Every person their own republic!

Feeling disaffected or alienated by advanced consumer capitalism? Sick of a meaningless existence in a hostile and contingent world?

Don't worry. We're here to help.

The Common-Sense Nihilist Party is New Zealand's first-ever avant-garde art political party.

The Common-Sense Nihilist Party offers practical help with the futility of existence and promises to completely transform everyday life into avant-garde art.

Common-Sense Nihilist Revolutionary Cells are the basic organisational unit of the Party. A cell is a collection of members of the Common-Sense Nihilist Party with enough common interest to work together towards the objectives of the Party. The internal organisation of the cell is the responsibility of the cell.

Members of the Common-Sense Nihilist Party who are paid up for the current financial year are eligible to:

• nominate candidates for office or hold office in the Party
• vote at a Party Conference or a Special General Meeting of the Party.

Assuming we succeed in becoming a registered political party, members are also eligible to:

• nominate or stand as candidates of the Party
  
• vote in the ordering of the Party List for general elections.

To join the Common-Sense Nihilist Party, you need to follow these simple steps:

1 Email the Party Leader No. 0001. The address is everything[at]gmail[dot]com.

2 Print out the pdf of the application form sent to you and fill it in.

Or

Handwrite legibly on one side of A4 paper:

I, [full name of applicant], of [street address, city/district name – not a PO Box address]:

• agree to accept and abide by the Common-Sense Nihilist Party rules
• confirm that I am eligible to enrol as a New Zealand parliamentary elector
• enclose my membership fee of $10.00 with this application form
• authorise the Common-Sense Nihilist Party to record my name as a financial member of the Common-Sense Nihilist Party
• authorise the secretary of the Common-Sense Nihilist Party to release this application form to the Electoral Commission for the purpose of registering the Common-Sense Nihilist Party under the Electoral Act 1993.

Signed: [Signature of person applying] Date:

3 Post the form and membership fee to the address sent to you by email.

4 You will receive a handwritten party card and associated Party material.

5 You will become part of an avant-garde art work!

Remember

Brass band wanted

The CSNP requires a brass band for political rallying and occasional fund raising. Volunteers please leave your details below.

Declaration 1

Common-sense nihilism demands:

1. the international revolutionary union of all creative and intellectual men and women in the name of common-sense nihilism
2. the introduction of comprehensive unemployment through the comprehensive mechanisation of every field of activity
3. the immediate expropriation of all property, the communal feeding of all, and the conversion of all police stations and prisons into Common-Sense Nihilist Neoteric Art Research Centres
4. that numbers be banned
5. the immediate organisation of a large-scale common-sense nihilist propaganda campaign to prepare people for a state of freedom and everyday life as a work of art.

The intertemporal avant-garde

Conventional art history sees the avant-garde as a series of historical movements occurring mainly in Europe just before, during, and just after World War I. However, I propose that it is more useful to see it as a series of separate spacetime events joined intertemporally by a transdimensional avant-garde thought virus.

Although each historical manifestation of the avant-garde has specific characteristics peculiar to its particular circumstances, they all share certain common aspects:

• alienation from bourgeois capitalist society
• activism and antagonism towards the public and public institutions, especially official and academic art
• a fundamental break with the past in favour of revolutionary utopianism
• self-consciousness as an elite vanguard of the future.

What, you may ask, about novelty and experimentation? Aren’t these core elements of avant-garde art? We must beware the romantic myth of the artist as a lone genius who creates works of art out of nothing. We are more inclined to see both the production and reception of art in terms of game theory. In these terms, players (artists, viewers) have certain competencies in the rules of the game (aesthetic canons). They use these competencies to process information from the environment. In the case of the artist, the product of that information processing then becomes part of the environment, creating a feedback loop.

Avant-garde art adapts the rules of the game to its own revolutionary utopian purposes. Historically, the most effective means it has had to do this has been novelty and experimentation, but this need not always be the case. For example, in our recent past the YBAs have exhausted the classic avant-garde tactic of using sensations to shock the public. There is nothing to be gained by merely coming up with new sensations. The particular circumstances of each manifestation of the intertemporal avant-garde determine the artistic strategies of that manifestation.

