In a press release, the Pirate Party of Australia (PPAU) announced that on March 10th 2014 they met their campaign funding target for the upcoming Senate election in Western Australia. The senate seats are being re-contested on 5 April 2014 because ballots were lost in the 2013 elections and the courts ruled the election invalid. PPAU raised the extraordinary sum of AUD 10,000 (EUR 6,500) entirely through crowdfunding in just under two weeks. This was a risky move since a failure to reach the amount set as goal in the crowdfunding would result in no funds being released by the crowdfunding website.

Following the announcement that new elections would be taking place, the Pirate Party launched their fundraiser campaign using the crowdfunding website ‘Pozible’. Supporters of the Pirate Party are still able to contribute to the fundraiser via Pozible, even people living outside of Australia. All money will go directly towards purchasing campaign materials for the election.

“This is a fantastic show of support for Pirate Party Australia,” said Fletcher Boyd, lead candidate for the Senate in Western Australia. “We are very thankful to our supporters for providing us with the funds to seriously give this election a go. Despite lacking wealthy sponsors, celebrity candidates, or a massive membership base, we have an enormous amount of grassroots enthusiasm as demonstrated by how quickly we were able to reach our goal.”

In keeping with the Pirate Party’s principles, preference allocations are being decided democratically by the Party’s Western Australian members and will be released to the public shortly. (To read more about Australia’s preference voting system go to this wikipedia article).

“Not playing the preferencing game and getting involved in back door preference swaps has helped maintain our credibility and allowed us stick to our principles of transparency and democracy. We received an enormous amount of praise for not trading preferences with parties who contradict our core beliefs to attain a tactical advantage. We are not contesting the election to win at all costs, nor to gamble the future of the nation and the support of our voters away out of short-sighted selfishness,” added Mr Boyd.

This is the Pirate Party’s third election at the Federal level, having previously contested the Senate in New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania and Victoria at the Federal Election in September 2013, and the Seat of Griffith By-Election early last month, where the party came 4th in a field of 11 candidates.

As the European Election approaches European Pirate Parties are gearing up for their campaigns. At least two are using crowdfunding to help fill the campaign coffers. We will be bringing you news of who and how you can help in the coming days.

Featured image: CC BY-SA Rocío Lara 

About Andrew Reitemeyer

I joined the Pirate Party of Lower Saxony in Germany in April 2012, once I found out that non citizens were welcome to join and become active members of the Party.
I joined the Pirate Times soon after it was started as a proof reader and am now an editor and author. Since then I have returned to my native New Zealand and joined the Pirate Party of New Zealand.
Politically I come from the libertarian left and have, up to now, not regarded any political party as having a solution for the democratic deficit that envelops the world. With the advent of the Pirate Party, which truly embraces grass roots democracy, I have found a political home. The Pirate Times is a way I can contribute to furthering the Pirate Movement around the world.
Skype: frithogar

 

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In a press release, the Pirate Party of Australia (PPAU) announced that on March 10th 2014 they met their campaign funding target for the upcoming Senate election in Western Australia….