It’s 'Our Place’, to do our thing. Kiwis can put quality-made programmes up on the site. He says it asks of Kiwis “What are you going to DO with this new resource? You can MAKE things with this. You don’t have to ask permission” .

At 6.24, Bryan explains the problem with our current NZ media: a producer has to go through the gateways of the commercial television channels who really are trying to assess your programme on the one question of : “How big an audience can you bring to the commercial gaps?”.

It has always been thus. And if you’re good at that, then they will buy your next programme. It’s not about how good a programme is, it’s about what kind of audience? and how big will it be? to cater to the advertisers in the commercial gaps - and it all comes down to producing money instead of quality.

At 7.16, Bryan says the main channels are going to self-edit. They re not going to take a programme that is not going to fit well with their sponsors.

The other side of it is we tend to think of government- funded broadcasters as being more independent, but that is not true either, because they are not going ‘to bite the hand that feeds them’ and stand up to their government money-source.

If mainstream media gets money from a business, then that piper calls the tune.

At 7.46, Bryan explains that the idea for this came up about 3 years ago when he walked out of TVNZ one day having had it explained to him that his programme on health was probably going to get lots of ratings but “Really we’re not necessarily into the business of doing programmes in the public good. They have to be commercial because we might sell ourselves off one day” .

Bryan walked out of that building and thought: “ Well, if these guys aren’t going to do NZ public television, maybe I can.”.

Bryan registered a company called ‘NZ Public Television Ltd”, and he talked to friends: “ If you were starting television today, you wouldn’t do it in the way that the BBC told us how to do it all those years ago - no big dishes, sky satellites, large building. How would we do it today ?”

At 8.43, he says the answer is clear: we’d use the World Wide Web.

And how would we put our programmes up?

When Bryan talked to servers , they had gleeful visions of making lots of money out of this being a version of Netflix. But Bryan instead saw it as a bus station. You, the viewer, come to NZPTV to be pointed in the right direction of a programme that someone else is hosting on Vimeo or YouTube or other sites. So NZPTV is a curator of quality programmes with NZ content. And at 9.13 he says the producers and their websites - the people who own the copyright to their own work- will be acknowledged .

At the same time, NZPTV will also make its own programmes and put those up on NZPTV Vimeo and direct viewers to that content also. So Vimeo might be the host of a programme but NZPTV will direct traffic there.

At its core, the aim is to work out how to make cost-effective television and then also make it a People’s Channel which says - Look , you might see Bryan Bruce or others doing an introduction but it’s not his channel, it’s OUR channel. NZPTV will also help producers. Bryan says he has been to see NZ on Air and asked how many eyeballs a week does NZPTV need for independent producers to be able to be funded to make and put their programme up on this new platform. “ They couldn’t tell me” he says.

At 10.07, he says “ This is a new world for them !” NZ on Air don’t know what the numbers might be so NZPTV will educate them on what the numbers CAN be.

At 11.30, Bryan talks of his own motivations in programme making: “ What I try to do in a programme is say “ Here’s a problem. How did we get to this? Let’s unpack it a bit and look at some solutions”. That’s where hope arises - rather than leave people in a dark place with overwhelming negative story-telling “

When he made ‘The Investigator’, each case involved some element of The Law that needed further examination - for example- David Tamihere was identified while wearing handcuffs outside the courtroom . Was this a correct identification? And what are the rules for identifying someone? The Defence said this was unfair. The Court allowed it- so now there are new rules that apply to each of us. At 13.20 Bryan says when making a programme it’s important that you’re not just doing ti because ‘crime rates’. Why are you upsetting people and going through all of this misery again for the families that were involved for no good reason?

At 13.39 Bryan says he encourages producers to ask ‘Why am I making this? What is the outcome I want to have from it?”.

At 14.41 he says the question we all need to ask is “ Who owns the media now? Who owns the way that our attitudes and our opinions and our thoughts about life are formed?” .

The Big Questions to ask are “ Who -How-What -Where- Why”. He says those questions are often not being asked in journalism today. “ It worries me. I watch reporters ask very simple questions - even , are you having a nice day ?”.

At 16.14 he says he sees Free Media and True Democracy as connected .

At the start of the last century, the total number of people you could address verbally was on a street corner through megaphone. But the end of the 20th Century, you could address the whole world through the various media and now with the internet, you can reach places that don’t even have broadcast facilities but have telephone lines. At 17.01, he says “ If you can control the means of talking to people, whether for your private ends or for the government’s ends, that’s a lot of power. That’s actually a means of accumulating power.

And now what NZPTV does is give the power BACK to the People and says “ YOU are in control of the stories” .

At 19.05 he says this is a Wake Up. it’s more than just a channel. “ We’ll grow as much as the People want to do it. My call is out to independent producers. Our gateway is much wider than any of the public or private broadcasters. You can come to us with a programme provided that it is professionally made , something you might see on a commercial channel in terms of its quality of production. For example, if you have made a programme about the TPPA or Water Issues, and you’ve done your homework and kept to the Broadcasting Standards Authority issues of fairness and balance .

At 21.04 he explains balance in the context of his programme 'Jesus, the Cold Case' which was criticised because Bryan talked to certain theologians but not others. He says that the ‘balance’ is that, on any given day, a viewer can turn to the Christian channels and hear the opposite view.

It’s equally so for NZPTV, which would make sure that, with a controversial programme, then somewhere there is the counter view shown, or NZPTV itself would run the counter view so the viewer could see both sides.

At 22.00 he says that it’s not true to say there are NO editing gateways to go through, but they relate more to the legal ones- you cannot defame people , and if it’s an argument for one viewpoint, it must be well though out , or if it’s science-based, it must be peer -reviewed.

But at 22.19, he says NZPTV is not going to say to a producer “ It doesn’t quite fit with our sponsors” (because there are no sponsors of the channel)- or “It doesn’t quite fit with our ‘brand’ “ (which is commonly heard in Mainstream Media ).

In fact The NZPTV ‘Brand’ is Independence ! “ If it fits with that, we should have it “.

At 23.23 Bryan underlines that “ If we don’t hold on to life rafts like this , we’re all going to drown”. At 24.19, he says public education has taught questioning and yet we have a media that tried to manipulate popped who are actually very intelligent .