The avant-garde can only flourish in a bourgeois capitalist society. The experience of the Russian avant-garde after the Revolution shows us that. The members of the avant-garde tend to come from the educated middle class and are alienated from both class and society. Comparing the revolutionary potential of modern technological progress with the actual uses it is put to by advanced consumer capitalism, it is not hard to see where the avant-garde programme comes from.

The relations between avant-garde art and advanced capitalist society are complex and paradoxical. Although avant-garde art is opposed to the dominant beliefs and values of capitalism, it needs the capitalist art market in order to exist. This is one way in which the avant-garde is like a virus: like the ’flu, it can’t get so successful it completely kills off its hosts. This has been the downfall of all the historical avant-garde art movements.

This alienation from advanced capitalism -– in which everyday life is ‘redefined as the pleasurable consumption of material goods within a system of corporate hegemony and male supremacy’ – is what leads to both the avant-garde’s activism and its antagonism. An avant-garde movement is by definition activist. It rejects the dominant society outright and agitates for the future revolutionary utopia of which it is the precursor. For this reason, the avant-garde can’t be funded by, or associated with, public institutions. The avant-garde stands in opposition to official art.

Avant-garde art will have nothing to do with official art until, in the words of Leon Trotsky, there is:

...a gigantic expansion in the scope and artistic quality of industry, and we understand here, under industry, the entire field without exception of the industrial activity of man ... It is difficult to predict the extent of self-government which the man of the future may reach or the heights to which he may carry his technique. Social construction and psycho-physical self-education will become two aspects of the same process. All the arts – literature, drama, painting, music, and architecture – will lend this process beautiful form ... Man will become immeasurably stronger, wiser, and subtler; his body will become more harmonised, his movements more rhythmic, his voice more musical. The forms of life will be dynamically dramatic. The average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above this ridge new peaks will form.

This is the future society that avant-garde art is the vanguard of, where there is no distinction between art and everyday life. Avant-garde art rejects current official and academic aesthetic canons in favour of those of the revolutionary utopian society evoked by Trotsky.

The historical assumption that this society is in the future could be a result of a failure to think four-dimensionally. Certain solutions to some of Einstein’s relavistic equations enable not only travel along closed timelike curves (that is, into the past) but also into alternate spacetimes. If there are, as the many-worlds solution in quantum physics proposes, an infinite number of possible worlds, then every possibility exists somewhere. Therefore, if it is possible for humans to develop an avant-garde revolutionary utopian society, there is an alternate world in which they have. In fact, there will be a multitude of such worlds, from those where a species of the Homo genus evolved that is so much more advanced than us that it has never developed anything other than anarchist societies to those that are closer to our own world but where the Revolution succeeded. Through transdimensional quantum entanglement, it should be possible to communicate telepathically with these worlds. Experimental results so far have proved inconclusive, but it is thought that this is the main vector for the transmission of the virus.

What is known is that there have been at least two major outbreaks of the transdimensional avant-garde thought virus in the recent historical past: in northern Italy during the early 15th century and in Europe during the early 20th century. Conditions in our current spacetime co-ordinates are ripe for another outbreak. Our analysis of the main symptoms allows us to make some predictions.

A contemporary manifestation of intertemporal avant-garde art will probably not use media officially sanctioned by major institutions, such as video, photography, and installation. It will more likely use those media that have proved most effective historically: paintings, drawings, and manifestos. It will be found mostly in sympathetic dealer galleries, online, and in short-run publications. It will denounce the absurdities and hypocrisies of our time. It will reject irony. It will have clearly defined revolutionary utopian aims and strategies informed by a deep historical consciousness.

Why science fiction is the only legitimate art form of the 20th and 21st centuries

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. I’d like to begin with a quote by Philip K Dick from 1974:

How does one fashion a book of resistance, a book of truth in an empire of falsehood, or a book of rectitutude in an empire of vicious lies? How does one do this right in front of the enemy?

