Western Australian State Election 2017

Policy
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The Western Australia state election is scheduled to be held on 11 March 2017.

I want to start a discussion about registering the Pirate Party in Western Australia to run candidates in the 2017 WA State election and specific policy platforms to take to that election.

I have some policy ideas (to start it rolling), mainly focused on regional WA that I think will make a difference to rural voters (I live in the electorate of ‘Central Wheat-Belt’) .

#WA Regional Policies

Headline Policies - Autonomous Ready Roads , Regional copper to fiber, No Manditory Data Rention

Policy Summary - Regional Rail Freight, Autonomous Hybrid Solar Rail Bus, Autonomous Ready Roads , Regional copper to fiber, No Manditory Data Rention, Aboriginal Approved, Remote Bus Services, Doctors in Rural Hospitals, Regional Manufacturing Development, Regional Green Houses.

###Transportation

  • Regional Rail Freight - Rail lines across regional WA are scarcely used any more and many have been left to degrade to a completely unusable state. Grain haulage had been the only use on most lines for the past several decades but now even this is becoming history. Before the rest of this hard built asset is left to waste it must be ustilised for the reason it was built. Road haulage of grain (from bulk storage locations) is a practice that is widely objected to, both by farmers and most of the rural population mostly as an issue of road safety and damage to rural road. Re-instate general rail haulage, bulk produce and commodities transported by rail only.

Key Points – Reopen freight rail networks through rural WA, Grain and Mining Ores to be transported by rail only
Tags - Transposition, Rail, Freight, Road Safety

  • Passenger Rail (Autonomous Hybrid Solar Rail Bus) – Transportation costs for the rural population is a large burden, it isolates and restricts the movement of that population and is a hindrance to the economic sustainability of small country towns. Utilizing the existing rail network to run a medium speed (~80km/hr) Autonomous Hybrid Solar Rail Bus (30-40 people) service between country towns that would form part of the state wide public transport network. These vehicles could be as simple as retrofitted buses to begin the process and test feasibility.

Key Points – Use existing rail network to run ‘Autonomous Hybrid Solar Rail Bus’ service for rural WA connecting to existing public transport network in urban areas.
Tags - Transportation, Rail, Passenger, Rail Bus, Hybrid Solar Rail Bus, o-bahn

  • Autonomous Ready Roads - The development of standards and procedures for autonomous vehicle traffic on WA roads.

###Telecommunications

  • Regional copper to fiber – Regional WA will face a serious lack of connectivity options when the NBN is eventually rolled. It will mark the beginning of the end for the copper network and also any chance of true high speed, high bandwidth internet for regional WA. Replacing copper with fiber should be a option for all country towns (potential pop. Requirement), this would have a flow on effect of increasing available bandwidth for fixed-wireless and then subsequently satellite users. Vastly increasing he reach of the Fixed-wireless network with dedicated repeating nodes. The future that the high speed internet offers will continue to remain just out of reach for people in rural areas, further concentrating the need for people to live in urban areas.

Key Points – Replace regional copper network with fiber by 2025, Expand Fixed-wireles network range.
Tags - Telecommunications , NBN, copper phone lines, FTTP, digital divide

  • No Manditory Data retention– The mandatory data retention and monitoring system that has been placed upon every aspect of our electronic communications is an unacceptable and ill conceived scheme that can not be left in place. The retention of some data by ISP’s and Telecommunications providers may sometimes be necessary and desirable but the collection of the meta-data of every electronic communications by every person within Australia is an indiscriminate invasion of those peoples private lives. Aim for a repeal of the data retention bill, but a compromise could be acceptable.

Key Points - Amend bill to state "Meta-data retention is only required when a warrant for the capture of the data has been sort and approved, all other data retention is optional but only with the direct consent of the user."
Tags - Telecommunications , Data retention, amend

###Aboriginal Affairs

  • Aboriginal approved - “Quality Assurance/Certification/approval” for sale of products/art/foods/medicine that are the common property and heritage of the Aboriginal people. Products/item (eg didgeridoo) would need to be accessed by the requirements of the local Native title holder group , these could include the restriction of certain objects or iconography, limit/requirements for the source of materials used. Non-Aboriginal manufactures, artisans and native food growers would pay a certification fee that would go to the local native title holder corporation.

