Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Willie Nelson with Votem out, which I think is a bit of a psychic message from our next.
We'd say we're interviewing the candidates for the upcoming by election in Secret Harbor. And now we have Craig with that song. Very clever, Craig. William Else. And vote him out.
Welcome to ipl.
Thanks.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Lovely to be here.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: And. Okay, I think this has been the question we've asked the first two candidates.
Why?
[00:00:36] Speaker B: Yes, well, there's a deep philosophical question for you.
Look, your listeners, certainly some of them, will remember me as a local councillor. So I've represented the area in the past and I think through representing it, I've seen. Seen quite how badly we've been treated over recent years. And I want to change that.
I want to help people. I want to make a difference.
That's the. That's the quick answer to the why. The. The long answer will take the next 20, 30 minutes, maybe.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: So you say how badly we've been treated. That was in what regard particularly, or a number of points there.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: Look, I think it's one thing that's fed into a lot of other areas and I think it's that we've been taken for granted.
Most of these seats, not only Secret harbor, but Rockingham, Baldivas, Quinana, have all been treated as safe labor seats, and they have been. I'm not sure there's such a thing at the moment as a safe seat, looking the way the numbers have changed over the last 12, 24 months. But because we've been treated as safe seats, neither of the major parties have felt the need or the reason to spend money. Labor have felt they don't need to invest heavily in this area because, hey, we're going to vote for them anyway. And the Liberals have felt that they're throwing money away down here because they're never going to gain the vote.
So we've been caught between the worst of two aspects.
[00:02:07] Speaker A: I see that logic here. Yeah. So what does your party represent, Craig?
[00:02:14] Speaker B: Well, I'm standing for the Legalised Cannabis Party here in wa.
We do what we say on the tin, but we do a heck of a lot more than that as well.
We are in favour of legalising cannabis across the board, but we've also been very involved with the medicinal cannabis rollout across Australia.
We are very involved with the hemp industry.
We are very involved in something that you guys spend a lot of time talking about, which is mental health.
I mean, our party leader is a GP that actually deals day to day. Even though he's in Parliament, he still serves as A doctor in the community. So he's getting to see people on a daily basis and getting to feed those community concerns. Pardon me, those health concerns in to. To the work he does as a representative. Excuse me, I'm going to move from the mic and clear my throat.
[00:03:10] Speaker A: It was a bit of a pregnant pause, but we went back.
[00:03:13] Speaker B: Sorry about that.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: No, no, no. I find it sort of very, you know, when you again as a layman you see cannabis party. And it's a bit like when on a similar sort of different subject, Craig, but a similar mindset, I think of a lot of lay people. So a lot of lay people, when they hear of nuclear like we had and they think the first thing is Chernobyl, that's it dominant. I want to be disfigured. And that's I think the automatic assimilation. And I think when people say cannabis, they also think of bad drugs.
[00:03:57] Speaker B: Look, I think it's certainly a polarizing word.
[00:04:01] Speaker A: It.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: It drives people into one of two.
[00:04:03] Speaker A: Yes, yeah, exactly.
[00:04:05] Speaker B: Look, I might well have been in a similar position myself before I had a serious cancer scare a few years ago.
They took out the bottom third of my bowel. I've spoken about it in fact on. On one of your shows before.
That's why I'm on medicinal cannabis.
And it was a learning curve. It taught me a great deal about a drug that I didn't know a lot about before that. It taught me about its healing potential and it introduced me to a community that really are causing a heck of a lot less damage in our society than we are causing with alcohol on a daily basis.
Causing a lot less damage than we're causing with a lot of prescription drugs.
And these guys really just want to be able to operate in a way that works for them and their bodies.
That's what we're trying to. To allow for is. Is a level of bodily autonomy out there.
[00:05:05] Speaker A: It is. Am I right in saying that is you there is legally you can get medicinal cannabis?
[00:05:14] Speaker B: You can. Look, any doctor in theory can prescribe. A lot of them don't because the paperwork is pretty difficult to. To wait through. So you'll tend to find most suburbs have got one or two prescribers.
I'm not going to give a plug for the. The local one, but I know there is. There is one in Baldivis who covers an awful lot of the. This immediate Rockingham area.
[00:05:39] Speaker C: So.
[00:05:39] Speaker B: But yes, in theory, any doctor can prescribe. The problem is what it's going to cost you.
[00:05:44] Speaker C: I was going to ask. I guess it's not on the pbs.