“ I’m always amazed at the wisdom that comes out of people from whom, at face value, you wouldn’t assume that wisdom”. At 24.50, he gives an anecdote from a programme he made called “Stand By Your Man’ about three women whose partners had committed major crimes. “ And she said “ They never fixed his drug and alcohol addiction - and that was his problem” And you’re just about to move from this interviewee, when suddenly they come out with this absolutely insightful gem about what we’re NOT doing for men or women in prison. We’re not addressing the issues that have led to them being IN there!”

At 27.55 Bryan outlines that one of the ways that governments gain power over us is: if they don’t collect data on, for example, how much Chinese money is coming in to the country, then they can pretend it isn’t a problem. No one knows! “ Oh”, they say “ it’s all just anecdotal. You’re just bashing the Chinese”.

Bryan says "NO! I’m saying: let’s collect the data! You’re giving away visas to very wealthy people - gold visas. If you have ten million you can buy a residency in our country . But what are these people DOING for our country ? And where is that money going ?”. And the answer comes back from the government: “I’m sorry we don’t know because we don’t follow the money trail” . At 29.10, Bryan suggests that one of the roles for NZPTV is to encourage independent producers to pick a topic, investigate it, and bring us the data that the government is not collecting because it’s' inconvenient ‘. “ The last thing that governments want is inconvenient truths”.

At 29.58 he says that if you DO your homework and collate the data, then policy changes” .

At 30.23 he talks of the effect of his programme ‘Inside Child Poverty” which went out on TV3 the week of the election in 2011. "There was a debate about whether it should have been screened in election week, driven by right wing commentators like Sean Plunkett who said Bryan Bruce should not be funded to make programmes like this! Then a marvellous thing happened. The National Government which had initially said “ This is made up by a left wing journalist”, then started to change its tune and admitted “ Well it might exist but we can’t measure it”. Then the Children’s Commissioner Russell Wills said “ Ok, I’ll get a group off academics together and we WILL measure it” They put out an amazing report. It could not be ignored any more. The word “child poverty’ became part of our vernacular. And by the NEXT election it was an election issue” .

So Bryan uses this example to say that this is what we can do as media people: we can investigate, we can collate data, we can inspire people. He credits The Child Poverty Action Group with inspired him to make the programme . He says they had been doing their work for years and he thought “ Well maybe I have few skills in terms of taking complicated things and trying to make them understandable - and that was my role. Something like 580 thousand Kiwis watched that programme and then the Public started asking questions. I had offered the programme to TVNZ and I seem to remember someone saying “ Who’s going to watch a programme with ‘Poverty’ in the title?” ( and 580,000 viewers is up there with All Black fixture numbers in terms of ratings ) “ .

At 33.17, Bryan says NZPTV is not competitive- but rather, co-operative. “ We could make a programme that is of great public interest and make it in a dynamic way. We could take the online rights and a mainstream media outlet could take the broadcast rights. That would be an adult way of dealing with different kinds of distribution “

At 34.48, Bryan says it’s no accident that one of the longest running programmes in this country is called ‘Fair Go’. He feels that deep down, most Kiwis believe in a fair go and many of felt terribly betrayed by 1984 and the adoption of Neo Liberalism and being told it was the only way we could go. “ Well it wasn’t. there are about 30 different kinds of capitalism in the world and if you look at what happened in Scandinavia, they took a deep breath and paused - and then they adopted certain elements ONLY. They fenced off policies to do with children, the elderly and housing, and then they said they would allow OTHER policy to be more entrepreneurial .

Whereas in New Zealand , the government said “ ALL of that is wrong and this new evangelistic way is right, and there is now only ONE way to do this”. Bryan cites David Lange’s book which shows he later realised this was the worst thing he did. In fact, he may not have fully understood it and “ To be fair, I’m not sure that many of us understood it at the time. I certainly didn’t” says Bryan. “ I did up one house and sold and got a better house. What I didn’t think about was that 20 years down the track, other people’s children would not be able to afford a house because of what I was doing - and many of us were doing. We were just doing the best by our families and we were encouraged to think that that’s what you should do. Even Roger Douglas may have thought he was doing the right thing. I’ve never spoken to him. I’d like to interview him. But the reality is; it WASN”T the right thing. It created a HUGE inequality. When the National Party came in afterwards and created The Mother of All Budgets under Ruth Richardson, then ALL of the childhood diseases that relate to poverty, skyrocketed. And that’s nothing to be proud of. That should have told anybody who had social concern that there is something fundamentally wrong with this economic system that is creating this.” .

From 40.30 in, Bryan discusses the structure of NZ Public Television.

At 50.09 he says one of the way it will benefit producers who have good product, is that they give that programme to NZPTV for free for 7 days and then it goes to the ‘Pay Per View’ section . But all that money goes directly to the producers, not to NZPTV. (This is also a reminder to viewers to check the weekly offerings on NZPTV as there is a brisk turnaround of programmes).

At 53.07 Bryan says the whole idea of New Zealand Public Broadcasting is to return to an early idea of television: namely , using it to communicate with one another , to talk to each other.

To find out more, go to nzptv.org.nz or sign up to Bryan Bruce on Facebook.

Greg has written the detailed notes below on the subject.

WHAT IS OFFICIAL INFORMATION?

Ask yourself what it would mean if the forensic truth of the 9/11 event became Official Information?

Were that to happen, then the arms of justice would be enabled to investigate, charge, and prosecute the perpetrators, and pronounce sentence.

Why would that matter? Well it may serve as a valuable deterrent to those who would undertake similar criminality, from further acts. The whole basis of the criminal justice system is to deter crime.

https://russiarobinson.wordpress.com/2014/06/03/classical-school-of-criminology-a-foundation-of-todays-criminal-justice-system/

TWO PROPOSITIONS:

1. Would criminal discovery and prosecution with suitable penalties, appropriate to the crime of mass murder, deter further terrorism efforts by state and state associated actors?
2.  One way to consider the question is to argue the opposite point by inferring that no criminal discovery or prosecution will deter further terrorism by state and state associated actors.

Which of the above has a strong coherence with reality A or B?

AN APPROACH TO FIND TRUTH IN A SEA OF SPIN:

Greg asserts that there was a general rapprochement and trend toward de-escalation of aggression between the major powers at the turn of the century and millennium. Kyoto and UN Millenium Goals are indicative of this trend.

FALSE FLAGS – WHY CREATE A CRISIS WHERE ONE DIDN’T EXIST?

Previously Governments and powerful actors have used false flag events as a means to disrupt the peace and move history in a particular direction.