    Key Points – Aboriginal approval system for sale of cultural items and native produce, assist funding for native title groups.
    Tags – Aboriginal Affairs, native title, Aboriginal approved, bush foods, cultural items

  • Regular Public Transport to remote communities – isolation from services both social and medical is major source of inequality for indigenous people who live in remote communities All the aspirations and issues of the world easily reach these places but the capability to collect resources, skills and support to satisfy the needs and wants of those people is not so easy.

    Key Points – public transport service for remote communities, Access for young people to educational services, Shopping trips, medical trips, social/family visits
    Tags – Aboriginal Affairs, public transport, remote communities, bus

!TO BE UPDATED !

###Health

  • Doctors in rural Hospitals – Most regional hospitals have no doctor on staff,pressure on the budget of the health system and regional ambulance services.

    Key Points – Place doctors into regional hospitals

###Manufacturing

  • Regional Manufacturing Development – Supporting small to medium goods manufacturing in country towns. Anything from solar panels, electronics to hemp and medical cannabis products

###Primary Production

  • Regional Green houses – Small to Large green houses producing fruit, vegetables, hemp or cannabis for local and export. Located in areas of salinity caused by high water table. Bores with reverse osmosis filters to supply majority of water for these projects.
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First off, I applaud you for taking the initiative on this. :slight_smile: I’m just including information on the registration process in WA so that a timeline can be worked out.

  1. Realistically the latest date for to apply for registration is between 1–7 November 2016.
  2. A constitution for the WA branch will need to be adopted (we have them pre-drafted).
  3. A secretary needs to be elected so they can be named in the application.
  4. A list of at least 500 members is needed who are not members of other parties and who are on the electoral roll in WA.

Of these, I think getting the 500 members before 1 November will be the hardest.

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What Mozart said, plus:

Interestingly, there appear to only be a few parties registered for WA state elections at present: big three, Family First, Christians, and Shooters. This despite the legislative council running by region-based proportional representation, 6 members at a time, with what appears to be a near-identical voting method to the now-former Senate GVT system (in that it has GVTs and you need to stand two candidates for a group). Nomination deposit in 2013 for the LC was ‘just’ $250/candidate. Other interesting requirements: candidates must have been a WA resident for at least a year.

So the membership requirement seems to be by far the hardest. It looks like they still rely on paper forms, too.

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Thanks. Yes it does seem that getting the 500 people on the list before Nov will be a challange. Is there state by state break down of PP member numbers?

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Current membership numbers aren’t published, but @Feenicks or @Fletcher should be able to provide them.

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These are the state by state figures for this time last year, obviously it will have changed with 12 months worth of new members, but proportions are likely to be close. I havent had a chance to run the state by state numbers for this year yet, but will be doing so before congress.

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Thank you. Thats not too bad, must be nearer to 200 in WA now (I make it at least 155 :slight_smile: )

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@AndrewDowning Do you have an update on the membership figures for Western Australia? I am wondering what the chances are of running candidates in WA for the 2019 federal election? Also, would those candidates only run in the senate and not the house of representatives?

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Where we run candidates is basically a function of where we have people. Usually Senate to maximise potential voters.

We’ve run in three lower house electorates from memory; two were by-elections and the third last year (@JohnAugust was keen).

Also, I expect the next general election to occur in just over a year. See Antony Green a few months ago for why.

tl;dr run a recruitment drive in WA…

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@alexjago Thanks for the reply :slight_smile:

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What Alex said.

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As for WA specifically, we’ve run there twice - Senate redo 2014 and the Canning by-election.

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Which doesn’t answer my 2019 election question. I have taken a closer interest in the pirate party due to Jesse Herman’s advocacy of the Job Guarantee, it’s a policy that is important to me.

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Not bad. Cross referencing those figures with state population percentages and taking into account electoral systems and quotas, we are best positioned at the moment to contest WA Senate and Tas Senate elections.

There isn’t enough information to predict state possibilities, but NSW and WA Legislative Councils along with ACT and Tas Legislative Assemblies all have potential for various reasons.

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That was intended to demonstrate that we don’t have anything against WA, just limited resources.