What are my Policies?

People should know where I stand, not just as a politician, but also as a husband, father, and resident of Western Australia.

Party vs Personal

We all have different opinions. What I have described in the following lines merely represents my personal views. The Legalise Cannabis Party of Western Australia may not share these views, at least so far, they have not necessarily committed to them. I think these are views with which most of our population can agree. I like them, I hope you do too.

Cannabis Legislation

Of course, the first reason I am in parliament is to act for legislation that legalises cannabis. What does that mean? It means you should be able to grow, buy and use cannabis as you see fit.

In practice, this means that we recognise that cannabis is a safe, healthy healing herb that can be used for relaxation but most certainly can be used as a medicine that is extremely useful. We are just beginning to recognise the immense uses of cannabis. Not only that but freeing up the whole hemp agricultural business will bring in billions of dollars to the WA economy, from which we will be able to reinvest into the community for healthcare, hospitals, social services and a raft of approaches that brighten our society such as treating homelessness and crime.

The cannabis leaf is also a symbol for all who value truth and freedom – personal freedom, bodily autonomy, and freedom of thought leading to the freedom to search for truth. That path leads to growth – spiritual, physical, and social. For this reason, I am committed to a path that encourages Truth, Freedom and Growth.

Health and Wellness

As a medical professional my major focus is on wellness. Wellness is defined by the World Health Organisation as including Physical, Mental, Social and Financial Wellness.

Therefore, my further focus includes impacting on social causes for lack of wellness, and that means I must look at eradicating poverty, addressing homelessness, reducing violence in society, medicalising drug abuse rather than criminalising it, enhancing employment legislation so every worker has a liveable wage and working conditions that ensure dignity. I call this social justice.

Other Issues

And none of this is meaningful if we neglect an underlying essential component – Financial Security. Security for the individual and for the state. And so, I focus on hemp as a counterbalance to the iron ore industry, improving our balance of trade, improving our relations with neighbouring Asian countries, and addressing immigration issues.

What follows now is my suggested list of policies. I make no claim to personal development. They have been developed over time by wiser minds than mine, but they make sense to me, and I hope to you as well.  As such, I hope that they will serve as a useful guide to where I stand on a whole range of non-cannabis related issues.

 

Sensible Drug Reform

Evidence-based drug policy, founded on early treatment and harm reduction

  • Treat drug use as a health issue, not a criminal issue
  • Legalise, regulate, and tax cannabis
  • Trial prescription hydromorphone (analogue of heroin) to break the link between heroin addiction and crime
  • More high quality medically supervised injecting centres
  • Reform laws to allow front-of-house drug checking (‘pill testing’) facilities in areas of need including music festivals and other events
  • Legalise electronic vaporisers and liquid nicotine as recognised treatments for smoking

 

Serious About Mental Health

Major investment in mental health interventions and support

  • Significant recurrent investment in early interventions for young people at risk
  • Greatly reduce waiting times for mental health services and admissions
  • Provide mental health services as part of the response to homelessness
  • Increased training for health professionals to identify and support mental illness
  • Expand and integrate (via dual diagnosis) mental health and drug treatment services
  • Appoint a ministerial portfolio for loneliness to address the health implications associated with isolation

 

Accountable Honest Politicians

 MPs required to act in the public interest

  • All politicians to be legally bound and required to act in the public interest
  • Place a cap on electoral spending and report political donations in real-time
  • Establish and enforce MPs expenses rules, and remove vague entitlements
  • Extend powers of IBAC to investigate misuse of public funds

 

Transparent Taxable Religion

Religious organisations that are open and transparent about their activities

  • Remove tax exemptions from for-profit businesses owned by religious institutions, while protecting their charitable activities
  • Reform equal opportunity laws to prevent religious organisations from discriminating
  • Remove religious oaths from parliamentary proceedings
  • Extend mandatory reporting laws to religious institutions
  • End exemptions for admissions disclosed in religious confessions

 

