee.
  • Nominations can be accepted up until the relevant agenda item at National Congress.
  • Nominations for electable positions can be made by following the instructions here: Pirate Congress 2022/Nominations - Pirate Party Australia Wiki

We thank you for your continued support!

Please feel free to discuss National Congress or any other matters in our discussion forums at https://discuss.pirateparty.org.au/ or on our Discord.

Yours sincerely,

Alex Jago
Secretary
Pirate Party Australia

Treasurer’s Report

Treasurer @JohnAugust has written the financial report:

treasurers-report-2022.pdf (46.4 KB)


And here is mine:

PPAU Secretary’s Report 2021/2022

This Term

In the 12 months, we went from having just been de-registered, to co-founding FUSION and fighting our fourth general election as part of that alliance.

This year, the word “Pirate” appeared on more Australians’ ballot papers than ever before.

It’s been a year largely spent under time pressure, with the election looming in the horizon. From forming Fusion in October, to implementing it on the Pirate side with a special National Congress in November, to immediately entering (and passing!) Fusion’s membership audit (and not even under that name), to ramping up the campaign from January through to May… it’s been busy.

I want to take this moment to thank everyone who’s received an email or an SMS or a phone call asking “Can you step up and help?” and responded “Yes!”.

This campaign was right up there in terms of scope for any of Fusion’s member branches. And we couldn’t have done it without the swathe of volunteers that stepped up to support our kick-arse candidates.

Looking forward

With the advent of FUSION, our historic membership-numbers problem is less pressing, but that won’t excuse us from pulling our weight within the alliance.

We must continue to prosecute our radically open rights-and-evidence-based politics, and we must do it with an eye to continued promotion and recruitment.

Electoral politics remains a popularity contest, and a local-logistics challenge.

The term to come will provide several challenges for us to meet as part of Fusion as we look to contest state elections and raise our collective profile:

Firstly, the Victorian state election this year (party registration closes in a week; the election’s in November).

Then in March of next year is the NSW state election; the deadline for registration there was the end of June, which we weren’t in a position to make.

In 2024 comes the Queensland council and state elections. Our actions in the next 12 months will lay the groundwork for contesting that.

In particular, we in particular will need to decide just how much integration we will have with the Fusion. Specifically, I’m talking about whether we switch to having a joint membership database with the rest of Fusion, as the others largely already do.

(The practicalities of actually running an election campaign call for this integration, because different branches of Fusion will take the lead in different parts of the country.)

As always, this report contains a request to you, the ordinary party member reading this report. We need you to step up, seek out something to do that interests you, and then do it.

Alex Jago
Secretary
Pirate Party Australia
July 2022

National Congress 2022 — member ballots are out!

Hi Pirates,

National Congress was last weekend and tonight the member ballots are going out!

Summary

  • All proposals were approved on the floor (some with small amendments) and proceed to member vote.
  • Seven out of nine National Council positions were filled - more on a by-election soon.
  • Both Dispute Resolution Committee positions were filled.
  • Minutes are here: Pirate Congress 2022/Minutes - Pirate Party Australia Wiki

Voting

By the time you receive this email, you should have already received two others detailing your credential and password for the voting system. (These are not the same thing.)

You will need the credential to access the “voting booth”, and then the password to finalise casting your vote. The link in either email will work to get to the booth.

Earlier tonight we sent another email with a broken link (containing the infamous 127.0.0.1) — please disregard that one.

You will be asked to vote Aye, Nay or Abstain on each of the five proposals.

Details of all five proposals can be found here: Pirate Congress 2022/Motions - Pirate Party Australia Wiki

Voting closes at 23:59 (Perth time) on Sunday 7th August.

FAQ

These ballots are for Full Members of the party only. If you have received this email but not a ballot email, it’s likely that you don’t currently have active party membership. Contact secretary@pirateparty.org.au if you have questions about membership, or iewg@pirateparty.org.au if you have questions about the voting process.


Kind Regards,
Alex Jago
Secretary
Pirate Party Australia