To make the case about False Flags take a few minutes to appreciate that these are common and often perpetrated by government actors: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/02/58-admitted-false-flag-attacks.html

9/11 WHAT OCCURRED?

In penetrating to the truth one needs to review the evidence and conflicting theories that are proffered to explain the evidence. Make sure one looks at all of the evidence, and that one can discriminate between factual and counterfactual.

What happened on 9/11 see timeline below: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_for_the_day_of_the_September_11_attacks  and,

http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&day_of_9/11=dayOf911

9/11 OFFICIAL TIMELINE

7:59a.m.  American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 carrying 81 passengers and 11 crew members, departs 14 minutes late from Logan International Airport in Boston, bound for Los Angeles International Airport. Five hijackers are aboard.

8:14  United Airlines Flight 175, a Boeing 767, carrying 56 passengers and nine crew members, departs 14 minutes late from Logan International Airport in Boston, bound for Los Angeles International Airport. Five hijackers are aboard.

8:14  Flight 11 is hijacked over central Massachusetts, turning southwest.

8:20  American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 with 58 passengers and six crew members, departs 10 minutes late from Washington Dulles International Airport, for Los Angeles International Airport. Five hijackers are aboard.

8:42  United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757 with 37 passengers and seven crew members, departs 42 minutes late from Newark International Airport, bound for San Francisco International Airport. Four hijackers are aboard.

8:42–8:46 (approx.)  Flight 175 is hijacked above Albany, New York, about 140 miles north of New York City, turning south.

8:46:40 Flight 11 crashes into the north face of the North Tower (1 WTC) of the World Trade Center, between floors 93 and 99. The aircraft enters the tower intact.

8:50–8:54 (approx.) Flight 77 is hijacked above southern Ohio, turning to the southeast.

9:03:00 Flight 175 crashes into the south face of the South Tower (2 WTC) of the World Trade Center, between floors 77 and 85. Parts of the plane, including the starboard engine, leave the building from its east and north sides, falling to the ground six blocks away.

9:28m Flight 93 is hijacked above northern Ohio, turning to the southeast.

9:37:46 Flight 77 crashes into the western side of The Pentagon and starts a violent fire.

9:45 United States airspace is shut down.

9:59:00 The South Tower of the World Trade Center collapses, 56 minutes after the impact of Flight 175.

10:03:11  Flight 93 is crashed by its hijackers and passengers, due to fighting in the cockpit 80 miles (129 km) southeast of Pittsburgh in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. Later reports indicate that passengers had learned about the World Trade Center and Pentagon crashes and were resisting the hijackers. The 9/11 Commission believed that Flight 93's target was either the United States Capitol building or the White House in Washington, D.C.

10:28:22 The North Tower of the World Trade Center collapses, 1 hour, 42 minutes after the impact of Flight 11. The Marriott Hotel, located at the base of the two towers, is also destroyed.

10:50:19 Five stories of part of the Pentagon collapse due to the fire.

5:20:33 p.m.  7 World Trade Center, a 47-story building, collapses (from Wikipedia;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_for_the_day_of_the_September_11_attacks )

MOTIVE:

Motive is the same as it always is... create a crisis and profit from it... the fact that this one has been in the making for decades or longer doesn't lessen the truth of the motive nor the reality of it...  control and profit.

This time the crisis is large enough to ensure the solution is global.

The same interests stopped or disrupted the Kyoto settlement.

The world was heading toward a rapprochement at the end of the 20th Century. For "the Enterprise" to profit requires heightened insecurity.

There's more to the motive that I cannot yet say with any certainty, however I keep digging and closing my eyes and allowing the truth to come in.

One issue is the money gone/lost/misappropriated/redirected from the Pentagon budget announced by Rumsfeld the day before 9/11, US$2.3 trillion. The number is over 6 trillion now and unlikely to be sorted before 2020 or some such. Where is that going, or getting siphoned too?

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-audit-army/u-s-army-fudged-its-accounts-by-trillions-of-dollars-auditor-finds-idUSKCN10U1IG

http://www.globalresearch.ca/pentagon-cannot-account-for-6-5-trillion-dollars/5541244

And the cost of the wars? Who gets that?

https://sputniknews.com/us/201709291057824332-us-defense-department-more-lies/

http://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2016/Costs%20of%20War%20through%202016%20FINAL%20final%20v2.pdf

http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/lbilmes/files/the_financial_legacy_of_afghanistan.pdf

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2017/05/29/How-Will-We-Pay-6-Trillion-Bill-Wars-Iraq-and-Afghanistan

THE MOTIVE IS HOW TO GET THE US INTO WAR:

War on Terror is the war to divide and conquer the world for those who are creative enough to imagine it and bold enough to do the deed.

My paper in April 2016 to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade (FADT) NZ Parliamentary select committee's TPP treaty examination, is essential to appreciate the extent to which the US economy has been gutted and turned to reliance on munitions and security manufacturing and service provision. It addresses the post WW2 history and considers the plan laid out in the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) report; “Rebuilding America's Defenses” against that which is observed in the post 9/11 wars and the catalysing event or “new Pearl Harbour” crisis event that the report prophesised:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8ix8z0zguuf7h66/US%20%E2%80%93%20%20Aotearoa%20NZ%20Values%20-%20Do%20These%20Correlate.pdf?dl=0

Not only that - the whole war on terror became an opportunity to outsource or privatise the war making effort to companies such as the multinational corporation Halliburton, and the mercenaries across Afghanistan and Iraq etc..

The Rebuilding America's Defenses report advocated for a huge increase in military spending, preparedness and capacity to both transform the military and fight on multiple fronts/theatres... it was prophetic on so many levels that it must be considered a model, blueprint, or designer wish list.

Wesley Clark's evidence of the War planning at the Pentagon, is also telling:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RC1Mepk_Sw

War economy on steroids = What is war about???

Ask Gen. Smedley Butler:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nStSg75BNY

I came across his career in 2006/7. I wrote this in Nov 2007 on the eve of Armistice Day and then didn't write anything else for a few years, saying to myself what else is there to say... see essay "Lest We Forget"

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7miq7ia5nfzwbl5/Lest%20We%20Forget.pdf?dl=0

My first bit of research into 911 was November 2006. (not all the links work anymore):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tpr03n4ni602h05/911%20The%20Greatest%20Lie.pdf?dl=0

LESSONS:

Unless the 9/11 truth is properly considered, in all its ruthless genocidal ugliness, through Official Investigation and Justice systems, the litany of false flag events, already scorched into the history of power relations in the world, will continue. Our digression into criminal justice informs that opinion.