Bold Business and Innovation

Investment in small business and innovation as the drivers of our future economy

  • Decrease regulatory burdens and taxes on small business
  • Cut red tape via a dedicated parliamentary committee
  • Establish a strategy to respond to the impact of Artificial Intelligence and automation on the economy and the workplace
  • Increase investment in med-tech and pharmaceuticals sectors
  • Prioritise local businesses in government procurement
  • Foster advanced manufacturing

 

Sex and Censorship

A modern approach to adult industries

  • Decriminalise sex work, with best-practice sex industry regulation
  • Make it unlawful to discriminate against a person on the basis of their profession or calling
  • Adjust censorship laws to facilitate responsible adult freedoms while protecting children
  • Provide age-appropriate relationship and sex education in school curricular

 

Modern Criminal Justice

Build on evidence-based ‘smart-on-crime’ approaches, proven to reduce offending

  • Focus on the causes of crime to prevent it from occurring
  • Gaols focused on reducing reoffending, not just warehousing criminals
  • Provide family violence education programs in workplaces
  • Train and equip police better around de-escalation, mental health and cultural competency
  • Make it easier for sex offences to be reported and prosecuted
  • Ensure the criminal justice system protects and supports victims of crime

 

Positive Ageing

A plan for our aging population and its economic implications

  • Fully funded state-wide ageing Strategy
  • Appoint an Ombudsman for Aged Care and Retirement Housing
  • Foster aged care services and facilities that enhance independence and dignity
  • Cater for the needs of minority groups and people with disabilities in aged care facilities
  • State-wide promotion of age-friendly and dementia-friendly community planning

 

More Affordable Housing

Workable and rational approaches to dramatically increase housing affordability

  • Permit reasonable increases to density in inner and middle suburbs
  • Remove tax barriers to build-to-rent and rent-to-buy schemes
  • Adopt more ambitious targets for the Public/Community Housing Renewal Plan
  • Reduce Stamp Duty on investment in social housing
  • Greater security for long-term renters.

 

Tackling Homelessness

Workable and rational approaches to dramatically reduce homelessness

  • Focus on early interventions to identify and support those at risk of homelessness
  • Coordinated, multi-agency, well-funded responses to homelessness
  • Appoint a Commissioner for the Homeless
  • Tackle social isolation for 16 – 25-year-olds

 

Delivering on Energy Affordability

A pragmatic plan to achieve energy emission targets while sustaining energy affordability

  • Extend Renewable Energy Action Plan beyond 2040
  • Plan transition from existing coal-fired plants, in the context of agreed energy targets
  • Invest in the feasibility of potential sites for pumped hydropower
  • Increase clean energy and environmental incentives for local businesses
  • Reduce regulations that inhibit the uptake of clean energy by small businesses and residents

 

Delivering on Environment Protection

A pragmatic plan to protect our environment while sustaining our economy

  • Audit potential impacts of rising sea levels and extreme weather events
  • Facilitate and support efficient recycling and a state-wide war on waste
  • Promote and facilitate policies and opportunities for green roofs and spaces
  • Foster new industries focused on plastic and waste repurposing

 

Aboriginal Affairs

Advocacy for self-determination and an effective Treaty

  • Foster opportunities for every Aboriginal child to achieve their full potential
  • Advocate for communities to be strong in their culture
  • Take an integrated approach, and pool funding from different agencies, to contribute to common goals and outcomes
  • Directly address the over-representation of aboriginal people in the justice system

 

Healthy Children

Pursuit of evidence-based proven measures which increase the health of all children

  • A strong focus on co-locating childcare with health and allied services
  • Promotion of universal checks on health progress in the first 1000 days
  • Public funding of pre-school places for 3–4-year-olds
  • Foster easily accessible services to support early parenting

 

Youth at Risk

Pursuit of evidence-based interventions to identify and assist youth at risk

  • Urgent responses to meet youth needs in outer high-growth communities
  • Youth justice facilities that address the underpinning causes of offending
  • Youth drug rehabilitation
  • Increase funding for diversion and early intervention in criminal justice
  • Increase leaving out-of-home care age to 21 years

 

