The Guardian: The Noosa yacht club member who led the hemp party to its best result yet in Queensland

The Guardian writes

Legalise Cannabis Australia’s Bernie Bradley is in with a sniff of winning Queensland’s sixth Senate spot – and he doesn’t even smoke dope.

The criminal defence solicitor likes to play a little golf and go to the Noosa Yacht and Rowing Club to hit the water on his RL24 “sailer trailer”.

Bradley, 52, went to the Anglican high school of Churchie, played a bit of rugby union and describes himself as “pretty conservative”.

“My mates are mainly stockbrokers,” he says.

Counting Australia’s Senate vote is notoriously complex. But as of Tuesday, Bradley’s party looks likely to outpoll billionaire candidate Clive Palmer.

Few predicted the marijuana-focused micro-party would be jostling for the state’s last Senate spot in what was tipped as a race between rightwing populists: Palmer, Pauline Hanson, former premier Campbell Newman and the Liberal National party’s Amanda Stoker.

Even Bradley concedes he is “quite shocked” at how little reward Palmer got for his campaign splurge of close to $100m.

Bradley estimates Legalise Cannabis spent about $10,000 in its campaign for a Queensland Senate spot, $4,000 of which went towards registering its two candidates.

“We ran one radio ad on the Wednesday before the blackout on an Ipswich FM station and we printed seven shirts,” Bradley says. “The rest was just corflutes and how-to-vote cards and a guy driving around with a box trailer.”

The solicitor says his party’s favourable position on the ballot and distinctive hemp leaf logo helped his cause.

Read the full article at

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/25/the-noosa-yacht-club-member-who-led-the-hemp-party-to-its-best-result-yet-in-queensland

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