What to do about it?

What needs to happen to circumvent odious control of the Earth and its people?

KEY POINTS:

Whom ever controls the world, and "hijacked our peace with 9/11", then controls our NZ deep state.

It co-opted the US state and made it go to war for a lie!

Who said go 9/11? Answer this question and help the world toward peace!

9/11 and our alliance with the UK/US Empire got the NZ Defence force Community into the so-called Terrorist War on Afghanistan in October 2001, and Iraq in 2003, despite the NZ Government knowing that the Iraq war was criminal.

HOW GREG SEES IT:

The following is an essay I wrote December 2016 hi-lighting the material I've placed before the NZ Government, and the Official Information requests I've made, regarding what the government knew about 9/11,  which are blocked from release by virtue of the Catch 22 nature of the Official Information Act provisions 6 a and b.

http://values-compasspointsinaposttruthworld.blogspot.co.nz/2016/12/working-on-open-egalitarian-and.html

LIFTING THE LID BIT BY BIT:

The lid appears to be lifted a little by elements of the semi-independent agencies and elements, however none in any serious media are looking at 9/11 truth. Wikileaks provides this... 9/11 pager transcripts from the day:

https://911.wikileaks.org/files/index.html  which requires a lot of time to get across.

And others talk about Wikieaks in these terms on 9/11:

http://911blogger.com/news/2010-07-22/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-annoyed-911-truth

GATEKEEPERS KEEPING 9/11 TRUTH SUPPRESSED – why do they do this?

George Monbiot and Noam Chomsky both go out of their way to belittle 9/11 conspiracy theorists, however people have done work to refute or rebut their rubbish:

Chomsky:  https://off-guardian.org/2016/10/11/analysis-of-the-sophistry-of-noam-chomsky-on-911/

Monbiot explains why he believes the official version in 2007:

http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2017/846-george-monbiot-responds-on-syria.html

FAKE NEWS AND CONSPIRACY THEORISING:

Noticed the campaign commence in the immediate aftermath of Trump's election, with this article by Andrew Smith at the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/25/pedlars-fake-news-corroding-democracy-social-networks  ....to which I wrote the following critique and attempted to engage the Guardian comments moderators, who deleted my comment from the article.

http://values-compasspointsinaposttruthworld.blogspot.co.nz/2016/11/pot-calls-kettle-black-hypocrisy-of.html

HOW PEOPLE CAN ASSIST WITH THE DISPERSAL OF 9/11 TRUTH:

Inform oneself about the forensic truth of the event.

The perpetrators used nuclear devices amongst other agents to achieve the observed destruction.

That one piece of information might be difficult to digest, however, what else accounts for the thousands of cancer deaths and diseases suffered by WTC First Responders, Ground Zero Workers, residents and workers from the WTC complex vicinity, particularly those in the path of the toxic dust cloud created with the steel and concrete of the WTC building structures:

http://911history.de/aaannxyz_ch01_en.html

"Solving 9/11" gets us to the Zionist connections to the event including fingerprints of the various IT, Intelligence and Security interests with so-called Israeli connections to the event:

https://wikispooks.com/wiki/File:Solving_9-11.pdf

In terms of evidence - "911 Research" is a repository of 9/11 discourse, evidence, photo, video, reports and assessments most of which were generated by 2006:

http://911research.wtc7.net/

Note 911 Research does not promote the no-jetliner thesis, however the evidence store is extensive, including the reports on the movement of WTC steel etc to the "killing fields" temp storage site. Note Killing Fields and associated areas display hi radioactivity.

There is the evidence of insider trading suggesting foreknowledge of the event. However the crime is larger than that.

A writer with the pseudonym EP Heidner wrote an extensive paper entitled "Collateral Damage" which highlights "the Enterprise and it's NSA/CIA connectivity and the relation to the so-called Japanese and German war treasures, known as the "Black Eagle Trust". Heidner makes the point that the Office of Naval Intelligence was investigating various securities when most of those from the office were killed on 9/11 - they were housed in the area of the Pentagon that the missile went into.... perhaps Heidner was a survivor or close to the investigation - that's one mystery, available at links:

https://www.scribd.com/doc/9442970/Collateral-Damage-U-S-Covert-Operations-and-the-Terrorist-Attacks-on-September-11-2001-28062008

https://wikispooks.com/wiki/File:Collateral_Damage_-_part_1.pdf

None of the above offer a whole truth, however each adds something to the jigsaw..

IT IS CLEAR THE OFFICIAL NARRATIVE IS FALSE:

This fact in itself requires that truth be discovered and uncovered given the consequences as the US and its coalition of willing genocidal maniacs laid waste to the near East nations, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya and Syria, now Yemen with the tension being ramped up on Iran and particularly North Korea.

We need brave people bearing truth to take over the Official Information channels creating the ground for a full investigation of the 9/11 event.

HOW DO WE EMPLOY OUR INTEREST IN 9/11 TO ‘MOBILISE FOR JAIL’ FOR THE PERPETRATORS:

1. Forensic Investigation
2. A commission of inquiry with power to summon anyone to provide anything in order to find the truth.
3. Global jurisdiction to arrest, detain and deliver to justice any so ordered by the commission.
4. An international panel of jurists to hear the charges and determine sentencing and any liabilities in relation to losses whether human, community, public or private assets, any damage to environments or any other losses that can be reasonably argued such as damage to future generations of the above, through toxic or radioactive or other damage incurred through the 9/11 fall out.
5. The commission of inquiry is further charged with discovering hidden social, political, cultic, Masonic, religious, or other associations, and or networks public, private, government, mafia, or criminal that enabled the 9/11 event, it's transmission, commission, silence, and complicity both before and after, and anything circumstantial that the commission so determines, in order to establish clear conclusions about the conspiracy.
6. The commission is requested to make recommendations to all about how to ensure there are no further repeats.

STATEMENT OF INTENT:

The clear requirement is that the people of the planet can no longer be held to ransom or terrorism by any entity.

BIO:

Greg Rzesniowiecki, aka Gregfullmoon, has evolved to fill the role of public advocate specifically on behalf of the public interest concerning the TPP. As is evident in the interview Greg has a wide set of interests which contribute to his perspective and worldview.