Mature Political Dialogue

Regulations and processes that enable our representatives to act with integrity

  • Insist on evidence, research, and expert knowledge in support of proposed policies
  • Facilitate rational, frank, transparent and fearless advice from public servants
  • Support democratic processes for open and honest dialogue with the public, including citizen juries, referendums, and town hall meetings
  • Foster connections between young people and the processes of parliament and government
  • Facilitate bipartisan long-term planning of social and physical infrastructure

 

Efficient Public transport

Make all movement easier

  • Increase public transport spending in outer high-growth areas
  • Urgently improve train frequency, including new express services
  • Establish new bus routes and timetables to connect buses and trains
  • Free Wi-Fi on public transport. Every train, every bus
  • Support for high-speed regional transport and services between regional hubs

 

Removing Barriers to Equality

Directly address discrimination in our society

  • Extend racial and religious vilification laws to vilification based on sexuality and gender
  • Pursue gender parity in pay and Board representation, and gender analysis in policy and laws
  • Strengthen powers of Equal Opportunity Commission to investigate and require compliance
  • Reform surrogacy laws to help those needing assistance to conceive, and adoption laws to help those over 30 wishing to adopt

 

Secure and Safe Society

Greater protection for the safety of the vulnerable and those at most risk

  • Effectively protect children and young people within the foster care and state-run residential programs
  • Recurrent funding and support for interventions to prevent family violence and to increase the safety of women and men after dark
  • Increase funding for temporary safe houses, and for legal and psychological services
  • Better protect and support the homeless and rough sleepers at night

 

Future Focused Schools

Reorient our school curriculum to better fit the future

  • Promote a renewed focus on science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM)
  • Extend STEM to include arts and music (STEAM)
  • Special attention to speech pathology and obesity in primary schools
  • Teach entrepreneurship and life skills in secondary schools
  • Expand the Lawyers in Schools program

 

Education for life

Expand the choices and opportunities available for students to fully develop as individuals

  • Emphasise social education in schools to graduate capable, resilient, ethical adults
  • Invest significantly in the provision of vocational, technical, special needs, and gifted education, and in apprenticeships, to broaden opportunities
  • Replace school chaplaincy programs with qualified youth and social workers

 

Outer Suburban Liveability

Reorient planning and services so that infrastructure keeps up with population growth

  • Improve traffic management for faster traffic flow and increased capacity
  • Improve planning and access to pharmacies, medical, dental, and allied health services
  • Facilitate access to local employment via local jobs action plans
  • Restrict urban boundaries and urban sprawl

 

Tackling Poker Machines

Reduce the negative impacts of poker machines and promote responsible gambling

  • Reduce cashless gaming, and reduce maximum bet per spin to $1
  • Reduce maximum daily trading hours of poker machine venues, and the density of poker machines per electorate
  • Make transparent the lobbying activities of pokies providers and their influence on government
  • Long term planning to decouple the government from poker machine revenue

 

Priority Walking and Cycling

Improved, interconnected and safer walking and cycling paths

  • A fully funded state-based cycling strategy, including strategic cycling corridors
  • Optional bike helmet laws for those over the age of 18
  • Invest in safe, direct, and continuous bike routes, separated from other forms of traffic
  • Revitalise and expand existing cycling trails
  • Provide bike racks on buses and trams as well as trains.

 

Real Public Health

Improved, accessible public health for all

  • Facilitate and incentivise GP visits to schools and medical services in poorly served areas
  • Establish health hubs, with the integration of health centres, schools & other services
  • Focus on evidence-based prevention and early intervention throughout the health system
  • Effectively regulate to prevent over-servicing and unscientific treatments
  • Expand and strengthen dental health services

 

Vibrant Accessible Arts

Greater diversity and stimulation across the arts

  • Acknowledge the benefits of music for human development, and ensure all primary school students have access to basic music education
  • Appoint a Minister for Fashion to promote fashion’s role in arts and the economy
  • Redistribute 1% from major arts institutions to small and medium institutions
  • Enable affordable public liability insurance for performance artists and musicians
  • Provide learning and travel scholarships for emerging artists, as provided in sport