[00:05:47] Speaker B: It is not on the pbs. And the feds don't seem to have any plans to put it on the PBS anytime soon.
So you can easily. I talk to families who are paying 300, $400 a month for medication and getting nothing back. Now, these are people with. Who are perhaps having seizures.
You know, it's very good for Parkinson's. I've seen a couple of people with seizures take it for them, and within 10 minutes the seizure passes.
It is that calming. And the crazy thing is it's also a natural substance.
[00:06:21] Speaker C: Is that the problem for the pharmaceuticals? It's not something they can pay to.
[00:06:25] Speaker B: They can't pay to. Yeah, I think you've hit it right on. You've hit the nail on the net on the head.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: It.
[00:06:31] Speaker B: It is very difficult to make large amounts of money out of a natural plant. But your body, all of our bodies have. We have an endocannabinoid system. We actually have receptors in our bodies. Unlike alcohol. Alcohol is a poison. And don't get me wrong, I enjoy a pint of Guinness.
But our bodies are not designed to process alcohol. They are designed to process cannabinoids. You. You've actually got receptors that are there to do that very thing.
So it's a completely different class of substance.
[00:07:04] Speaker A: Interesting, isn't it?
You know, the cannabis? So how would you, if you decided to go down that path, you suffer? Is it like.
What specifically does cannabis do medicinally?
[00:07:21] Speaker B: Depends what you've got. I mean, I had a conversation yesterday with a gentleman with arthritis, bad arthritis in his hands.
I find for me that it has done great things for what's left of my stomach and bowel to regulate my insides.
It's very good for anxiety.
And we have an awful lot of people using it for insomnia.
[00:07:46] Speaker C: Is it working on the nervous system?
[00:07:48] Speaker B: Yeah, it's.
I'm not a medical doctor, as I like to say, say people, people when they. They see Dr. Craig Buchanan, I'd like to say, hang on, I'm not going to look at your rash. I'm not that sort of doctor.
It's about, for me, resetting your system almost.
It is, it is. So all.
I don't want to say all invasive because invasive is the wrong word.
[00:08:15] Speaker C: Perfect or holistic.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: Holistic.
[00:08:17] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:08:17] Speaker A: It.
[00:08:18] Speaker B: It.
So I find I'm sleeping better, my insides are regulated, I'm calmer, I'm more cheerful. I mean, look, the stereotypes are not lucky.
The stereotypes are not completely out the window.
But the crazy thing, I find working with a lot of people inside the. The legalized cannabis party and the movement is that some of those stereotypes are completely blown out of the window. I mean, the stereotype of the lazy stoner, I have never seen more committed and active people.
And of course, the trick is knowing what strain of cannabis you're taking some of the time, because there are certain mixtures that will make you sleepy. There are certain mixtures that will give you energy, that will actually pick you up and know, give you. Give you a bit of a kick up the bum.
[00:09:12] Speaker C: So is it regulated enough so that you know what variety of CBD you're getting?
[00:09:18] Speaker B: Look, I think it is, but you've. You've got to have a good.
You've got to have a good gp.
[00:09:24] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:09:25] Speaker B: You know, like. Like any other medication, you. You really need to be talking to your doctor. It needs to be a joint journey. Forgive. Forgive the pun, that, that was an unintentional one, but it does. You need to go, you need to walk that journey with your medical practitioner.
And so. So the first step, I would say, is finding a prescribing doctor.
Discussing your issue with your doctor and asking them, is, is cannabis an option for me? Look, the answer may be no.
[00:09:55] Speaker C: And is, are the variations in responses dependent upon the type of CBD or the body it's working in, or both?
[00:10:06] Speaker B: Look, I would say it's both.
[00:10:07] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:08] Speaker B: It is not something that everyone can easily handle.
[00:10:14] Speaker C: Some.
[00:10:14] Speaker B: Some people have a bad reaction and at the very worst end, you hear about people with paranoia, you hear about, you know, bad trips and never wanting to. To go there again.
But that is, in my experience, very much a minority.
The vast majority of people I'm talking to out there are using this medicinally. They're using it under doctor's orders and they're finding that it has a beneficial effect.
[00:10:45] Speaker A: It's quite interesting, isn't it? I. I'm just thinking you sort of. You're a party.
Are you running? Are there other things other than cannabis
[00:10:56] Speaker B: that you're running for, specifically down in Secret Harbour?