Born in Australia, and having worked in engineering and as a union organiser, Greg moved to Motueka where he was a member of the Renewables a local climate action group. He quickly came to realise that unpacking the 9/11 event would have profound implications for public perception of their governments and the governance of the planet.

Greg has spent considerable effort informing himself about the 9/11 evidence and what that means in respect to how the event was conceived, developed, and implemented and the consequences that flow from the conspiracy to punk the US government and people into believing the Muslim terrorists hijacking 4 planes and crashing them into US assets.

Appreciating the 9/11 truth allows one to appreciate that your government is not your friend!

It lies to cover up the 9/11 truth.

It lies to covering up illegal war making and criminal aggression.

This interview was sponsored by The Awareness Party.

ADDENDUM:

PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENTS BECOMING ACTIVE IN ATTEMPTING TO DEMONISE CONSPIRACY THEORISING AND INVESTIGATION - two instances amongst many:

1.  Paper by three psychology professors, "Connecting the dots: Illusory pattern perception predicts belief in conspiracies and the supernatural"

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejsp.2331/epdf  ...to which I responded with;

https://www.dropbox.com/s/q7s5p7ikb6k58g8/Gmail%20-%20Your%20paper_%20_Connecting%20the%20dots_%20Illusory%20pattern%20perception%20predicts%20belief%20in%20conspiracies%20and%20the%20supernatural_.pdf?dl=0  

2. https://theconversation.com/why-people-believe-in-conspiracy-theories-and-how-to-change-their-minds-82514  The author Professor Mark Lorch of Hull University also refused to engage.

Also a complete think tank on the subject of conspiracy theorising in Europe is curtailing free speech:

https://twitter.com/COST_conspiracy/status/911152729262829568

http://www.cost.eu/COST_Actions/ca/CA15101

http://www.cost.eu/COST_Actions/ca/CA15101?management

Note: two (2) of the authors of the paper ,"Connecting the dots: Illusory pattern perception predicts belief in conspiracies and the supernatural" are on the COST Comparative Analysis of Conspiracy Theories (COMPACT) action committee... who's job is to...

...”this Action will adopt a comparative approach, investigating the causes, manifestations and effects of conspiracy theories in different regions and times, and drawing on insights from history, politics, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies and psychology. The Action will pursue the inquiry in three broad areas: the manifestations and modes of transmission of conspiracy theory in different historical and cultural contexts; the variety of actors and audiences involved in the production and consumption of conspiracy theories; and the psychological and cultural causes and political consequences of belief in conspiracy. Working closely with stakeholders, this Action will build a better understanding of conspiracy theories in order to develop an effective response to them.”

At no point do they investigate the veracity of the Official Information that the conspiracy theory might question, or refute... i.e. the investigation of what happened to cause the 9/11 destruction experienced. Thus the psychology paper is bogus and unsubstantiated – it ought to not have been published.

Greg.

In this interview, Dr Hadas Ore speaks about contemporary Maori Jews, which is the subject for her post-doctoral project. There's been a Jewish History in New Zealand since the very beginning of the 19th Century - so it should come as no surprise that some of our population identify as Māori Jews. This is a segment population however, that most of us know very little about.

Hadas is also interested in using her own social privileges, as a Jewish-Israeli academic woman, for ameliorating the Palestinian situation by speaking out about it. We discuss this later in the interview.

JEWISH HISTORY IN NZ:

This interview discusses the agency and power that are negotiated by older Māori Jewish women as their mana wāhine, renamed Polyfeminism. Polyfeminism is forms of feminine agency employing practical remembrance and resilience that combines the best of the Māori, Jewish and Pākeha (European) worldviews.

Hadas’ analysis is based on a case study of in-depth interviews with six indigenous women aged over 50 years old and their everyday memories of their mixed ethnic tupuna as they resist injustices, and become role models for the next generation.

CONTEMPORARY MAORI JEWS:

The interviews were conducted during 2016-2017 as part of the first research project on the well-being and success stories of contemporary Māori Jews in New Zealand. It looks closely into their narratives and memories of growing up at home.  Hadas show that despite of the strong hold of racism in and outside their whānau, they are typified by ‘no-fuss’ attitude toward their mixed ethnic identity. As older Māori Jewish women, they derive power and constitute their identity through postgraduate education in subjects related to health and education, and in most cases, learning Te Reo Māori (the Māori language).

The telling metaphor in the title is by one of the women: “filling up the other kete”, encompasses their growing political awareness and long term labour in attaining the cultural knowledge and education that lead to a balanced and healthier way of living. This metaphor also evokes comfort through the resilience and practical indigenous knowledge that feed forward their well-being and the well-being of their whānau and beyond.

ISRAEL / PALESTINE:

The second half of the interview is about the Israel Palestine question, which has been ramped up by Trump since the interview was recorded. Hadas does see a two state solution as being the answer, but she added – “But then there is Jerusalem.”

Hadas describes how she has found it difficult to speak out about the issues Palestinians face when in Israel. While she is happy with Israel as founded by the Balfour Agreement, she finds the new Jewish settlements unacceptable. She feels that there was opportunity for both races to have worked things out together if there had been respect and understanding between them from the start. As it is now, however, if is not safe for Jews in Israel to speak out against the status quo. It causes rifts in families, and people are ostracised if they have a more liberal view. The media in Israel is controlled, and so many people hear only the official line. Hadas believes that, like Maori, the Palestinians should have had some compensation for land loss.

BIOGRAPHY

Hadas is a Jewish-Israeli migrant mother-of-three who made her home in New Zealand in the past 16 years. She is also a social anthropologist interested in food and emotions, nostalgia, home and memory, and issues of gender, migration and indigeneity.

Hadas gained her BA and MA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel and her PhD from the University of Auckland, New Zealand. As a social researcher she worked for the Israeli parliament in the education committee, and the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem.

In 2016 Hadas won the Dame Joan Metge post-doctoral award by the Kate Edgar Charitable Education Trust to conduct the first study on Māori-Jews. Currently Hadas is teaching Hebrew at Kadimah School in Auckland, the only Jewish day school in New Zealand.

This interview was sponsored by The Awareness Party

To have our venerable forest giant die before us is making us realise that even far from all other countries on our planet - that we too can be affected by something that is microscopic and beneath our feet that can destroy a living treasure that can live to 2,000 years of age.

It’s called Kauri dieback.

