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Pirate Party Unites In Australia
bennyboy64 writes "iTnews reports that the Pirate Party has opened a branch office in Australia and is recruiting office bearers and supporters. The group updated the Australian website it registered last year and advertised for a president, treasurer, secretary, and supporting positions. A party spokesman, Rodney Serkowski, said the group was close to establishing a beachhead in Australia. He said that with 300 supporters it was on its way to signing the 500 it needed to become an official Australian political party. 'We are currently an online community, working together with the intention of becoming a registered party, and we're coming closer to reaching that goal,' Serkowski said. 'If we can get the required 500 members, and be registered by year's end, I think it is highly probable that we will contest the next Federal election in Australia.' At the weekend about two percent of Germans voted for the Pirate Party, although it needed five percent to gain a seat in the Bundestag."
During the elections on Germany the Pirate Party there could rake in 2% of all the votes: almost a million people voted for them! Kudos, and keep going!.
The website link is here. :)
Disagree != mod troll.
...and if you are not in Australia, sign up to your local party!
The Pirate Party will only become a major force in politics if people are prepared to put in the time, effort and cash needed to make it work. Here in the Pirate Party UK, we are facing a huge challenge to raise enough money to put up a significant number of candidates in the next general election. We have 650 constituencies, each requiring a £500 deposit before we can give voters the chance to vote pirate.
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Exactly - the PP pulled past the rightwing extremists with flying colors and taken on the title of the "biggest of the small parties". The news agencies moved them out of "Others" into their own column. To compare, the Greens got 1.5% when they first ran, and "save the Earth" sounds easier to convince people of than "copyright needs to be revised". This was a grand success! :D
German Pirate Party gets some attention, though it could be more. They have been successful this far, because they address topics that major parties ignore (internet cencorship, civil rights, privacy, government transparency, open access, copyright, patents, ...). They got 0.9% at European Parliament election in June and now they got 2% in federal elections. Their membership number is exploding (currently almost 10,000, graph).
Even though some pirates hoped for a better result, 2% is absolutely astonishing. If their success continues (and polls show that PP has 13% of all first-time voters, some time is working for us), they may very well be in the Bundestag (parliament) in four years. By comparison, Green party had 1.5% in its first federal election in 1980 and since the following election, they are represented in the Bundestag with constantly over 5%.
There are two tables for the results of Berlin. The first one shows the results for the 'Erststimme' (first vote) which is used to elect a direct candidate for your district. Since there were no direct candidates from the pirate party for Berlin, the number of votes is 0. The second table shows the results for the 'Zweitstimme' (second vote), which is used to assign the seats in the 'Bundestag' proportionally to all parties that gained more than 5%. As you can see, the votes for the pirate party do appear in this table.
I hope this helps. But mind you, the German election system is extremely complicated.
Greetings from the Germany.
I want a British pirate party now. We need one :/
That's okay, because we've got one! Just passed 500 paid-up members, too.
Pirate Party UK