STILL PLENTY OF HIPPY PUFF IN PAGE

IF Ian Causley, the local National Party member for the northern NSW seat
of Page, walked up the main street of Nimbin in his trademark dark suit, he
would look as out of place as most of the town's inhabitants would look
anywhere else in the sprawling 16,600sqkm rural electorate.

But to suggest that the ageing hippies who live in and around Nimbin are
not political would be naive. The town is home to the Hemp Party which,
while it isn't running any candidates for the House of Representatives, has
Senate candidates in NSW and Queensland.

Hemp's chief organiser, or "branch head" as he prefers to be known, Andrew
Kavasilas, runs a coffee shop in Nimbin and is also head of the local
Chamber of Commerce.

"I represent the largest criminal group in Australia, the adult cannabis
users," Mr Kavasilas said as he puffed on a mid-morning joint yesterday.

"Our objectives are serious. We don't want legalisation of cannabis, but we
do want decriminalisation and regulation.

"We don't like the way cannabis use has gone. There are more kids smoking
at a younger age and that worries us. We also want serious trials on the
medical use of cannabis."

Nimbin sits uneasily in the generally rural spread of Page. The nearby
towns of Casino and Kyogle are typical country centres with retailers
selling tractors, superphosphate and barbed wire alongside those selling
baby clothes, groceries or meat.

Covering a large hunk of northern NSW, Page also takes in the big towns of
Grafton and Lismore, and touches the coast for the holiday towns of Evans
Head and Ballina. Much of its northern boundary is defined by the
NSW-Queensland border.

One of the more marginal rural seats in the country, Page is largely
agricultural, with dairy and beef cattle, grain crops, sugar and bananas,
timber mills, fishing, prawning and oyster farming bringing in more income
than the local tourism industry.

Mr Causley has held the seat for the National Party since 1996 and was
deputy speaker of the House of Representatives in the last parliament.

Before switching to federal politics, he was the NSW MLA for Clarence from
1984 to 1996. He held several ministerial portfolios including natural
resources, agriculture and fisheries and mines in the Greiner and Fahey
governments.

Mr Causley retained Page with a 2.8 per cent margin in 2001 and is
confident of winning again on October 9.

Relaxing from the rigours of the campaign at the Lismore Cup race meeting
earlier this week, Mr Causley said unemployment in the area had fallen from
more than 15 per cent to 7.9 per cent and light industry, along with
tourism, was growing.

While the Green vote is significant in Page (the party won almost 8 per
cent of the primary vote in 2001), Mr Causley's main opponent will be
Labor's Kevin Bell.

A graduate of Duntroon military college who spent 13 years in the army and
who is now a schoolteacher, Mr Bell believes he has the conservative
background a Labor candidate needs to win in a rural electorate.

"I need three people in every hundred to change their vote," he said
yesterday. "With all the doorknocking I've done over the past months, I
think I've got a real chance.

"The demographics in the electorate are changing, with a lot of people
moving in who have never voted for the National Party. I've done a
preferences deal with the Greens - and that might just be enough to get me
over the line."