Wednesday, 15 May 2024

 David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan) (10:09): I recently attended the annual MardiGrass festival at Nimbin with my colleague Rachel Payne. The three-day family-friendly event attracted thousands of visitors from across Australia, who gathered to celebrate the remarkable little plant that is enjoyed by millions of Australians and to call for meaningful drug law reform. There were no arrests or seizures, no incidents at all, just a very discrete police presence. In fact I was told that working on MardiGrass is a widely sought-after gig for the cops. Who can blame them? They had nothing to do but to stroll around and enjoy and mingle with very relaxed, happy people peacefully taking in the Zeitgeist. Certainly the cops I saw seemed to be digging the vibe as much as the attendees.

What a contrast to the 420 event we had in Melbourne a few weeks ago, with its overbearing police presence and multiple police interventions. I was asked so many questions at the festival – ‘What’s going on down there?’ ‘Don’t your cops have better things to do with their time than arrest peace-loving folk who like to smoke a bit of weed?’ ‘Isn’t Victoria supposed to be Australia’s most progressive state?’ ‘How can you have three-quarters of a million people consuming pot every year and 4.5 million people who want it decriminalised and yet have no action on cannabis reform? Doesn’t that make Victoria Australia’s most reactionary state?’ Now, possibly I was a bit stoned, but I could not answer those questions – (Time expired)