Not through the old-fashioned ways of writing while you’re in the bathroom, but how does one do this in a truly future technological state? Is it possible for freedom and independence to arise in new ways under new conditions? That is, will new tyrannies abolish these protests? Or will there be new responses by the spirit that we can’t anticipate?

By only legitimate art form, I mean that which exemplifies the culture, the place and time in which the artwork is made -– the zeitgeist if you will, the spirit of the times. For example, in the 15th century, Western culture’s sudden new access to Arab maths and Greek science caused deep societal and cultural change. New continents were discovered and double-entry bookkeeping was invented.

’Man is the measure of all things’ was the new credo, as exemplified by perspective painting, where the average height of a man was literally the measure used to create pictorial space. If we compare a 15th century painting that’s still in the International Gothic style...

...with Piero della Franscesca’s Flagellation...

...it should be obvious which is the legitimate 15th century artwork.

We live in an advanced capitalist society, one that is only made possible through perpetual advances in technology. We need technology to advance simply to maintain the society that we have. This is an incredible thing. The industrial revolution represents a radical break with the past. Previously, every generation basically lived the same kind of lives as their parents and grandparents. Change happened on a much longer timescale. Let’s watch our first film. As well as being a nice illustration of how science fiction exemplifies our culture, it also shows how much things have changed in just half a lifetime. [Caltex ad]

We live radically different lives than practically all of our ancestors, pretty much mostly cos we have artificial lighting and regular clocks. Modern cities never sleep. There’s always someone up doing something. We are taller and we live much longer and easier lives than most people who have ever lived. Of course, all this comes at a cost. Two hundred years of industrialisation has stripped out virtually all of the readily accessible minerals and oil, wiped out a significant proportion of the world’s species, and fucked the climate for at least the next few thousand years.

By advanced capitalist society, I mean of course that we are now a consumer-driven post-industrial capitalist society. As the avant-garde art political group the Situationist International identified in the mid-50s:

The project of the postwar West is to redefine everyday life to mean the pleasurable consumption of material goods in a system of male supremacy and corporate hegemony.

This is the 50s future that we inhabit.

Like the revolution, the science fiction future – jet packs and holidays on Mars, an end to poverty and disease and work, and our descendents spreading out among the stars – was never going to happen.

Science fiction has always been about using metaphors of a technological future to talk about modern life now. Although it originated in the European avant-garde, as I will shortly demonstrate, it really came into its own in mass-produced pulp fiction and film – two media that couldn’t exist without industrial capitalism – so that with science fiction you get that magic marriage between form and content that produces great art. As Philip K Dick said in 1969:

[I]t embodies some of the most subtle, ancient, and far-reaching dreams, ideas, and aspirations of which thinking man is capable. In essence, it’s the broadest field ... permitting the most far-ranging and advanced concepts of every possible type; no variety of idea can be excluded from SF; everything is its property.

Let’s watch our second film, by Dunedin animator Fred O’Neill. [Fred O’Neill]

Some recurring science fiction images – robots and spaceships, pocket communicators and computer terminals that can access all of human knowledge – are now a part of our everyday life. In a lot of ways, science fiction has formed our world. Take the rocket ship, the ultimate metaphor for the American love affair with the motorcar, itself a quintessential modern thing. The visual metaphor of the rocket informed the design of 50s cars, huge things that were all fins and swooping lines, creating a feedback loop that’s continued to the present day. Just look at my Star Trek communicator! [Wave cellphone around.]

As I mentioned before, all this had its origin in the avant-garde art movement of the early 20th century. In 1904, while still an art school student, Francis Picabia, who would go on to paint the world’s first ever abstract painting five years later, declared:

One day all of us young painters ... will be the masters of Paris and turn the Champ Elysees into an immense playground. In circles, in serried rows, delimited by geometrical figures, we will set up all the plaster casts of the schools, all the marbles of the Louvre, the statues of the gardens and museums. And then the astonished bourgeoisie will see something unique. With a fusillade of stones we will demolish the Discobulous, the Belvedere Apollo, the Venus de Milo, and the Venus de Medici.