[00:11:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
Look, I'll be rolling out a number of local policies, but the beauty of having been a city councillor for the top two thirds of the Secret harbor seat for six years is I reckon I've got a pretty good idea where we've practically been let down. You know, as I said to you earlier, we know we haven't had the investment, so let's start looking at where we haven't invested. Well, the big one, and I'm sure everyone has said this so far, Carnap train station.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:35] Speaker B: Mark McGowan wouldn't deliver it, Paul Papillier couldn't deliver it, and Roger Cook hasn't delivered it.
Ten years we've been waiting for the Carnot train station, and we're still waiting for it today.
Now, I don't know how we can trust the government when they tell us, as they will tell us, I'm sure, in the next few days. Oh, look, vote for us. We'll get it up and running. When do we learn, you know, when do we learn that, you know, you fooled us once, you fooled us twice, you fooled us three times. Go on, give us. Give us a fourth one, Roger.
So, look, Carn up is one thing, but I've been focusing this week, particularly on transport.
Paganoni intersection on Mantra Road.
[00:12:20] Speaker A: Yeah, another one.
[00:12:21] Speaker B: It's a death trap.
58 accidents in four years.
[00:12:26] Speaker A: Yeah, right.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: Don't take my word for it.
[00:12:28] Speaker A: It's.
[00:12:29] Speaker B: The figures are hard to get because they come from main roads and they're only given to specialists. You can't, as a member of the public, look at the crash data from main roads, but the city of Rockingham dug them out and produced a report earlier this year.
I know, as an ex councilor, we've been trying to get that intersection upgraded for years, maybe not quite as long as we've been trying to get Carnap train station, but it wouldn't be very far off. And of course it's going to be the main access for Carnap train station.
That's where you're going to come off the road at the moment, you're coming off the road in a negative sense.
So I'm committed, if elected, to getting both of those projects on track.
Now, it took just over two years to get Lakelands train station from the first shovel going into the ground, the first train stopping at that station.
We can get the shovels going by the end of this year. At Karna, you will have the train station before the next general election. And that means you can hold whichever politician is elected in Secret harbor to account.
You can go into the next general election and say, well, hey, you promised us a train station. It's not here. Sling your hook.
And you're very welcome to say that to me because I am committed to putting that at the top of my agenda.
Paganoni Cristaluna intersection is up there as well.
The other one that struck me, you mentioned on the way in about. About boating. We were chatting, give you a little quiz. How many of our boat ramps down here in the greater city of Rockingham area are owned and run by the state government.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: I would have, I thought all of them might have been run by the state government.
[00:14:25] Speaker B: Oh, you are an optimist. You want to give me a lower number than all of them?
[00:14:32] Speaker A: By the state government?
[00:14:33] Speaker B: By the state government.
[00:14:35] Speaker A: Two.
[00:14:36] Speaker B: Zero.
Absolutely none. The state government owns and operates 100% of boat ramps in the city of Joondalup.
It operates 100% of boat ramps nearer to home in the city of Cockburn, 50% in Wanneroo and a big fat zero down here. Now, it's two things.
It's the thing I mentioned earlier, we're being taken for granted because each of those areas I just mentioned to you had swing seats.
So at some point in the last few years it's been a case. I mean, why do you think Hillary's got the large amount of money thrown at it that it did?
Because that was a liberal seat that was wobbly and all of a sudden we've got to give money to these areas.
The other issue down here is frankly that the city got ahead of itself. We started building boat ramps down here a heck of a lot earlier than most of the rest of Greater Perth.
And so once the city had built them, you were stuck with them on your rates bill. So basically the government is dipping into your pocket twice for boat ramps down here.
You're paying your boating registration fees and you're paying your taxes. That money is heading north.
You don't get to see that it pays for somebody else's boat facilities. Yours are paid for out of your rate bill.
Double double dipping, par excellence on the part of the government.
Now, I've got a solution and I'm going to put that out. This is you heard it here first on IPL radio, folks.
[00:16:13] Speaker A: Scoop.
[00:16:13] Speaker B: Scoop.
[00:16:14] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:16:16] Speaker B: The council has long had a plan to expand the two boat ramps in Port Kennedy.
They want to build a six ramp facility there.
Now, it's going to cost about 15 million by today's estimates. If we started digging tomorrow morning, it'd be about 15 million. So let's call it somewhere between 15 and 20 million by the time we actually get this project off the ground and started.
And it costs about half a million to maintain that facility every year.
I'm proposing the state government take over that project.
