FYI
Here is a translation / list of links to translations of the German Pirate Party's "Themes A to Z"
It gives a nice overview of the policies the party has formulated up to now. Notice that the Euro is not mentioned - we don't have an answer yet but nor does anyone else. We admit it though.

This is not meant to be guide for PPNZ as the circumstances and history are just so different but a help to understand what the Piratenpartei stands for and its influence in the world in the days to come. As a contrast the Belgian PP is going to the polls with no policies just the promise to formulate policies with the electorate after they have take parliamentary seats.

Enjoy
Andrew

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Rejection of Nuclear Power
The Pirate Party rejects power production by nuclear fission.

The Jobs Market
The Pirate Party wants to solve labour related problems with new concepts;
Unconditional basic income and minimum wage
Removal of sanctions applied to payment of unemployment benefit
Limitations on contract work

Education
http://www.piratenpartei.de/education/

Democracy
http://www.piratenpartei.de/more-democracy/

Digital Society
http://www.piratenpartei.de/digital-society/

Drug and Addiction Policy
http://www.piratenpartei.de/drug-and-addiction-policy/

Energy Policy
http://www.piratenpartei.de/energy-policy/

Ticket-less Public Transportation
The Pirate Party is persuaded of the fact that a ticket free public transport system would show a profit not only for society but also for the economy in the long term. This measure allows several goals to be reached at the same time: The conurbations in towns, as coherent living spaces, will be revalued as market forces change. Likewise free public transport increases the attraction of our towns to foreign visitors. State and business profit from it equally. In rural areas a reinforced use of public transport will lead to the reactivation of formerly uneconomic routes. Also the income-strapped road users are clearly financially relieved by this measure.

Gender and Family Policy
http://www.piratenpartei.de/gender-and-family-policy/

Court of Jurisdiction
http://www.piratenpartei.de/choosing-th ... isdiction/

Work and Social Policy
http://www.piratenpartei.de/work-and-social-policy/

Privacy and Data Protection
http://www.piratenpartei.de/privacy-and ... rotection/

Transparency of the State
http://www.piratenpartei.de/transparency-of-the-state/

Migration and Integration
http://www.piratenpartei.de/migration-and-integration/


Copyright
http://www.piratenpartei.de/copyright/

Environment
Our society and our prosperity hangs primarily on natural resources and an intact environment. Nevertheless, we are destroying the environment and we are using these resources in a breathtaking tempo. We are using it at the expense of other countries and of future generations.
Indeed these people have the same right on an intact environment as we do. Therefore, it is our duty to use the natural resources sustainably and to leave the environment as we found it. In addition it is in particular necessary to promote the use of public means of transportation and sustainable energy sources.

Patents
http://www.piratenpartei.de/patenting/

Privacy and Data Protection
http://www.piratenpartei.de/privacy-and ... rotection/



Self-Determined Life
Self-determination is the natural right of every person; it is the foundation of being human. The basis of the humanity, on the other hand, is to concede this right to other people. The desire for self-determination determines and forms our life more than any other. It is the basis for independence and freedom and therefore is granted to every person without limitation. The right on a self-determined life is at the same time a condition for the development of one's own identity and integration. This also indicates the need to take responsibility for one's own actions because the freedom for the one ends where the freedom of his next begins. Human life is greatly characterised by a striving for the greatest possible independence. This process should be concluded at achievement of adulthood. From this point the responsible handling of one's own freedom lies in the hands of every individual.
This self-determination is only possible if a person can develop free from control and judgement. Therefore everyone has the right on a distinctive private sphere in which they are freely from social constraints and state supervision. This right, guaranteed by the constitution, has been getting more and more eroded by short-sighted policies. The wish for security has been given unlimited precedence over the right to freedom for the citizens and everyone who makes use of their rights is declared to be a criminal.
However, the purpose of a democratic policy must be to guarantee the right to freedom and further to embrace and promote it. However, those who feel watched and controlled will make less use of their right to freedom and conform to the arrogant expectations of the watchers. This is contrary to the constitution and diametrically opposed to the proper relation of a politician to the people.

Another example of unnecessary and injurious restrictions to the right of self-determination is the current drug policy. This is based almost exclusively on prohibition and so pushes people unnecessarily to the edge of society. However, the purpose of the policy cannot be to prescribe the how a person has to handle their own body. The purpose of the policy must be to prevent unnecessary suffering and to help people who have gotten themselves in trouble.
This means a drug policy needs to help addicts and prevent the slide into dependence. However, this cannot succeed if the state institutes an all-inclusive criminalisation of the addict removing them from their own responsibility.

But also in their most intimate sphere of life, the family, the person is not so free as he would like to be. The creation of a personal life and sexual orientation are the affairs which must be left to the free self-determination of the perosn. Government and society have neither right nor reason to intervene in this area. Before the law every person is same and therefore, decisions in this area society plays no role. The state is required only for enforcing this right and for protecting people from compulsion and discrimination.