As usual, artists were the first to see the way things were. For the first time ever, the Golden Age moved from the past into the future. Rather than being dispensed by gods, we would use technology to transform ourselves into gods.

In 1909, the Italian poet Marinetti published the Futurist Manifesto and went on a highly successful speaking tour of Europe. The Futurists glorified speed and technology – Marinetti wrote ecstatically about crashing his car, prefiguring J.G. Ballard – and, just like the student Picabia, wanted to destroy the art of the past and start afresh, create a modern art for a modern society.

In Moscow in 1913, the only performance of the Russian Futurist opera Victory over the sun ended in riots. In it:

[T]he sun, representative of the decadent past, is torn down from the sky, locked in a concrete box, and given a funeral by the Strong Men of the Future. The Traveller in Time appears to declare the future is masculine and that all people will look happy, although happiness itself will no longer exist. Meanwhile, the Man with Bad Intentions wages war and the terrified Fat Man finds himself unable to understand the modern world. The opera ends as an aeroplane crashes into the stage.

Kasimir Malevich, most famous for his one-man Suprematist art movement, designed the costumes and backdrops for the opera.

In 1919, he wrote:

One needs but to find the mutual relationships of two bodies moving in space; the earth and the moon; between these two, there may be constructed a new Suprematist satellite, equipped with all the elements, which will move in orbit, shaping its new path. In analysing Suprematist form in motion, we come to the conclusion that movement along a straight line towards any planet may be conquered in no other way than by circular movement of interstitial Suprematist satellites that form a straight line of circles from satellite to satellite.

Of course, between 1913 and 1919, technological progress reached its logical conclusion in the horrific mass murder that is industrialised warfare, something else never before seen on the face of the earth. As a result, the cyborg was born.

The Dada movement was a response to this madness. In Berlin, Raoul Hausmann and Hannah Hoch invented photomontage, a new visual medium that transformed the dominant society’s industrially produced propaganda and advertising into art.

George Grosz incorporated the technique into his paintings, explicitly portraying the plight of modern man using the metaphor of an android.

In New York, which he described as ‘the cubist, the futurist city’, Francis Picabia had worked through abstraction to a new mechanomorphic style.

Here he portrays the human condition as machines that fail to connect, endlessly repeating the same hopeless motions, going and getting nowhere, just like in a Philip K Dick novel.

People generally consider Dada to be a precursor of Surrealism, but that’s bollocks. Its true successor was Constructivism. The Constructivists also wanted to transform society into a technological utopia. They made no distinction between advanced art and everyday objects, such as chairs and tables. Here’s Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International, a true science fiction extravaganza.


Tatlin’s Monument was:

...to be built from industrial materials: iron, glass and steel. In materials, shape, and function, it was envisioned as a towering symbol of modernity. It would have dwarfed the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The tower's main form was a twin helix which spiraled up to 400 m in height, which visitors would be transported around with the aid of various mechanical devices. The main framework would contain three enormous rotating geometric structures. At the base of the structure was a cube which was designed as a venue for lectures, conferences and congress meetings, and would complete a rotation in the span of one year. In the centre of the structure was a cone, housing executive activities and completing a rotation once a month. The topmost one, a cylinder, was to house an information centre, issuing news bulletins and manifestos via telegraph, radio and loudspeaker, and would complete a rotation once a day. There were also plans to install a gigantic open-air screen on the cylinder, and a further projector which would be able to cast messages across the clouds on any overcast day.

After World War II, which brought its own delightful technological innovations, modern art got hijacked by the CIA, which kind of fucked it for a while.

However, rather than dwelling on that, let’s have a look at Len Lye’s Birth of the Robot, which has a really nice juxtaposition of classical and modern motifs and which sums everything up nicely. [Len Lye]

Okay, I’ll finish with a new generation of NZ artists who are using science fiction forms to talk about their interests and concerns, and then, if we’ve got time, I’ll answer any questions.

First, we have Andrew McLeod.

This is by Brendon Wilkinson [slide 11]. When I was researching this talk, I came across this quote by Brendon: ‘For me, surrealism and science fiction are the only interesting things to come out of the 20th century, in terms of art.’