Kauri dieback is the deadly kauri disease caused by Phytophthora taxon Agathis. Following DNA studies, this fungus-like disease was formally identified in 2008 as a distinct and previously undescribed species of Phytophthora. Kauri dieback is specific to New Zealand kauri and can kill trees of all ages.

Microscopic spores in the soil infect kauri roots and damage the tissues that carry nutrients within the tree. Infected trees show a range of symptoms including yellowing of foliage, loss of leaves, canopy thinning, dead branches and lesions that bleed gum at the base of the trunk. Nearly all infected kauri die. In the past 10 years, kauri dieback has killed thousands of kauri in New Zealand.

Kauri is NZ’s canary in the coal mine with this organism and there are hundreds of different phytophthora around our planet.

The potato famine in Ireland was cause by a phytophthora and there is one in Australia called cinnamomi that is devastating forests in South West Australia.

Mels states that NZ authorities are not yet serious about this and our inaction is enabling this disease to spread

Because ecologists call kauri a key stone species - it is just not one species - as it changes the soil type underneath a kauri forest over the millennia to something called pod sol - which is a very leached soil type and they do this to support themselves and support other organisms that like to live with kauri (symbiosis) and kauri becomes surrounded by its friends.

Up to 17 different species that can survive alongside kauri. And this symbiotic relations is totally unique globally and if we loose our kauri, we will loose all these other organisms that depend on kauri as well. Thus she says it is not much to stretch this - that if no action is taken we could have extinction right throughout Northland. As this die off is doubling every 5 years.

Monitoring Report faults foot traffic for spreading it.

In August of 2017, the Auckland Council released a monitoring report showing that the places with the most foot traffic, particularly Piha and the Cascades and especially Piha have a risk of kauri going extinct in the next 5 years. Because the spread now is so large and has increased so much that if it doubles again - that in the next 5 years there will be no kauri in Piha.

The Auckland Council report - states quite clearly and in stark terms that if we do not change the management of our kauri forests in the Wairakere ranges - we risk losing all of the kauri.

The problem - These spores are carried by foot born human traffic and also mountain bikes that are then used in other areas of the forest.  These tiny spores in the soil and mud, cling to our shoes or bike tires and the spread becomes easy.

It’s a bio security crisis affecting all of the kauri in New Zealand.

The range of Kauri in NZ is less than point 1% of what is was originally.

Before people settled in New Zealand, forest containing kauri covered much of the Coromandel Peninsula and northern areas throughout North Auckland. Today, the remaining 7,455 hectares of mature kauri forest is scattered in remnant patches.

Drastic Action Required

There are up to a million visitors walking the Waitakere Park annually.

Mels states the if we do not do something drastic as the management has been sporadic and patchy and wife we do nothing - we will lose our kauri.

Shoe cleaning stations are on many /most tracks to disinfect their shoes & boots, but unfortunately many people are not doing this small practice - the cleaning stations are quite rudimentary and people are spraying their muddy soles thinking it is a magical spray.

But as a somewhat benign spray it is not killing this organism. It needs to be a really, really good clean of your shoes and then a spray … and due to the condition of many of the tracks - mud is going to be moved around and deposited along these tracks and this is the crux of the problem.

The tracks in the Waitakere ranges Mels says are in an exceptionally poor state. For up to 20 years very little attention. She mentions that where stands of kauri are there are strategic scrub and spray stations - that the imperative is to use them every single time you came to one.

Not just once scrub and spray before going into the forest or one when you are leaving the forest.  Because these ‘stations’ are strategically placed around all the different kauri and if you do not scrub and spray  - you will just spread the contaminated mud to where the healthy kauri’s are - and there lies the problem - people are too unconscious to make a real effort, hence the rapid increase of this dieback.

Visitors are not using scrub and spray stations

Some of the Auckland council sites have been monitored for compliance - however it has been estimated that of the one million visitors year only 20% are scrubbing and spraying.

This translates to 800,000 people wandering around with this disease of their feet - causing this problem to rapidly spread.

Rats, possums birds and pigs are being blamed for moving this disease around but the monitoring has proved that it is always along the tracks that pass by kauri is where all the die off it happening.

Auckland Council has completed 2 major surveys of the Waitakere ranges in 2011 &2016  and clearly find that it is human foot traffic that is going up to trees, as these are the trees that are dying off.  Trees that hide away from the tracks seem to be doing very well.

22,744 trees have been surveyed by helicopter and locked in by GPS and survey teams have checked each tree to do a health analysis.

Note it is not known how long it takes from infection until symptoms are expressed.

The Tree Council fb page  - check the map - it’s like a cancer spreading along the tracks.

The Hillary Trail is badly infected …

The Cascades are bad too - over 20,000 people a day in summer - Piha has a lots people too.  Very popular with runners too - hence this all adds to the infection along these tracks.

Pigs, rats, birds and possums are not to blame.

That she says it is not the pig, rats, birds and possums that are the cause as we would see are far more even distribution of across kauri and all over the ranges - but this is not so, as this contamination is happening all along the track network.

These animals do not exclusively use the track network like humans do.   This makes it clear that it is a human problem.

The surveys show that 75% of trees infected lie within 50 metres of a track . Pigs are a problem, and need to be sorted but not the major cause by any stretch. But they are less than 25% of the problem and we humans are 75% of the problem and this is what we need to sort out.

Mels says that we humans need to own this and get it sorted. Accept responsibility for it and stop making excuses and take action.

She says that we would not see the doubling of the disease if it was only animals doing it.

The Hunua’s are another Auckland Council area forest that has no kauri dieback - so the imperative is to make sure that this dieback does not happen there - It has been surveyed exactly like the Waiitakere ranges - and the Tree Council is confident that there is no infection in the Hunua’s.

The Coromandel has a tiny number of infection sites - Northland has some infection but has not been surveyed like Auckland council have done, thus we do not know the scale of it, but it’s in Waipoua Forest and Trounson Park and on Great Barrier island too.  

Infection of other forests - Mels says is a matter of time, not if …

Maori have said enough!

This is what Te Kawerau e Maki the local iwi (tribe)  - the mana whena for the Waitakere’s have said - Enough!   

Saying we need to get humans out of the forest and let it heal and for us to take action.

