[7] The Pirate Party was founded in 2008 by Rodney Serkowski with the launch of a website and a wiki, and a request for contributions.

[16][17] Policies will also only be adopted after the completion of an online seven-day voting period, where all full members may take part.

[18] When founded in 2009, the Pirate Party's platform started off limited to a series of core policies: civil and digital liberties (opposition to internet censorship), government transparency, personal privacy, and copyright and patent reform.

[20] In July 2012, the platform saw a very minor revision, introducing protection of quotation rights, unrestricted format shifting, the policy specifically geared towards supporting 3D printing, mandatory privacy breach disclosure, protection for whistleblowers, political donations and transparency treaty-making.

[28] The Pirate Party has a strong focus on evidence-based policy development, listing just under 200 references on their platform as of July 2015.

[29] At the request of Exit International, Pirate Party Australia member David Campbell[30] conducted a series of information sessions as part of Exit International's workshop for seniors who wanted to know how to by-pass the Australian Internet Filter so that they can access information on safe euthanasia techniques.

[32] In 2012, members of the Pirate Party's ACT branch ran as independent candidates in the Australian Capital Territory elections.

[39][40] Melanie Thomas ran for the Pirate Party at the 2014 Griffith by-election and finished fourth out of 11 candidates with a 1.5% primary vote.

Michelle Allen contested the 2015 Canning by-election as the Pirate Party candidate and won 775 first preference votes or 0.92% of the total.