The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports on what is looking like a surprising victory for The Legalise Cannabis WA party in the West Australian upper house and it may come at the expense of the Greens.
A good thing we say at CLR as it might just make the Greens Party federally pick up on the great work NSW Greens legislator Cate Faehrmann is doing on cannabis regulation and force the national executive into taking the issue seriously ahead of the next Australian Federal election and come out with a proper plan
The party says….
it has been blown away by predictions it could soon take its first seat in Western Australia’s Parliament.
The ABC reports
- The Legalise Cannabis WA party is tracking to take a seat in the WA Upper House
- The party will advocate for full decriminalisation of cannabis
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The party has only received about 2 per cent of the primary vote
The party only formed late last year, but was last night in fifth position for the six seats available in the South West region. Candidate Sophia Moermond, a 52-year-old naturopath who lives in Perth, said she was surprised by the new party’s progress.
“We had an after-party and we were all blown away by the amount of support we were getting,” she said.
Ms Moermond said her key motivation was what she described as a need for easier access to medicinal use of cannabis, as well as full decriminalisation.
Voters ‘more progressive than we thought’
“People have been basically pushed into somewhat criminal behaviour, just because they are trying to have a better quality of life,” she said.
“Also the attention that medicinal cannabis has been getting recently is resonating with older voters.”
With about half the votes counted, the party is on track to win a spot in the upper house, despite Ms Moermond having just over 2 per cent of the primary vote.
Political commentator Peter Kennedy said it was was unusual, but not unheard of, for smaller parties to get elected ahead of the big players.
“The smaller parties would have to pull together for their preferences and they would exchange preferences away from the major parties,” he said.
“One of the smaller parties could get up and take a seat from one of the bigger parties and this could be happening on this occasion.
Greens back ‘progressive’ voice
If Legalise Cannabis WA wins a seat in the legislative council, it could come at the cost of Local Greens MP Diane Evers who was elected in 2017.
Ms Evers has not officially conceded defeat but admitted there was “very little chance” she would win back her seat.
She said despite not knowing much about Legalise Cannabis WA party, she would rather its candidate take a seat in the parliament than another major party representative.