JJ: DON'T VOTE HEMP IN NSW

[Guest niall]

(content by John Jiggens, author of Marijuana Australiana)

 

As a founder of HEMP (Help End Marijuana Prohibition) and a former HEMP candidate, I am writing to explain why I have resigned from the HEMP party and why I am urging voters in NSW who support drug law reform to vote for John Kaye and the Greens and not HEMP in the coming Federal election.

 

Many New South Wales voters no doubt giggled when they heard that the HEMP Party had stuffed up their voting ticket. What HEMP NSW are not admitting is how monumental their stuff-up is.

 

The preference tickets issued by the NSW HEMP Party are out there in the outer-stratosphere of incompetence. They have nothing to do with supporting other drug law reform parties. They almost certainly ensure that the Greens, the Democrats and Labor will get not one preference from HEMP. In the worst-case scenario, HEMP preferences might elect a Family First senator.

 

The HEMP NSW ticket is so complex that no political analyst in the country could confidently predict where HEMP preferences will flow. HEMP NSW have issued not just one, but three separate tickets. However, two of these are the same; while the third simply shuffles the position of the Greens, the Democrats and Labor in the lower half of the draw.

 

Each of these tickets directs its 75 preferences through a series of micro-parties before reaching the major parties. The top part of the HEMP preferences flow in all three tickets is: Progressive Labor Party, the Ex-Service, Service and Veteran's Party, Liberals For Forests, Save the ADI Site Party, Lower Excise, Fuel and Beer Party, Fishing Party, No GST, the Great Australians ....

 

Although it is hard to imagine any of these micro-parties representing drug law reform in Parliament, one of these micro-parties will probably end up being elected with the HEMP vote. If you want your vote to elect someone who supports drug law reform, don't vote HEMP.

 

The worst result of this approach is that parties like the Greens, Labor and the Democrats, the parties that HEMP traditionally preference, are shafted by being placed in the bottom half of the preference draw; buried so deep they can not possibly get the HEMP vote. Even the anti-drug Family First Party is preferenced above them.

 

These parties, the ones who do most for drug law reform, who most deserve the HEMP vote, have no hope whatsoever of getting HEMP preferences in NSW.

 

If it isn't the Greens, Labor or the Democrats who benefit from the HEMP vote, who will?

 

Voting for HEMP will be like playing electoral roulette. You will not know who your vote ends up with till after the election, but the most likely result is that your vote will elect one of the above-mentioned micro-parties. The most probable scenario seems to be that HEMP voters will help elect Liberals for Forests who are, as they themselves admit, Liberals with a big L.

 

However, even this is not the worst-case scenario.

 

The nightmare scenario for HEMP voters is that their votes will elect Family First!

 

Ironically, Family First, which has attacked the Greens over their drug law reform policies, has scored a decisive victory over the Greens in gaining the drug law reform vote! Indeed, the Family First party may well surf into the Senate in NSW on an unexpected wave of drug law reform votes!

 

This unlikely scenario is possible because the Australian Democrats, another party with a long history of support for drug law reform, are giving their second preferences to Family First.

 

The nightmare scenario would unfold in this way:

 

In the last Senate campaign, HEMP got 1% of the vote in NSW: if Family First finish ahead of them, which is likely, HEMP preferences might well carry Family First past the Democrats, whose preferences would then give them another enormous lift, ironically carrying Family First past the Greens, largely on the drug law reform vote.

 

The Democrats preferencing of Family First is even more astonishing than HEMP's as Family First's policies seem to represent the antithesis of Australian Democrat values. Crazy as HEMP's ticket is, Family First are at least a dozen parties down the preference chain. The Democrats however will give Family First their second preference in every state. It seems that Family First, with their innocuous sounding name, have snuck in under the radar of HEMP and the Democrats to snatch the drug law reform vote away from the Greens, adding electoral injury to their TV insults.

 

Because of the reckless and unprincipled way HEMP NSW has distributed its preferences, I believe it is unworthy of support.

 

I urge all HEMP supporters and all drug law reform voters in NSW to vote for John Kaye and the Greens in the forthcoming election.

 

Note that this holds true only in New South Wales and that HEMP in Queensland have sensibly preferenced the Greens, Labor and the Democrats. A vote for HEMP and Freemarijuana, Guy in Queensland is a genuine vote for drug law reform.

 

John Jiggens

[Pickle]

Vote below the line and vote the liberals last then family first second last.

 

Aparently the only way to make sure your prefs don't go to the major party you don't want is to vote them dead last.

 

But if you want to vote above the line vote Green first, liberals last.