There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes to get candidates ready for a State election campaign. Here we have gathered together a small pictorial of most of the candidates and the hard-working Election Committee members, to show and tell you some of what it takes to get your voices heard!
If you have some time on your hands, even an hour-or-two, from commencement of Early Voting on the 14th of October through to, and including Election Day, 26th October, seriously consider volunteering. It can be a lot of fun meeting like-minded individuals and educating the uninitiated on all things cannabis whilst witnessing democracy in action!
We begin in sunny Burleigh on the Gold Coast, with candidate Jason Gann, otherwise known as ‘Wilfred’! With his acting and entreprenurial skills honed in the USA and Spain, Jason is ready to make a huge career change to help save lives by legalising cannabis for all Queenslanders! Moving a little north west, we have Jenelle Porter, in the Gold Coast hinterland electorate of Gaven, putting in the hard yards behind the scenes with the dispatching of the corflutes and other merchandise for the candidates (as far north as Cairns)! Nell has a huge community spirit having spent over thirty years working as a social worker and counsellor, with a good ear she will be a wonderful representative, who will listen to the community, and work to enact cannabis legalisation in parliament. |
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From Gaven to the northern end of the Gold Coast and the electorate of Coomera, where long-serving and eternally busy Party Secretary, Suzette Luyken, is running, again! A vote for Suzette is a vote for cannabis law reform and a message to the political establishment that the people of Coomera want change! Travelling northeast to what can only be described as a scenic gateway to many of the Moreton Bay islands, we have the electorate of Redlands and candidate Suzanne Spierenberg, a third-generation Redlands local, driven by her own experiences with how cannabis changed her life for the better. |
In Macalister, we have Meredith Brisk, who will be celebrating a momentous birthday during election week! Meredith says, “We know we will never form government, but we can be a voice for the people who support cannabis law reform”. In the neighbouring electorate of Waterford we have Julius Taylor. Further inland from the coast we have the electorates of Logan and Bundamba with candidates Jacqueline Verne, recently returned to Queensland from helping LCV Party during and after the election of their two state MPs, and Clive Brazier, absolute stalwart of the Party! Jacqueline is a medicinal cannabis patient, with permanent, full-time employment and five adult children (aged 28 to 36 years). She nominated to be a candidate to change outdated perceptions of cannabis users and to promote the benefits. Clive wants to see cannabis legalised for those who want to grow their own and consume for personal use. He sees our current medical cannabis scheme as “a rip off and the reason so many patients turn to the black market to access it”. |
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Ipswich and Ipswich West are well represented with Deborah Forrester and Harmony Lindsay, respectively. Keeping with the westerly theme, we head toward the Great Dividing Range and former Party Treasurer, Ingrid Weber, our candidate for Toowoomba South. If elected, she will ensure government addresses the need for a Compassionate Access Scheme as suggested in the recommendations from the Barriers to Medical Cannabis Inquiry (2020). |
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Further west, in the third largest electorate in Queensland (stretches to the South Australian border), Warrego covers 337,812 sq. km, larger than Victoria and Tasmania combined. Angela Adams returned to Queensland from a stint in South Australia helping out LCSA. She believes Queensland has a great future, once the prohibition on cannabis and hemp is removed and knows legalisation is worth fighting for. In Nanango, running again for the Party, is another longtime party stalwart and foundation member, Anthony Hopkins. Tony knows the ‘Big Two’ parties are not listening to the people and have lost sight of why they were elected. His decision to nominate as a candidate was easy, because he knows the people of Queensland have wanted cannabis law reform for a long time. |
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Moving toward the Sunshine Coast we have David Zaloudek at Murrumba, passionate about improving the lives of people in his community and ready to take on the Premier! David turned to medical cannabis seeking pain relief and improved wellness. He was delighted to find cannabis to be an effective, safe and natural remedy for his ailments. Encompassing part of the Moreton Bay Marine Park sits the electorate of Pumicestone, represented by young mum, Rosie Doolan. She is a Caboolture local working two jobs, with two young children, who cares for her husband who has an inoperable condition treated with medicinal cannabis. Rosie has seen firsthand how the current system doesn’t support patients who have chronic medical conditions, but do not get NDIS funding and is passionate about seeing changes to this. |
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Still in the neighbourhood, we have humanist, the ‘Butterfly Man’, Frank Jordan for Morayfield and in the beautiful hinterland of the Sunshine Coast we have vape expert, Tim Hallcroft, for Glass House. Frank is standing as a candidate to give you a choice, to end cruel and heartless cannabis laws, or continue to submit to politicians who ignore the wishes of the majority. Tim is a proponent of fact-based evidence and believes there is a huge need for education and training on matters concerning both cannabis and hemp. | |
The electorate of Caloundra is a seaside paradise and where we find author Allison McMaster, a young mum who survived cancer and was so impressed with the healing capacity of cannabis, she wrote a book about it! Allison believes the stigma should be removed, as should the criminal history some find themselves dealing with. In the Sunshine Coast hinterland we have the electorate of Buderim and candidate Dr Shaun Sandow. An advocate for the genuine use of cannabis via self-medication and responsible adult use being issues of freedom of choice, his main focus is to support legalisation and make access easier for adults, for how they see fit to treat their health problems. |
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In the heart of the Sunshine Coast, in the electorate of Nicklin, we have current Party President, Melody Lindsay, who is proving to be indefatigable and a wonderful leader! Melody is concerned about local and state-based issues such as homelessness, lack of mental health funding and rehabilitation facilities. She is also focused on the wastage of police resources on petty victimless ‘cannabis crimes’, whilst violent crime rates continue to increase. |
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In the beautiful hinterland electorate of Ninderry, we have published author T. K. (Tim) Nixon. In 2016, he was invited to give evidence to a parliamentary inquiry looking at personal and community impacts of legalisation of cannabis in Australia and took the opportunity to criticise the Federal Health Department directly and publicly about their anti-harm reduction stance on cannabis! | |
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On the Fraser Coast we have Jeff Knipe in Hervey Bay, who believes that Queenslanders should have the right to grow their own medication to treat their own symptoms and will work tirelessly, if elected, in the Queensland parliament to gain this right. In the heart of the Bundaberg Coral Coast we have Malcolm Parry in Burnett and Ian Zunker, current Party Vice President, in the electorate of Bundaberg itself! Ian suffers from Multiple Sclerosis and wants others to be able to experience the improvement to overall health that using cannabis medicinally provides. |
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Reaching Central Queensland and the second-last leg of our northern sojourn we visit Gladstone where we have Brianna Corcoran, who can usually be seen (as above) helping behind the scenes. In Rockhampton we have Jacinta Waller and in Mackay, midway between Brisbane and Cairns, we have Mackay local, Ben Gauci. He was a carer for his late father and is now ready to tackle a new career in politics. | |
The last couple of stops on our Queensland odyssey are Hinchinbrook on the Cassowary Coast, with Kevin Wheatley and Mulgrave, on the southside of Cairns, with Nicholas Daniels. Despite losing everything but his house in the December 2023 floods, Nic is rebuilding his life and is keen to represent the needs of the people of Mulgrave. He knows the issues and he knows people are fed up with the major parties doing nothing. | |
This ends our journey, at a point just south of Cairns, approximately 1,600 km north of our starting point on the southern Gold Coast, and rounds out the nominated and endorsed candidates for 2024! |
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Every one of these marvelous candidates brings something unique to the fight against cannabis prohibition alongside their own lived experience and would be proud to represent their fellow community members on a healthy crossbench in the Queensland parliament, to hopefully instil some integrity, honesty, empathy and humanity into our democracy, and legalise cannabis, of course! |