It's not a big ask, we're just asking our fair share of boating facilities down here from the state government for the boating fees that we send to Perth and then never see again. Let's actually start seeing some of that money used in the local electorate. Let's get the project that's already been designed off the ground and let's actually get our rates bills down at one and the same time.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: Is there a crossover between the state government and the council? You served on Rockingham council and you're also serving as a. A member of the Cannabis Party. Is there a. A crossover between state and local government?
[00:17:43] Speaker B: Not quite sure what you mean by crossover.
[00:17:45] Speaker A: Well, like, if you have, like the Rockingham council, can they go in and fight to the state government?
[00:17:56] Speaker B: Oh, heavens, yes.
[00:17:57] Speaker A: And do they?
[00:17:58] Speaker B: Look, Lorna Buchan, the mayor, her door will, will be on a swivel revolving with candidates going in to promise what they will do. And the good ones will listen as well. They'll go in and say, look, what are the city's priorities?
What do you need?
And that's an ongoing process that happens in every financial year that the mayor and the CEO will sit down with local members. I mean, Lorna will sit down with Magenta Marshall in Rockingham probably once a month thereabouts for a chat. Any issues, you go straight to your local member, you go to the minister for whatever the issue is that you're after.
So, yeah, there's an awful lot of back and forth, but they are separate organizations with separate funding.
And it's really, really tempting sometimes, I think, for government to offload responsibilities onto local government and then to say, well, don't blame us for your rates bill, because that keeps your taxation down so your local MP doesn't have to say, oh, I'm putting your taxes up to cover that.
But just listen to them whinge when the council has no choice but to put up your rights bill.
[00:19:13] Speaker A: It's interesting, isn't it, Politics.
[00:19:17] Speaker B: It's a nasty business.
[00:19:18] Speaker A: I, I would think so. I, you know, which is just digressing, but I quite often watch repeats of yes, Minister.
And, you know, I still laugh today because it is what happens.
[00:19:34] Speaker B: I worked in Whitehall as a, as a very young civil servant in the early 90s, sort of 90 through 95.
And I hate to tell you it's true. Yeah, it is probably the closest thing to reality in a political show that I've seen, probably up until Utopia came out over here. I don't know if you've seen the ABC's Utopia.
[00:19:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:58] Speaker B: If you enjoyed Yesminster, have a look at Utopia and have a look at the, the stuff we build that doesn't need to be built, but we're building it to make ourselves look good.
It's It's a fast. It's a fascinating, very funny TV show. Give it. Give it a go.
[00:20:13] Speaker A: Okay, I will know what they're doing on my list.
So the cannabis. And this is just a. I've got a couple of questions here if you want to answer. But just before I do, I would have thought, this is me, my mere weird mind, working like the Greens are what I understand, a very openish party, you know, with a lot of things. Sure, they. They are. Would not the Cannabis Party and the Greens have a bit of a meeting point?
[00:20:43] Speaker B: A gentleman asked me a couple of years ago. He said he'd been a Greens activist for a long time. I won't name him because he might be listening in. He's a local down here.
But he said to me, I don't know why you had to join that cannabis party. He said, we've been in favor of legalizing cannabis for 20 years.
[00:21:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:01] Speaker B: And I said, yes, you have. I said, and what have you achieved in that 20 years?
And the honest answer is sweet FA, if you'll forgive my abbreviated French, because, look, it's a tough struggle, I get that. But it's also never been the Greens top priority. Look, I don't blame them for that. They have a range of priorities for us as a party, and we've had a couple of members in Parliament here. We've had a. We've got a couple at the moment in Victoria, we've got one in New South Wales.
This is what we do every day. This is the message we take to government day in, day out. This is what, when. When a minister says to us, will you back the proposal for a new sewage works in Wanneroo? And I'm making that up, the first thing off our desk is going to be, well, you tell us, are you going to back THC driving for medicinal cannabis patients? That's a really big one that's going through at the moment. And a lot of your listeners who are on medicinal cannabis, and I'm fairly sure that there could easily be a few hundred people listening to this show who have prescriptions they're not currently allowed to drive.
Now, you and I, if we've got a prescription for opioids, it's left up to us, are we impaired or not?
And we're not tested. For those on roadside testing at the moment, medicinal cannabis is a legal prescription drug that you cannot drive with in Western Australia. And I say in Western Australia because that's not the case in Tasmania, it's no longer the case in Victoria, and it's just ceased to be the case in New South Wales.
