HEMPLOYMENT - IT'S A CAPITAL IDEA, JOHN

It was an invitation John Howard would never expect to receive, and
one he was always destined to refuse.

Ms Judy Canales, from the "Star Earth Tribe", asked him at his public
meeting in Lismore yesterday: "Mr Prime Minister, would you consider
coming to Nimbin?"

Ms Canales told him he'd been invited earlier to the "alternative
nation's capital", but Nimbin had been told he was too busy.

No wonder. What Ms Canales wanted to talk about was an elaborate
"hemployment" plan for the multi-billion-dollar commercialisation of
hemp.

"I can't get to Nimbin in the next 48 hours," Mr Howard said, in a
voice that hinted this was a request beyond reasonableness.

But if the Prime Minister was not willing to go to them, the Nimbins
were out in force to see him.

Outside the public meeting was a bus with a huge joint on top, and a
larger than life skeleton figure of Major Watters, a Howard confidant
on social policy.

The noisy demonstrators were against the GST and for cannabis. In
rowdy exchanges between demonstrators and police, two protesters were
detained but quickly released "to calm the crowd down".

Inside the hall, for about 90 minutes Mr Howard faced interjections,
heckling and cat-calls.

Questioners voiced a variety of grievances. One man was distraught
about a FamilyCourt decision. Another challenged the PM to "debate me
in front of the Federal police" over alleged corruption concerning
dairy deregulation.

Another asked whether the 10per cent GST on tampons would mean "we
will have to bleed 10per cent less every month". A third was nearly in
tears over reconciliation.

Mr Howard was in foreign territory politically, but only took a few
swipes. When one questioner contrasted a Keating visit to Lismore,
saying the Labor prime minister had come with money and vision for the
city, Mr Howard said the man was probably a member of the ALP. He
added: "Did Mr Keating have a public gathering like this?"

In reply to one question, Mr Howard criticised the teaching of history
these days, saying there was too much concentration on an issue's
approach and too little on the sequence of events. "There's too little
emphasis on some of the facts and too much on making the history
curriculum politically correct," he said.

He then went off to the town of Maclean to relive a little history of
his own. Mr Howard's grandfather and father lived in Maclean before
the family moved to Sydney duringWorld War II.