This is by Yvonne Todd.

Here we have Matt Hunt.

Here’s Paul Faris.

This one’s by Stephen Clover.

Finally, this is one of mine. It’s called Signs of a doomed civilisation.

Any questions?

[NB: These are the notes and slides from the talk that the Party Leader gave at the New Zealand Film Archive on 2 June at the instigation of Mark Willams. The Party Leader would like to acknowledge both Mark and Anna Dean of the Archive, without whom this would not have been possible.]

Common-sense nihilist manifesto

All we know that we know is that we know nothing. Everything we think we know is mediated through our senses and constructed in our brain. The evidence of our senses could be an illusion. We have no way of knowing whether the construct in our brain has any relationship to what actually exists.


In this situation all we can do is make certain assumptions. No matter the underlying reality, if we climb out of a high-storey window, we will appear to fall and appear to be in pain. Therefore we should behave as if what appears to be a material universe actually is a material universe.


We appear to occupy a tiny four-dimensional segment of the spacetime that makes up that universe. It appears to have begun in the big bang and appears as if it will end with eventual heat death – where all matter and energy is evenly distributed and unchanging. However, it also appears as if the big bang could have been caused by a white hole – the other end of a black hole in another completely separate spacetime, one that started with different initial conditions and so different universal constants than ours.


Everything-that-is appears as if it could comprise the set of all possible universal constants, expressed as separate spacetimes connected by black holes in a closed causal loop. What we call the universe appears to be that spacetime in which the arrangement of universal constants allows matter conducive to life like ours to form.

However, as Nietzsche reminds us, science only describes what appears to be there but does not explain it. We do not even pretend to know why anything exists. In addition, the visible universe – galaxies, stars, planets, and life – only accounts for 5% of its measurable mass. We only perceive four dimensions but there appears to be at least nine spatial and two temporal dimensions. Not only is the observable universe, assuming it exists, unknown but it could also be unknowable.


This observable, material universe that we appear to inhabit is hostile and contingent – the blind working out of physical processes. Life has evolved on this planet completely by chance. All life on Earth could be destroyed by a physical event, such as our being hit by a comet, at any time.


By its very nature, life requires suffering. Matter and energy that has organised itself into a living thing needs to consume other living things in order to maintain itself. As a side-effect of the way human beings evolved, we appear to be self-aware consciousnesses capable of abstract thought and of using what we think we know to manipulate the physical universe we appear to observe.


Therefore, even assuming the material world we observe does exist, life has no meaning or purpose other than existing – and the only purpose existing serves is to increase the amount of suffering in the world. You were arbitrarily born in a particular place at a particular time. Your life consists of all the spacetime events between that point and the point at which you die. It is exclusively up to you to make that sequence of events worthwhile.


We evolved as social beings – the entirety of human history and prehistory has involved the struggle to control human societies, the struggle to organise a society to suit the interests of the most powerful few. Before history began, we had killed off all our nearest relatives – all the relevant competitors – and had spread to every major habitable part of the planet. Societies developed civilisation at least five different times at different places around the world. In each case, it was because the rulers realised it would serve their interests better to adopt agriculture and settle in cities, and were able to impose their will, even though most people lived shorter and harder lives as a consequence. History began with the first writing, which, along with mathematics, was developed by priest-kings to keep accurate tax records.


Throughout humanity’s existence, this struggle for control has used both physical and mental means. Historically, the physical means involve such things as war and laws enforced by police to control access to resources and ensure the production of that which the powerful few need and value. The mental means involve such things as religion, nationalism, and consumerism – belief systems that provide a meaning and purpose to life that ensures the individuals believing those systems serve the purposes of control. We can assume the societies we have no record of took the same basic form as those that we do.


The free, authentic life – the human life – is that lived on its own terms and for its own ends.

Party rules

1 Name
The name of the party is the Common-Sense Nihilist Party (also known as the CSNP and in these rules called the Party).

2 Objectives
The objectives of the party are to:
2.1 provide practical help with the futility of existence;
2.2 completely transform everyday life into avant-garde art; and
2.3 carry out any other activities consistent with the objectives of the Party.

