It was Parliament's last sitting day of the year and Nimbin resident Michael Balderstone was disappointed everyone was ignoring his giant inflatable joint.

As members of the Nimbin Hemp Embassy, he and his mates had just inflated their 10-metre spliff, giant medicinal cannabis bottle and erected their big Obama poster ("Yes we can-nabis") outside Parliament when a couple of dozen asylum seeker protesters turned up and upstaged the pot smokers by abseiling off Parliament House and standing shin-deep in the official ornamental pond.