Pirate Party Australia resigns from PPI

Official resignation statement follows:

Dear members of PPI,

It is with a heavy heart I announce the resignation (termination of membership) of Pirate Party Australia from Pirate Parties International, effective immediately, as per a motion resolved unanimously by the National Council.[1]

The Party no longer believes that there is any potential for reform left in PPI, and we have spent all of the energy we are willing to in pursuit of that end. This was compounded by the callous abuse of power and outright hostile culture of the PPI board which has been very clearly demonstrated over the last week.

However, building a new model for collaboration starts today.

Pirate Party Australia will continue to collaborate on international projects, and we invite those interested parties to consider their options. Pirate Party Australia will be working with the Icelandic Pirate Party to conceive a Pirate journal project in association with the Pirate Times which should allow a more in-depth view of the Pirate way of thinking.

We are also preparing a shared resource portal for all Pirate Parties, but it is of course very early days as we did not expect to be forced into this position so suddenly.

http://pirateint.org

It is intended that the wiki provided should be used as a common resource portal for Pirate Parties. Please do list your international contacts, available translators and any other resources your Party would be willing to share in order to support collaboration between Pirate Parties.

We have migrated our proposal for a collaborative organisation to the new, general international wiki. As we now no longer have the time constraints of the broken PPI statutes to deal with, we can slowly explore our future organisational options without pressure.

A temporary mailing list has been set up for the purpose of exploring future collaboration options. Shoot me an email if you're interested and I will add you.

Within a few weeks, we hope to have a Discourse[2] instance up as well to provide a safe, relatively self-regulated meeting place to discuss Pirate issues, provide a meeting point for international collaboration and give us an opportunity to break with the past on a completely modern platform.

Never forget that PPI is not the movement. It was meant to be an organisation to help Pirate Parties work together. In the end, we only ever did this in spite of PPI, not due to it.

You are also welcome to discuss this with us on our IRC network, PirateIRC, which has been a cooperative effort between several Pirate Parties for several years with no formal affiliation to PPI.

We look forward to you joining us in this exciting new opportunity for the Pirate movement.

[1] http://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Minutes/National_Council/2015-02-11
[2] http://www.discourse.org/

I've never been satisfied with the drive some have for the PPNZ to be an extension of an international movement instead of a localised party in its own right. There is little to be gained from the PPI other than confinement.
I've been really impressed with the Australian party's bold direction and progression as they develop into what they should be; an Australian party concerned with Australian politics and thinking. I agree with the statement they exist in spite of the PPI and not due to it.

There's a lot the PPNZ could learn from the PPA. It needs to connect with those closer to home instead of the other side of the world.

PPUK has also left still waiting for an explanation - they are in the midst of an election campaign though

I’ve been really impressed with the Australian party’s bold direction and progression as they develop into what they should be; an Australian party concerned with Australian politics and thinking.

Their approach seems somewhat brash, but it seems to be working well for them.

There’s a lot the PPNZ could learn from the PPA. It needs to connect with those closer to home instead of the other side of the world.

Go on...

I'm not specifically talking of PPA leaving the PPI.
Take a look at their Facebook page and take not of the posts; they are to do with Australia. Take a look at the PPNZ Facebook page and not how many posts demonstrate a preoccupation with issues in other countries. At the moment it's main purpose is to promote the Pirate Times. Which highlights how over-reactionary it was for the board to censure and evict evict David from his democratically elected board position when Andrew is capable of abusing the PPNZ Facebook page to promote his channel and interests.

When I read articles such as this ( http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/the-pirate-bay-may-have-lost-but-the-battle-has-just-begun-20141220-12aurf.html ), I get a much stronger sense of confidence and realistic expectations.
The PPNZ doesn't need to attract funding from international members, sell Warner licensed V For Vendetta masks, or make TOR routers (which is the sort of thing the current board talks about). It needs to connect with a larger population of Kiwis than extremist who hate Hollywood, and represent them in parliament as a registered party.

I’m not specifically talking of PPA leaving the PPI.
Take a look at their Facebook page and take not of the posts; they are to do with Australia. Take a look at the PPNZ Facebook page and not how many posts demonstrate a preoccupation with issues in other countries. At the moment it’s main purpose is to promote the Pirate Times.

It would be great to do self-promotion on our Facebook page, like any sensible Facebook page but of course we (as a party) don't currently have anything to show for. We need to take ownership for the pieces of what remains of our party, and turn them into something useful - something we can show, promote, and use to attract potential members.

Which highlights how over-reactionary it was for the board to censure and evict evict David from his democratically elected board position when Andrew is capable of abusing the PPNZ Facebook page to promote his channel and interests.

Unless you argue that it was Andrew's ambition to get the rest of us under his spell to promote his own objectives and David was not playing along (which I do not think is the case), then I have to disagree. David, at least from my point of view, was evicted from the board because of his destructive tendencies within the party. His desire to block decisions without justification or reason slowed the progress of any process that he was involved in. Had he truly cared for the objectives of the party then he would be actively here today standing up for what he believes in, suggesting solutions for the alleged lack of democracy within the party for example.

If you have a problem with the way the board conducts matters then tell us - better yet help us to solve the problem. Ranting about the board doing or not doing this or that won't to get the party or the board where it needs to be. This is a critical time for the party (new board, post-election, low active membership, etc) which means that support is going to help us go a lot farther than cynicism.

I've been actively involved with the board meetings and previously voiced my protests over the move to holding them in Mumble, as IRC is more accessible and self-documenting.
Add to that, the meeting agendas are 'published' to private Pirate Pads that only the board members can access, also used by the board members to table motions and vote. The pads also serve as minutes, which are no longer being published in condensed/sanitized form on the Wiki. Potential for engagement and transparency is at a low.

Regarding David, at least there was enough conversation in Mumble to know David's seat was vacated from the board because he didn't give full administration access to all the board members on Facebook. Editorial permissions, that the board members have, gives full access to Facebook's content and operational use. Andrew persistently posting Pirate Times promotion is ample evidence of that. Full administrative access to multiple people is dangerous in that any one of them could seize control.
But apparently that's not the real reason David's seat was vacated, just an excuse. As a single vote out of five he can't have been that destructive when the other four can just kick him out.
On that topic, there was also discussion in Mumble about an election for the seat during the censure period. That was directed towards excluding him from future elections somehow (it would be an embarrassment if he was re-elected), that eventuated to a decision the remaining board members should simply appointing someone of their choosing - ignoring the previous draft constitution that stated such appointments had to be followed by an election as soon as reasonably possible.
Alleged lack of democracy is self-evident.

The one thing I can be supportive of is some of the board members are finally engaging in Loomio again. It's been underutilised since they used it as a platform to launch the election for their current appointments.
After the board meeting where the need to liven it up and stimulate it was mentioned, I did just that and got personally attacked for using the term 'piracy'.

Regarding the main topic, are there any reasons for the party to be a member of the PPI?

We don't seem to interact with PPI, so no I suppose not.

Here is PPUK's explanation for leaving PPI
Iceland should be voting next week and Slovenia's secretary has expressed a desire for a new organisation