So in Tasmania, all prescription drugs are treated the same. Same New South Wales, they've picked a certain level of oral fluid for testing.
Victoria is kind of halfway between those, those two models. You get three states in the eastern states where medicinal cannabis patients are being treated better, being treated as normal citizens trying to live their lives to the best of their ability.
And you've got Western Australia, where we've been told to wait a while.
Now, I know for full well there is a report on this because the minister convened a special working group two years ago.
She's had the report for at least six, if not eight months now. And it's been sitting on Minister Whitby's desk. Reese Whitby up in Maldives.
Rhys, if you're listening to the show, do me a favor, mate. Sign the bloody paperwork. There are people whose lives are being seen seriously impacted by this on a daily basis. Now, let me be clear.
We are not suggesting that impaired people be allowed to drive.
I've got kids, Brian's got kids. I've got a wife who's on the road.
We all want everyone to get home safely at night. No question about that. We don't need any more idiots on our roads. We've got quite enough as it is. But at the moment, if you stop at a satellites, let's say indeed you stop at the Paganoni intersection. Now, the reason there are so many crashes at Paganoni is that curve as you're coming from Mandurah and you don't see the lights. So everybody's doing 80. They come around the bend, they go lights, slam the brakes on. Let's say you're the car in front of that and someone runs up your rear end, you haven't caused that accident.
You'll both be tested. The guy behind you might lose a couple of points for pranging the back of your car. You'll probably lose your license because the system is just not. We haven't, our laws haven't caught up with the reality of the prescription system that we have enabled. So it is getting really, really frustrating. I mean, Brian, my boss, Brian Walker, in Parliament, I work as Brian's research officer.
Brian has basically said, look, the government will get no cooperation from us until that report has been released. We're not asking them to act on it. We just want to see the report. We want to see what advice they've been given because we're pretty damn sure we know the advice they've been given and the advice is the law needs to change.
So why have we spent almost eight months now with the government's thumb up its rear end when we could have been making life better for locals? And look, that is. That's the frustration I see every day out there on the streets when I'm door knocking.
We need local members who are listening to local people and at the moment, we just haven't got it.
[00:25:36] Speaker A: Well, it's been a most interesting interview, Craig, and we're giving each candidate the same amount of time. Roughly the same amount of time.
What would you like to leave us with, Craig?
[00:25:50] Speaker B: I'm just checking that list of questions, see if there are any more I could. I could cover off.
You were asking about the potential for a mental health.
[00:25:58] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:25:59] Speaker B: GP clinic in the constituency. Look, I'd love to see one. I would particularly like to see one, though, with a veterans angle to it, because I know full well that we have an awful lot of our vets on medicinal cannabis. The. The Department of Veterans affairs is one of the biggest prescribing organizations that we have in the country for the guys who've. The guys and girls who've served this country and who.
Who now need to. To recover and in many bad cases, be put back together after having served us. So I, yes, I would be very in favor of a mental health unit down in Secret harbor, but I'd particularly like to see it aimed at veterans, or at least with a good chunk of it named aimed at veterans.
And, oh, dear Lord, what are my thoughts on Orcus? Says the sheet of paper. If you could take the US out of it, I think I'd be an awful lot happier. It's the US at the end of Orcus that worries me.
I'm ex Navy from the uk, so I should be all over bringing the submarine base up to the sort of speed that we're looking at in August.
I can't trust the Yanks at the moment, not under Trump. I'm sorry.
I think we're giving billions upon billions to a con man. We'll probably see very little back from it.
That's it. That's it in a nutshell.
[00:27:31] Speaker A: Okay, well, thanks for sharing your time and your thoughts.
[00:27:34] Speaker B: No, thank you.
If people want to get in touch,
[00:27:37] Speaker A: I was just going to say. Yep.
[00:27:38] Speaker B: Well, look, my phone number is out there on pretty much every bit of paper as an exchange. Chancellor. 042-793-1745. Look at that. Feel free to. To give me a call. Failing. Which, if you'd rather email, you can reach me at contact lcwaparty.org.au thank you
[00:27:59] Speaker A: very much for your time.
[00:28:01] Speaker B: Thanks, guys.
[00:28:01] Speaker A: And it's fascinating, isn't it? Very much about the, the cannabis sort of thing. It's, it's really great.
[00:28:07] Speaker B: And remember the words of Willie Nelson, if you don't like who's in there, vote them out.
[00:28:11] Speaker A: Thank you very much.