This is the forest they are kaitiaki of - that they are the guardians  - to lose the kauri the Te Kawerau e maki - lose who they are …

They want a ‘rahui’ placed on the whole Waitakere area

Rahui is a closure and an exclusion of people from their normal activities - to let natural systems heal and regenerate - wanting us to respect the forest for this process to take place. They will be doing this very soon. Having asked the Auckland Council to do this under the sanction of a controlled area notice under the BioSecurity Act. Anyone found inside this exclusion zone woods be in breach of the BioSecurity Act.

Thus is backed by the Tree Council, Forest & Bird Society and the Friends of Regional Parks and the Waitakere Protection Society. They have all said this is what Auckland Council needs to do.

Mels say that Auckland Council must get in and move this whole initiative forward and if not the NZ Government may see fit to come in over the top of the Council - and force it to implement the closure, and then Auckland Council will lose all control over this process.  Listen

Stating this is a national crisis for this toanga - treasure  this keynote species that is unique that grows for up to 2,000 years  - it is estimated .

She says it is not about spoiling every ones fun or a killjoy or exaggerating the scale of the problem  - this is a critical time - it’s about the survival of a giant mega flora species.

She wants the tracks to be brought online again once the tracks have been upgraded so as to not facilitate the spread of the disease - this way we can get people back into the Waitakere to once again to bathe in the magnificence of the cool shade and beauty that the Waitakere forest harbour.

We must remember that is was only in 2007 that Kauri dieback was first noticed

Education

Education of New Zealanders is important. Because she does not want people to.be closed out forever it’s just a necessity now .. a temporary closure.  To then rebuild the tracks and make them safe bio security wise.

Myrtle Rust another very recent problem in NZ.

Myrtle rust is mentioned too as an airborne disease and this now has been found in various areas of NZ -   A great danger to NZ Christmas tree the pohutukawa. If seen -  don’t touch, just photo and call the appropriate bio security authorities or Auckland Council.

There is another fungal disease in Hawaii  discovered in 2014 - called the Ohi  which lives in the soil, causing leaves to turn black and fall off killing a tree in s matter of weeks. They find that human movement is the cause of spreading this disease. They say that NZ pohutukawa tree could be at risk. It has affected about 75,000 acres of forest on the big Island of Hawaii and has now spread to Tahiti.

Mels says we have to future proof our forests  - infrastructure that has to last another 50 years has to be planned for and put in place.

Call to Future Proof our Forests

This disease in some ways is an opportunity for humans to step up and wisely future proof our forests, our infrastructure and tracks, our biodiversity and get on top of biosecurity at every entry point in NZ.

She says one of the reasons she came to live NZ was to walk and hang out in NZ bush and forests  and show them to friends and overseas visitors

Mels say that this disease may find other hosts other than kauri and we are finding that tanekaha is being affected - so this is why the urgency for NZers, Councils and the National Government to get in and educates the masses to support a major action to save what we cherish.

Kauri root system is shallow, sensitive and close to the surface making it vulnerable - listen

Mels then tells of the biological story of the roots and how a forest giant of a kauri succumbs to these tiny microorganisms cause starvation to the colossus above.

That Kauri cannot evolve fast enough due to the rapid appearance of this disease to build up its own immunity once again

Germination of seeds that then grow around the base of the Kauri as in a nursery - that may stay very small for 30 years or more - when a nearby tree dies and falls then the seedling take off and grow in the space provided to fill that gap.

Kauri does not keep its seeds for long - it instead has a ‘live’ nursery that stays within the umbrella of the above foliage - but with this disease the seedlings cannot withstand it and they die - so there is no generation alive to take off and grow when the parent kauri dies.

She wants urgent Council action - before summer of December 2017-18 as there will be 100’s of thousands of people tramping more disease around

Get behind the rahui.

Auckland Council is to spend $51.48 million on kauri die back over the next 10 years

Waitakere Forests are in many ways the ‘Jewel in the Crown of Auckland.’

She says that after the rahui - this process of opening new tracks etc can happen in stages - this is not a bad news story.

Incrementally open tracks once the fundamentals are in place.

Mels spell sit out -  the strategy the mindfulness to get it right - with the education and championed by the Auckland Council in symphony with Maori.

Mels states we need all the firepower of NZ’s science - as we do not know what else this disease infects and how to actually destroy and eliminate it.

These 2 fundamental questions have not even been started in the last 9 years  - Mels socks it to the scientific ineptitude in dismissing the urgency of what is attacking our venerated kauri - under the NZ Government’s MPI - the Ministry of Primary Industries.

Investment is needed into our future.

She lets it rip in the end.

www.KauriRescue.org.nz

With the advent of a strong and expanding ‘New Zealand Trade and Industrial Waters Forum’ which Tara was very much involved in - having over 2000 members is an organisation and science and knowledge exchange extending over 5 countries. It is designed to bring about affirmative action and change in NZ in mitigating the effects of industry in turning our water into a more sustainable resource.

We Exist on a Living Breathing Water Planet

Water in New Zealand -  As a water scientist Tara states that when we look at our planet from space we see it’s blue and that is because we are essentially a water planet that gives us life - emphasising that there is no other planet in our solar system or that we have found beyond - that is covered in liquid water making earth - unique - and 70% of the earth’s oxygen comes from plankton in our oceans and the necessity to keep our oceans safe. i.e. from acidification. He also is a zoologist and botanist and acknowledges that our planet is a vast superorganism.

That if we take a basket ball and dip it in water - the thickness of the wetness is the depth of our atmospheric membrane that envelops our planet. - That humans live in a very narrow gas band when it comes to living a normal life.

Adroit use of technology as tools to monitor water quality
 
As a scientist he is able to use lasers to measure turbidity and the content of solids in water and also UV spectrophotometry to determine the chemical constituents and the composition of waste water. With remote stations situated all over NZ monitoring the industry and rivers and monitoring processes within industries to see how water changes form when it is piped into an industry to when it goes out. This technology is an economic driver for industry that wants to use less water or that they want to use water more efficiently as there are increasing costs involved in utilisation.

He says that as a scientist who studies the data, the main interest in water in NZ is based around it being an economic driver - and that the neo liberal expedient of the last 30 years has cause so many ecological problems as a result of businesses not factoring the environmental consequences of the extraction economy - one where short term economic gain causes huge expense to mitigate and rectify.  That once science in universities was the hotbed of new breakthroughs of inventions and curiosity. This has decreased markedly.

New Zealand’s Capacity as an Intellectual Driver of Innovation.

NZ was once a world leader in innovation and in many ways it still is, however it’s a struggle for a start up company here and many of our inventions end up being bought out by overseas companies flush with funds and so the country as a whole misses out on many unique opportunities. Especially around intellectual property IP.

