CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia's election campaign took a wacky turn on Tuesday with claims the Greens party wanted to allow the sale of "party" drugs, state funding for sex changes and laws to make people ride bicycles and eat less meat.The small but influential Greens party rejected a media report which claimed it would campaign for all that and more during the run-up to the Oct. 9 election.
"Greens back illegal drugs," Melbourne's Herald Sun tabloid declared in a headline above some of the most bizarre policy claims in Australian political history.
It reported the environmentally friendly party wanted to allow the sale of ecstasy and other illegal drugs.
It also said the Greens wanted sex changes made available under the Medicare government health scheme, state backing for homosexual and transgender marriages and Australia's 20 million population cut by two million.
Opinion polls show minor parties like the Greens and the Democrats could play a crucial role in a cliff-hanger election between Prime Minister John Howard's Liberal/National coalition and center-left opposition Labor.
The government and Labor are running neck-and-neck on primary votes but Labor has a narrow lead on the more important two-party preferred basis, under which minority party votes are distributed to the two major parties and ultimately decide an election.
Greens leader Bob Brown rejected most of the Herald Sun's claims, saying the report had been concocted after the newspaper contacted a right-wing thinktank that supports Howard.
