The Australian pirates have joined other international affiliates in officially distancing themselves from comments by the party’s founder, who called for the possession of child pornography to be legalised.

The party held a scheduled fortnightly general meeting last night after being approached by The Canberra Times, and ACT branch secretary Glen Takkenberg issued a statement on behalf of the national outfit this morning.

“Pirate Party Australia does not advocate the legalisation of child pornography,” he said.

“Rick Falkvinge is not a spokesperson or representative of any Pirate Party.”

The Pirate Party has three members who will contest the ACT poll on October 20 as independents, after the party failed in its bid for official registration.

They are campaigning under the group's platform of ''sensible information technology''.

Mr Falkvinge, the Sweden-based founder of the first Pirate Party, provoked a storm of criticism with his essay, "Three Reasons Possession of Child Pornography Must be Re-legalised in the Coming Decades", published recently on his popular personal blog.

European affiliates of the party moved days ago to disassociate themselves from Mr Falkvinge.

In his essay, Mr Falkvinge argued that laws prohibiting the possession of child pornography actually hampered the arrest and prosecution of child molesters and that the act of possessing images of a crime should not be a crime itself.

Mr Falkvinge's key argument though, was that child pornography possession laws opened the door to censorship.

''Child pornography is horrible and awful from every angle and in every aspect,'' he wrote.

''But it is not dangerous to the fabric of society. Censorship and electronic book burning, however, is.''

Mr Falkvinge describes himself as ''a political evangelist, travelling around Europe and the world to talk and write about ideas of a sensible information policy".

He has not been officially involved in Pirate Party politics since early last year but is still revered by many members.