3 Powers
The Party has the power to:
3.1 use its funds as the Central Committee thinks necessary in payment of its costs and expenses, including the employment and dismissal of counsel, solicitors, agents, officers, and staff;
3.2 invest surplus funds in any way permitted by law on such terms as the Central Committee thinks fit;
3.3 to borrow or raise money from time to time with or without security and on such terms as the Central Committee thinks fit; and
3.4 do all things that may from time to time be necessary or desirable to give effect to and attain the objectives of the Party.

4 Membership
4.1 Anyone who accepts and abides by these rules may join the Party.

4.2 Membership of the Party begins when the Central Committee accepts and processes an application on an application form approved by the Central Committee.

4.3 Member numbers 0001 to 0013 are life members and exempt from the membership fee.

4.4 The Party must maintain a register of the names and addresses of current financial membership.

4.5 Members of the Party who are paid up for the current financial year and life members are eligible to:
4.5.1 nominate candidates for office or hold office in the Party;
4.5.2 vote at a Party Conference or a Special General Meeting of the Party;
4.5.3 nominate or stand as candidates of the Party; and
4.5.4 vote in the ordering of the Party List for general elections.

4.6 A person stops being a member when:
4.6.1 the Party Leader or Party Secretary receives their written or verbal resignation;
4.6.2 the person stops accepting and abiding by these rules, as determined by the Central Committee;
4.6.3 the person dies; or
4.6.4 the person has not paid their Party membership fee for one full financial year.

5 Cells
5.1 Common-Sense Nihilist Revolutionary Cells are the basic organisational unit of the Party. A cell is a collection of members with enough common interest to work together towards the objectives of the Party.

5.2 Cells must keep the Central Committee informed of their contact details and the names and account numbers of any cell bank accounts. No cell may operate a bank account without the written authorisation of the Central Committee.

5.3 The internal organisation of the cell is the responsibility of the cell.

5.4 Cell funds are all money received by the cell.

5.5 In entering any contract, undertaking any legal proceedings, or taking any other action, cells must not represent themselves as acting with the authority of the Party without the written authorisation of the Central Committee.

6 Membership fee
Applications for membership of the Party must be accompanied by the membership fee set by the Central Committee.

7 Party Conference and Special General Meetings
7.1 The Annual Party Conference is the supreme body and sets the political direction of the Party.

7.2 The Party Conference includes the Annual General Meeting of the Party. It must be held within three months of the end of the financial year at a place and a time designated by the Central Committee.

7.3 The Annual General Meeting:
7.3.1 elects officers as provided for by these rules;
7.3.2 receives the financial accounts of the Party for the previous financial year; and
7.3.3 provides a forum for any business consistent with these rules.

7.4 The time and place of the Party Conference must be communicated to all members at least one month before it is held.

7.5 The Central Committee may call a Special General Meeting at any time.

7.6 The time, place, and purpose of any Special General Meeting must be communicated to all members at least seven days before it is held.

7.7 A quorum is half of those members booked into any Party Conference or Special General Meeting on that day.

7.8 All current financial members and life members may attend and vote at Party Conferences and Special General Meetings.

7.9 The Central Committee determines the business and procedures of Party Conferences and Special General Meetings.

8 Central Committee
8.1 The Common-Sense Nihilist Revolutionary Central Committee comprises:
8.1.1 the Party Leader;
8.1.2 the Party Secretary;
8.1.3 the Party Treasurer; and
8.1.4 any other officers of the Party the Central Committee may appoint from time to time.

8.2 The Central Committee must act in a manner consistent with the will of the Party as expressed through the Party Conferences and Special General Meetings.

8.3 The Central Committee my remove people from the Central Committee if at least 75% of the Central Committee vote to do so. The Central Committee must call a Special General Meeting to fill the vacancy within 21 days of the removal.

8.4 The Central Committee is the administrative body in all matters connected with the Party except for policy. It pursues the objectives and has the power to do any lawful act consistent with these rules.