The Separation of Church and State
Freedom and variety of the cultural, religious and ideological mindsets are the mark of modern societies. Guarantee for these freedoms is the obligation of the state. Therefore we, as Pirates, understand the freedom of worship not only the right to follow a religion but also the freedom from religious paternalism. We recognise and respect the meaning which can be attained individually by each person living a religious life.

Environment
http://www.piratenpartei.de/environment/

Economic and Financial Policy
http://www.piratenpartei.de/economic-an ... al-policy/

Thanks for this. I've finally got around to reading it all--there's a lot here. Edelweiss, which of these policies do you think voters are most aware of? (Which have you most promoted, or had most coverage of from the media?) Do you have an idea of which have been most popular, and which (if any) have been less well received?

The success of the German party is due to a number of factors.
Part it is riding the wave of discontent shown by the success of the occupy and uncut movements and the press coverage of the Arab spring.

There is uncertainty caused by the Euro-crisis and the established parties are all sharing the blame and rightly so.

The party was small and low on funds so concentrated on low cost - high impact ways to get its message across. Humorous posters and grass root organisation - pub meetings and use of the net to meet and organise.

A number of high visibility corruption scandals, including the German President, that shone a spotlight on the Pirate's insistence on transparency in government.

The other parties and the press repeatedly taunted us as not having any policies. This backfired as we replied that while we did and do have positions in net politics and a number of other issues we were able to say that we were working on the other policies and welcomed all to help us do so. We call it "Basisdemokratie" - democracy from the base.
Also important to electoral success are
Unconditional base income
Liquid democracy(feedback) (a German city has recently instituted this for its citizens)
Transparency of government
The right of the individual to privacy
Copyright reform
The primacy of the constitution
Free public transport

Another thing that got us brownie points from the voters is that we have promised not to join in any coalitions until we are ready to take part in government. We will, however, be asking for putting those questions the public give us.


It is more our founding principles that resulted in our success than any policies. The most important being that we are based on grass roots democracy and the fact that any party member can attend the state and federal conferences and put forward motions and vote. (Due to the increase in members we are experimenting with multi-location conferences. Also all conferences are streamed on the net.)

But IMHO the main reason for the stunning rise in membership is the right of every member to formulate policy and to participate. Not just to buy into a party run from the top down and where the individual has little chance to make themselves heard. This makes politics exciting. If we ran ourselves like the others half of our most salient policies would not have seen the light of day. We want to see liquid democracy established as a new form of direct-democracy government

As one prominent Pirate put it; "If we succeed then political parties will no longer be needed, including the Pirate Party".

Andrew

Okay, so in summary, factors you see as important to the rise of the German Pirate Party:

• grass roots democracy (liquid feedback and open conferences)
• low cost/high impact ways to get the message across (humorous posters and pub meetings)
• the promise not to join in any coalitions until you are ready to take part in government
• various fortuitous circumstances

And important policies:

• unconditional base income
• transparency of government
• the right of the individual to privacy
• copyright reform
• the primacy of the constitution
• free public transport

Some more questions:
How difficult is it to set up Liquid Feedback?
How do you reconcile the use of it with decision making in conferences?
And could we use your posters?

Liquid feedback - I don't know how difficult it is to set up but the people on the other side of these emails will. They will be able to communicate in English - most Germans can and computer people must.
System E-Mail Support: support@lqfb.piratenpartei.de
E-Mail Systemadministrators: admins@lqfb.piratenpartei.de

I think they will be able to allocate you separate room for your use in the German set up - All pages have been translated into English.
Alternately I would suggest you get in touch with the Australian PP and see if you can get a system set up you both can use.

Conferences - Political parties are controlled by German law and some procedures, such as the election of the board, must be held at conferences everything else can be done on the net.

Posters - AFAIK they are free to use for all pirates everywhere. On and off the planet. If you need absolute confirmation contact PPInternational.

A good source for slogans is http://wiki.piratenpartei.de/Slogans
If you toss the German into google translate you can get ideas for English ones - a lot are in English anyway.

Cheers
Andrew

"The private sphere is the Pirate sphere"

I have to say I like that one

Thanks for all this.

My feeling is that if PPDE are willing to let us use their LiquidFeedback server, then we may as well run with this. Ideally we'd set up our own server at some stage, but until we do, there'd be no-one better to host it for us than PPDE.

What are other people's thoughts?

We have an experimental trial of liquid feedback being set up on our servers. Depending on the outcom of this, we will likely run our own liquid feedback on a VM.

This plan is quite tentative though, we have another meeting about it tomorrow night.

Ah. I guess I should start attending these meetings again to keep up with this.