Upgrade and Update Our Constitution?

Agreed that their are sufficient problems identified with the constitution to be going on with.
To summarize.
2014: Campaign takes over financial controls , bankrupts party, and departs. It takes concerned members many months to gain access to assets and rebuild membership database. legal company unsustainable , inc soc does not convene.
2017: Leader takes over financial controls uplifts funds but does not campaign effectively at all! No measurable effort to recruit new or renew existing members . Election undertaken without the required membership, Electoral commission not informed as required as required under the ACT.

Now both these scenarios have a common constitutional cause and will occur again (if we manage to survive this!) and that being a failure to set out clearly the limits of exec and leadership powers. and to clearly set out the purpose/responsibility of the party administration and explicitly provide mandate to party administration.
The administration has a vitally important roll in ensuring legal requirements are met and that the long term survival of the party is not subsumed by campaign (or funds simply uplifted and NOT campaigned with)
The power of EXEC is not absolute and this must be explicitly stated
EXEC does not have the information or expertise to manage cash-flow so that the party remains in a position to meet it obligations as they fall due. Only the party administration is in a position to do this and so the constitution must reflect this.
Further EXEC does not have the information or mandate to manage the membership and reportage to the electoral commission. This roll is given in the electoral ACT to the Party Secretary. The constitution must set limits to EXEC roll in membership!

I do have specific proposals to address both of these matters raised but would like to let you all acquaint yourselves with these issues and have dialogue before proposing specifics

@sophiarosebyles @fredlook That being said, how about we take one piece of the constitution (small piece preferably) and propose an amendment that we think would solve the problem in future.

Look on the bright side. For better or worse we actually have an exec this time. Historically we spend the first six months after 2014 in-fighting. That is a lesson to be learned I think. Perhaps by me more than others.

We have a sycophantic exec at the moment ... there needs to be something to enable free speech within the exec too (this is one of our principles right?) and while views might differ, some means by which to talk out differences in a manner which creates a solution which is greater and better than the sum of its parts. Not a railroaded decision made by the leader. Decisions need to be unanimous, and not acted upon until they are. (or until dissenting members have agreed to a compromise without bullying from the leader)

Respect for different views, and for every piece of work done no matter how small, because it all adds up and people do more when recognised. (I did a lot of work before current leadership and exec arrived only to be told that I 'did nothing' by the new leader. That was not true, but her view prevailed. Other members did more, including put up their own money to keep the party going but were not given the respect of having a view)

Recruitment to exec should have some principles around it ... I feel we need a balance of viewpoints and demographic on board. Current exec felt that the party was all about young people ... and those ideas are great ... but young people vote the least, if we truly want to get a seat we need to appeal to the voting majority AS WELL. Convincing young people to vote / relying on just one demographic is risky IMHO.

Fred will have salient comment on the technical and financial principles for the constitution. My expertise is not there.

My expertise is not in constitution writing either ... happy to talk to someone who can do this, to incorporate these ideas ... if you guys like it.

Well said Miriam....You need to be back on EXEC to catch the crooks getting in....
Funny how when the ship sinks the rats run....NO WORD after the election past from all those others who cheated the system (And were voted into EXEC in desperation() and made fools of themselves to us honest folk...Did they really think they would get away with their bad behaviour? Look who is now speaking???The honest ones who were forced out through Suzies bad deeds and list of her bad friends...All they think about is spying and stuff they fight against personally....
We saw how they rushed in to a meeting just to VOTE because Suzie said so. They actually believed in her because she did some bookwork website that turned out to be a bad face to newzealanders with integrity....
We saw how one bad egg attracts all the others...didnt work of course because it never does. Karma works well though and for those who participated in supporting the past bad deeds need to be aware of their future consequences made last election.
It is those who are willing to be honest and carry new zealand mana that will bring this IP Party to a better existance.
A NEW EXEC is required immediately to bring some respect back to itself along with a NEW LEADER with respect for others who are real newzealanders!!!!
NOONE is perfect we all know this but why have they run off leaving the IP Party abandoned?
Suzie is unable to be a financial member after 3 years out of nz so she is out>>> with little effort from anyone...I am happy about that as it was a huge mistake letting her take a very importANT SEAT..as a.leader!!!!

I also feel that $1 is not enough to attract anyone into a party..... It must be at least $5 to show goodwill from true members.
I have said my piece.

@miriammallinder Not quite sure how to incorporate the first paragraph? Exec is too small for anonymous voting to work and if they get rail roaded then hell, it is their fault and ours. They are adults and we are the adults that voted them in. We get, democratically, what we asked for. Perhaps a mediation option? In case of accusations of bullying in Exec we get a Pirate Party member to mediate?

Second paragraph is in our constitution already and apart from the lack of 3.2 demographics many of the current exec are quite young. Perhaps weighting the exec voting with demographics might be a solution?

@sophiarosebyles (Fantastic name BTW) If I am to read between the lines you want;
The leader must remain until another leader is chosen or one year has passed?
Some type of anti-bullying clause possibly. Same as the mediation one?

To everybody though, can we not go attacking people. If we need to rant then let's set up a rant page (sorry, rant is an awful word). Half the problem is that the things we attack now are our benefits tomorrow and the other half is that we end up handicapping the party today instead of looking to the future. We need to very clearly think out our changes for the benefit of the party.

Mason Bee....shutting down conversation since 2011....Look folks, we need to talk about this and I want to talk about it. We have a chance to fix the parts of the constitution that are broken. Let's try.

Thanks @masonbee - I'm keen to get some further engagement on this. Looks like the trio have left?

Hopefully not. They are making points that can be/could be addressed in the constitution or in by laws I suppose but we need to get down to actually wording before this will go anywhere I think. Just to go back to the previous list, we are again leaderless. Why don't we start there. What happens when we no longer have a leader? What should happen? What is the timeline. Who is responsible for managing that timeline.

In terms of timeline, the constitution says "the Party Secretary will conduct a by-election as soon as practicable" At the time of the first vacancy we were knee deep in the election, and it was deemed not practicable at the time. With compliance workloads and other distractions - the practical time hasn't happened yet. I'm keen to do it soon. :purple_heart: :soon:

We didn't have a leader between 2015-early 2017, but we do have a party president. We only became "Leaderless" because Suz was unable to continue to be a leader due to her being out of the country more than 3 years. However in-between elections the President becomes the main charge.

In terms of the Trio, those three have had a history of slandering and performing Libel against the current exec, they are former exec who operated in 2016 and left because they were disgruntled at the former party leader Suzie Dawson. As you've already noticed they have a habit of attacking people both on this thread and in others. Of course, if you want to see how they attacked us in other threads that we archived, I'm more than happy to DM you what they said before we archived them. All-in-all I still don't understand why the Trio keep coming back and hope that we never have to deal with them again.

But I'd rather focus on the future. Our Discord is far more active than our Loomio. I would like to continue to use Loomio as our port of call for policy discussion and long-term planning, and our Discord for on the spot discussions and meetings. The reason we have been quiet is one, we have been focusing on international events such as the Assange Vigil events and secondly we have been working out our returns for the party. Once that is done the party will become more locally active. And whilst our Loomio is quiet our discord sure isn't!