PATTEN COMEBACK IS MORE THAN SMOKE AND MIRRORS

ROSS FITZGERALD

As the Australian voter’s penchant for independents and minor parties continues to grow, the Senate is becoming a very colourful chamber.

In the federal election, there will be a fascinating contest for the last Senate seat in Victoria.

This is where a David and Goliath clash between Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots and the Legalise Cannabis Party will take place.

The latter’s lead candidate is former Australian Sex Party leader and Victorian MLC Fiona Patten.

With Palmer set to invest much more than the $123m he spent on advertising his party at the last federal election, Ms Patten has a job ahead of her, especially as she has a war chest of less than $100,000.

In this election, not only does Ms Patten have Palmer’s millions tocounter, but the US billionaire Mark Zuckerberg is working against her.
Meta has banned all Legalise Cannabis Party ads for political donations, branding them as de facto drug dealers.

A search for Legalise Cannabis Party on Zuckerberg’s platform comes up with a banner that reads: “If you see the sale of drugs, please report it.”

Patten and the party are working to change this, but it has hampered early fundraising.

It’s ironic that Mark Zuckerberg could support Donald Trump’s political aspirations on Meta’s platforms, but deny the right to advertise a legitimate party that has four sitting MPs in Australia.

Yet Zuckerberg has no problem advertising rival Australian parties. For example, Palmer is all over Meta promoting his Trumpian messages. Surely this is a form of discrimination that undermines the electoral process.

A few weeks ago, election expert Kevin Bonham said: “The 2022 figures suggest Legalise Cannabis could be competitive for a seat if it could roughly double its vote to about 6 per cent, which isn’t unthinkable with the party having gained a foothold in the Victorian Legislative Council. Patten is very media-savvy and will play well in much of the Melbourne metro.”

It is noteworthy that in recent NSW and Victorian by-elections in Port Macquarie and Werribee, the Legalise Cannabis Party scored more than 7 per cent and 5 per cent respectively, which puts Patten within range of victory in the Senate.

Like Palmer, Patten is a political enigma. She was the first former sex worker to be elected to a parliament in Australia, though as she reminded people in her maiden speech, “the clients of sex workers have been elected in far greater numbers before me.”

She was also the first MP to admit to being a regular cannabis user.

Initially, Ms Patten was regarded as a novelty by the establishment. But her ability to lobby politicians in the Victorian parliament and her position chairing the influential legal and social issues committee soon made her one of Victoria’s most successful independent MPs.

In eight years as an MLC, Patten was responsible for new laws protecting abortion clinics and voluntary assisted dying, initiating hate speech laws, and legalising Victoria’s sex industry. This is a record of social change that Palmer’s solitary MP, the “Trumpian” United Australia Party senator for Victoria, Ralph Babet, can only dream of.

Losing her seat in the Victorian parliament in 2022 came after a bout of cancer and a public fight with the so-called “preference whisperer” Glenn Druery.

Comebacks are rare in Australian politics. With federal parliamentary terms only lasting three years, unless a person holds a safe seat – those are increasingly rare – most political careers are not long ones.

Australia’s most memorable political comebacks are those of former prime ministers, notably William Morris (Billy) Hughes, and more recently John Howard. In contrast, there aren’t many former state or territory MPs who have managed the transition to federal parliament. NSW independents Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott did so.

Patten is a political survivor who, as a former high-profile sex worker, now publicly refers to herself as the “Strumpet’” of Patriots.

Although Patten’s policies often promote personal freedom and human rights, Patten has plenty of conservative connections to keep her anchored in the real world.

In her 2018 memoir Sex, Drugs and the Electoral Roll, she cited some unusual bedfellows as her mentors. These included Malcolm Fraser’s former press secretary David Barnett, Australian Democrats founder Don Chipp and former ACT Liberal chief minister Kate Carnell.

Politically, Patten most resembles the independent senator for the ACT David Pocock, and the feisty senator for Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie.

This troika could end up all being MPs this year, holding the balance of power in the Senate.

If so, they might prove to be a considerable challenge for either Anthony Albanese or Peter Dutton in what might well be a hung parliament.

Ross Fitzgerald is Emeritus Professor of History and Politics at Griffith University. In the 2013 federal election he was lead NSW Senate candidate for the Australian Sex Party

The Herald Sun (Melbourne), 10 April 2025

The role of minor parties will be major

Professor Ross Fitzgerald’s opinion piece about the Legalise Cannabis party (Patten Comeback is More than Smoke and Mirrors; 10th April) is spot on. They are trying to stop prohibition of a drug that hundreds of thousands of Victorians use with no ill-effects. Labor and Liberal want to send people to jail for using it. When you look at what currently ails both Labor and Liberal parties in Victoria, I reckon they would both do well to take a bit of medicinal cannabis!
Richard Sando
Coburg

Ross Fitzgerald’s opinion piece (Patten comeback is more than smoke and mirrors) highlights how important minor parties and independents are going to be in this election. Australian voters are moving away from the major parties in record numbers while we search for authenticity, and according to Ross’ article, the final senate seat in Victoria could very well boil down to a race between the Legalise Cannabis Party and the Trumpet of Patriots. Two minor parties with very different agendas. Reading that the Legalise Cannabis Party’s lead candidate is Fiona Patten is also encouraging. Regardless of whether our political beliefs aligned, I always found Ms Patten to be authentic, hard-working, evidence-driven, and willing to work with all sides of politics to get things done. The Trumpet of Patriots, formerly the United Australia Party, have one sole senator for Victoria Ralph Babet. I know who I’d rather see represent Victoria.
Daniel More
Coburg

The Herald Sun (Melbourne), 11 April 2025