Launching Some Campaigns

I agree with you... having been involved with other Parties for a good many years I gave up with them... the details are not important, but none of the existing parties really reflect what a lot of people feel.

I think one way forward is to get various special interest groups on board and I could list a few that come to mind.

It would not be impossible to break the 5% at the next election given a decent number of special interest groups...

But as a political party, you have to make promises and give people reasons for supporting you and becoming active....

OK...

Motorcycle clubs (as opposed to gangs - but lets not just exclude anyone for the sake of it).

Car Clubs.... for car clubs and motorcycle clubs, just promise more freedom from petty regulations

Nurses.... give them a say in hospital management and do away with too much bureaucracy and paper pushing - let nurses nurse...

Teachers... similar for Nurses, but promise more teacher aids, and reduce emphasis on teaching just for academic success... the World is already full of knowledge with very little wisdom.

Support of decriminalise marijuana - not that I even smoke

Young people who want to go into further education without compromising their future

The unemployed.... slogan = there is no shortage of work, just a shortage of work that pays a living wage

Promise to reduce wealth inequality - I can give all the figures as to the strong correlation between income inequality and poor social statistic.

Give younger people a chance to own a home.... that horrible word, capital gains tax... the arguments for not having it are all totally flawed - it's nonsense.

GST taken off food - nonsense that it can't be done, the UK does it - so how can they do it and little old NZ can't

Control immigration - jobs for Kiwis first

Strict controls on foreign ownership of property and land in NZ - other countries do it ...

The measure of success will be the quality of GDP - lets remove the need to build 2 prisons and build 1 school instead even if that does mean less profit and less GDP...

Well there is a starter if anyone is interested ??? - but I am not holding my breath...

We are best supporting and cooperating with cross party campaigns where the objectives are in line with our principles and human rights. This can be with grass roots movements like the anti-TPPA groups or with parties like New Economics, Cannabis Party or Awareness.

We can formulate policy where that would be profitable and engage in mutual activities with others like demos, petitions etc. Also sharing of ideas and resources on a national and international level, with Pirates and others would be mutually advantageous.

All members are free to take part in any actions they see fit but we need to be in agreement with what we do under the name of the Party.

In all the time I've been a member of PPNZ I have not seen a common goal or vision for the party. We vaguely adopt the international pirate principles and policies but we haven't turned that into something unique and useful for NZ. We all seem to have policies that we want to individually push (as you said @strypey) or we actively oppose other members' policies.

If we knew what wanted - a common objective - then I think we could do a much better job at working towards that objective. We would have something we could share or advertise to people. It may give us a better idea of the kinds of people we would advertise or share to. It would give us something to produce content for - content that interested people could stumble upon when browsing the web. Something we could put in flyers and hand out to people at live events and on the street.

So what is to be done ?

I am not even aware of the decison making process... it has already made me think I am wasting my time...

I had written off any idea of further involvement in NZ politics, preferring to look for a future overseas as far away from Western society as I can get ... but then I saw reference to the Pirate Party and thought, why not ?

People are generally driven by the culture of their times, and we all create our own reality... which is often comprised of very narrow life experiences, and experiences are not just seeing or observing something, it is living it.

For a political party to suceed, it needs a very broad common appeal..

I started in computer systems in the 70's and I can't really be bothered to play around engraciating myself in technology for the sake of technology.

what would be needed is a simple website, VERY easy to use, perhaps some nice graphics that anyone can use without any difficulty.

"people" often are quite happy to gripe and moan about this or that, but when it comes to actually doing something, and especially if that something is not EXACTLY what THEY want, then they just give it a miss, and continue to complain....

that's IS the way it is, and then people complain about the sort of society we have...duh.....

anyone got ANY constructive ideas as to how to move FORWARDS ???

I am not even aware of the decison making process… it has already made me think I am wasting my time…

Decisions made by the board are usually conducted during the fortnightly board meetings on Mumble. Anyone is welcome to attend the meeting however we do not actively advertise these meetings.

In any other case decision are usually made here in Loomio using the "proposal" feature. Loomio is designed to be a decision-making tool, it's just that we use it primarily for general discussion rather than for decision making.

anyone got ANY constructive ideas as to how to move FORWARDS ???