8.5 The Central Committee may delegate any of its powers and duties to any committee or person, who may exercise the delegated powers and perform the delegated duties with the same effect as the Central Committee, subject to these rules and any terms and conditions set by the Central Committee. The Central Committee may revoke any delegation at any time.

8.6 The Central Committee must adopt and provide guidelines and objectives for all Party offices.

8.7 Any member may attend a meeting of the Central Committee unless the Central Committee determines otherwise. The Central Committee may grant speaking rights at its discretion.

8.8 The Central Committee meets whenever scheduled by the Central Committee.

8.9 A quorum for a meeting is at least half of the Central Committee.

9 Candidate selection
9.1 The Central Committee determines the procedures for selecting and approving candidates for public office, including the ordering of the Party List.

9.2 Approved Party candidates must sign and agree to abide by a contract between themselves and the Central Committee that set out the basis on which they stand as candidates.

9.3 This contract must contain:
9.3.1 an agreement to uphold and abide these rules;
9.3.2 an agreement to promote and abide by Party policy;
9.3.3 what happens if a candidate leaves the Party; and
9.3.4 grievance and disciplinary procedures.

10 Policy
10.1 The Common-Sense Nihilist Revolutionary Policy Committee is the Party’s policy-making body.

10.2 The Policy Committee comprises:
10.2.1 the Party Leader; and
10.2.2 any other persons the Policy Committee may appoint from time to time.

10.3 The Policy Committee may delegate any of its powers and duties to any committee or person, who may exercise the delegated powers and perform the delegated duties with the same effect as the Policy Committee, subject to these rules and any terms and conditions set by the Policy Committee. The Policy Committee may revoke any delegation at any time.

11 Decision-making
11.1 All decisions by cells and committees are made by a 75% majority of votes cast in favour of a motion.

11.2 The Central Committee may veto any decision by any cell or committee not required by law if the Central Committee decides the decision is contrary to the objectives of the Party. The Central Committee must call a Special General Meeting with the purpose of explaining the veto and making a new decision within 21 days of the veto.

12 Finance
12.1 The Party Treasurer acts at the direction of the Central Committee. At the first meeting of the Central Committee after the Annual General Meeting, the Central Committee must decide:
12.1.1 how the Party will receive money;
12.1.2 who will be entitled to receive cheques;
12.1.3 what bank accounts will operate for the ensuing year, including their purpose and access;
12.1.4 who will be cheque signatories;
12.1.5 who will be authorised to order goods and services; and
12.1.6 the type and frequency of financial reporting during the year.

12.2 The Party Treasurer must prepare a report for, and keep all books and records up to date for presentation at, the Annual General Meeting according to any relevant requirements.

12.3 The financial year of the Party begins on 1 July and ends on 30 June.

13 Common seal
The Party must adopt a common seal, which is in the custody of the Central Committee or any person it may appoint. The seal must be affixed in the presence of the Party Leader and one other person appointed by the Central Committee for the purpose.

14 Income, benefit, or advantage
14.1 Any income, benefit, or advantage must be applied to the objectives of the Party.

14.2 No member of the Party or any person associated with a member of the Party may participate in or materially influence any decision made by the Party about any payment to, or on behalf of, that member or associated person of any income, benefit, or advantage. Any income paid to a member or associated person must be reasonable and relative to that which would be paid in an arm’s-length transaction.

14.3 The effect of this section must not be removed from these rules and is implied in any document that replaces these rules.

15 Alteration of rules
15.1 These rules must not be amended or rescinded except by a resolution passed at a Party Conference or Special General Meeting by a majority of at least 75% of those present and eligible to vote.

15.2 No alteration to rule 2 (objectives), rule 14 (income, benefit, or advantage), or rule 16 (dissolution) may be made unless the Inland Revenue Department has given its written approval.

16 Dissolution
17.1 A majority of the members entitled to vote at a Special General Meeting may resolve that the Party be dissolved as from the date named in the resolution.

17.2 The resolution must be confirmed at a subsequent Special General Meeting called for the purpose and held no earlier than 30 days after the date on which the resolution was passed.

17.3 On dissolution, the property of the Party must be applied to the objectives of the Party.