• Update the website - cleaner and easier to use design, fresher/up-to-date content, get rid of content that is irrelevant and make the important content easier to access. I've been working on a fresher design for a while - it's very close to completion - but the content still needs updating.
• Properly publish a list of our policies - this relates to the above point but it's worth noting that at the moment our policies are buried away in a wiki that is not immediately accessible from the main site. Also some of our newer policies only live here in Loomio. We should review all of our policies and agree to keep them as is, update them, or throw them out if they're no longer relevant/applicable. Then we should put them on the website in a place that is easy to access so that people can find them easily if they browse our site and also so that search engines will find them so that relevant searches from random internet users will direct people to our site.
• Develop other policies - there's already some good ideas in this discussion that we could use to create new policies
• Start campaigning - once we have a clear idea of what our policies are then we can start making campaigns to promote those policies
• We should be more social - make better use of our social media accounts - advertise ourselves (not just promote other pirate things and ideas), promote our own campaigns, start and engage in relevant discussions, and so on.
• Outreach to other NZ political parties - in terms of human resources, policies, campaigns, events, platforms, finances, membership, and whatever else could be gained from forming alliances

We need to get people talking about us and about ideas we care about - even if we disagree with a view or whatever - at least there is discussion happening.

From there we can look at:

• Further enhancing our policies or developing new ones
• Figuring out our direction - we could continue to act as an NZ political party or we could focus on building a platform for political discussion (as some of our members have recently been suggesting)
• Figuring out if we need membership and if so how the membership structure would look - if we want to become an incorporated society or register officially as an NZ political party then we will need at least some structure

At some point we should go on a membership drive for our existing members too. Once we have something to show for then people should have a good idea as to whether they want to stick with us / re-join / etc. That "something" doesn't need to be a finished piece of work - it just needs to be small improvement on whatever we have now, an idea, or the minimum amount of work to demonstrate our goal(s) or bigger picture.

The people that have joined us recently are not engaged with what we are doing and I feel that we are at immediate threat of losing them completely. If these new members are feeling unengaged then I can imagine it is a lot worse for the older members that we have forgotten about or are unaware of.

Excellent... just give me a bit more time to read and think about your positive statements... there will always be differing views, that creates an environment for health debate...

Time ticks buy very quickly... I feel there is a general disquiet about many many issues, and no one in the current main parties are prepared to be more visionary and seem to spend all their time looking in the rear view mirror.

National would have largely got in because of the economy for whatever reason it's managed to keep going ... I will not keep going, history alone should teach us that. So when it does turn, the general population will be looking for new leadership...

I would rather see all main interaction, debate and informing done on the main website... and I would suggest if there is the capacity within the organisation, that effort is directed into this area..

It would be very easy to come up with some generalised principles in terms of policy...

Thanks @milesdugmore, @andrewreitemeyer and @zl4bv for sharing your thoughts here. Let me be more specific about what I'm suggesting in this thread.

When I got involved a couple of years ago, there was a very inward-looking focus on party structure and communication channels, actively involving only the Board and a couple of support people. During my time as Communications Officer we progressed to at least thinking about the wider world, through the Policy Group here on Loomio, involving a broader but still small group of members. What I am suggesting in this thread is that it's time we take some action, which can involve a much larger cross-section of our current and potential membership, general supporters, and allied individuals and organisations.

For example, if we want to draw attention to our copyright reform policy, we could call for a day of action where people commit mass civil disobedience by engaging in non-commercial sharing of copyrighted material in a public place. As well as being edgy and fun, this would serve as a demonstration, a media opportunity, and a chance to sign up new members.

And yes, @andrewreitemeyer I'm suggesting we organise these kinds of political actions as a party, not just as individuals supporting other organisations. I suggest we adopt the "3 pirate rule" mentioned in Swarmwise (http://bit.ly/1JxfDGz). If 3 members agree to do something, they can do it in the name of the party.

BTW My previous comment wasn't about criticizing the inward-looking work on party structure and comms channels, this work was necessary to move forward to the point where policy and strategy debates on Loomio could involve a wider membership than just the Board. What I'm saying is that these are necessary but not sufficient to political success. Another couple of examples.

TPP: many of us are involved in anti-TPP activity as individuals, but it would be stronger if the Pirates joined anti-TPP coalitions as a party, and had a more visible presence at anti-TPP actions (banner, signs, leaflets etc). Again, as well as nailing our colours to the mast, we get opportunities for (news and social) media mentions, and recruiting more activists to the party.

UBI: if we adopt support for a UBI as an NZ Pirate policy, we could form alliances with other parties and groups who support this policy, and help organise public actions to promote it and explain it. Same benefits as above.

I have started to try and put together some ideas, but I would like to reply to your point about criticizing the work of others..

It takes contributions from all sorts of people in all sorts of different ways.

If statements are make in "good faith" then we should be tolerant of whatever is expressed.

No one should be fearful of saying what they feel needs to be said and it is my observation that in many "traditional" political parties, this fear exists.

NZ and the World is badly in need to some new ways of thinking, some new energy and vitality from the younger generations as they will be the ones who ultimately will inherit the mess that has been made for them...

Generally Pirate Parties do not engage in nor condone any action that breaks the law. This is not binding in anyway but just makes sense when we want to keep open the goal of getting people elected to office.