The good work that NZ water scientists do is on analysing the composition of wastewater and the automatic methods of controlling the treatment of it - is truly world beating - being at the top of their game and winning awards and medals for it.
These scientists have some of the  best systems of sorting out - cleaning, rejuvenating, rebuilding or preventing pollution to rivers - anywhere in the world. Do these methods get used in NZ? - and Tara demurs - not very often - but they are used overseas quite a lot. He laments that recently our country has become an economic grocery shop for overseas corporations - when what he wants is a good caring country that will healthily educate his children.

Political Indifference of the Past

Tara mentions that once upon a time (sound familiar) politics changed and government and local government decisions were generational based on 50 years and beyond - that looked well ahead - now many decisions at a national level are based around election cycles, votes and to keeping the status quo in power. Which he states is a failure in our system of governance    

Water - H2O - NZ’s Abundant Water Rich Produce

New Zealand is a water rich country, and that is to our economic advantage as our main assets arise from water. Because it is abundant, clean (mostly) it is free, and accessible as a food producer - dairy cows are made of water, vegetables, fruit, wine,  mutton and beef are made of water, and timber via trees, that all come from a water footprint - we are fortunate that we have easy and good access to water.  We are effective at packaging water into many various forms and selling it overseas and so as an economy - are a water nation. Whereas some countries are steel and iron countries, producing automobiles, electronics and machine tools, whilst other countries produce oil or minerals mined out of the ground. So NZ is very dependent on water, clean fresh water and we need to be conscious of this fact.

The NZ Economy  Dairy = $13.6 Billion - BUT Tourism = $34.7 Billion

Though dairy is our biggest exporter at 13.6 billion dollars per annum, he says we are fooled because our biggest earner is tourism $34.7 billion that involves the whole beauty of our country - it may be a little amorphous as is not about money going to one smallish sector of the society it covers a wide ranging area  spread - taxi drivers, bus drivers, hotel workers, cooks and chefs and waiters, airlines, small shops marketing people - it’s a permeated product so it is harder to assess, exactly what tourism earns - however treasury has done their sums - yet Tara asks why are we trashing all the rivers in our country, ruining our fishing spots - destroying lakes and making places where people can no longer swim and others - can no longer wade - for an export earner that is worth less than half of showing off the rest of the country to everybody else.    Whilst that is only one industry - as there are other industries that use our water too.

Dairy has made strides to clean up its act

Tara admits that strides have been made to clean up the rivers from dairying and that they are not the only ones that pollute - Cities pollute - Hamilton pollutes the Waikato river, Kinleith pulp and paper mill pollutes the river - even geothermal energy pollutes the Waikato river. Listen to the arsenic story - and the need for better technologies.  

Lack of Accountability

A milk order of $50 million was sent back to NZ from China being a baby formula incident, due to contamination by water. Others also have suffered the same fate. Listen

Our National Body is letting NZ down because there are ‘no country wide’ standards.  Listen

Regional Councils could do far better regarding water. For example - there was a business here in NZ,  that wanted to pump pollutants into a river and the Regional Council said - you can’t do that! - that’s our river!  We like our river.
As we all know that once pollutants are in a river it affects the whole river down stream - so instead of building a wastewater treatment plant and treat their polluted water - (that upon complying with certain standards they could then pump that water into the river). This business went ahead and  just built a cheap 94 metre pipeline over the fence/ border to the other Regional Council who did not care what was put in the river or not - so they off loaded their responsibility at the same time polluting the river and getting away with it.
Because the two different Regional Councils had different regulations.

Rivers being equated to living entities especially within Maoridom.

He talks about the spiritualisation of rivers as having the same rights as a human - such as the Whanganui - but we did not take this further due to other issues to be addressed.

https://www.ourplanet.org/articles/new-zealand-government-acknowledges-a-river-as-a-living-entity-and-a-park-as-having-human-rights

He talks about some frustrations around going to extremes in spiritualisation of such water and products - listen. These matters need addressing through better education.

Tara then tells of certain inequalities and distortions around lack of integrity with regard to water and the fact that the Regional Council are uncoordinated across NZ, and most are election driven. He gives examples that need to be urgently addressed and in a good number of cases explains how ‘the law is an ass.’ So if you are a water person, an activist and someone who cares - this insightful interview needs your attention.

The NZ Trade and Industrial Waters Forum
The NZ Trade and Industrial Waters Forum, which Tara was very much involved - with over 2000 members is an organisation and ‘science and knowledge exchange’ extending over 5 countries and growing - which is designed to bring about affirmative change in NZ with mitigating the effects of industry by turning our water into a more sustainable resource.

He talks about the cowboy system …

Councils requiring the ‘know how’ as well as having ethics embedded throughout the council business. Many people, though essentially very good humans, are voted onto a local Council but, for example - when it comes to building a $40 million wastewater treatment plant - they are not equipped educationally with the rigour and skills to decide on the viability of such a treatment plant.

In years gone by - all Councils actually had their own in-house expertise such as engineers to be able to take care of such situations. Councils had wastewater engineers, structural and civil engineers, it had a planning department - however, sometime ago the NZ Government asked Councils to become more cost effective and so all these ‘experts’ were ‘let go’ - but then afterwards the Council’s realised that they needed such expertise - however the fired experts in many cases had by now become ‘consultants’ and there are instances where when they were once saving Council ratepayers money, they then in a number of cases were now able to ‘capitalise on their situation’ and things got out of hand.  Listen

There is a story about how a NZ Council  - lost the plot for its ratepayers - listen to this one …
Listen also to how Wanaka Council in the South Island shows how successful a Council can be.

Check out the peer review process - one is in relation to IPENZ - Institute Professional Engineers of NZ.
One of the downsides of their processes that hampers peer reviews is that you are not allowed to use hindsight.  Listen - so if they have already built say 5 waste water plants and they don’t work - that’s irrelevant because it is assumed that everybody will learn from their past mistakes.

Also you can not question the data - so if the information to build the plant is supplied to the consultant and it’s given to the peer reviewer and they look at it and the peer reviewer says - this information is rubbish - this information is not what is going into that plant … and they say … Oh yeah, but this … - and they then say no no, that’s not the question  -  if that data is the right data is that the right design?   

And they go yeah but it’s not the right data - no no that is not the question, if that data is given to you is that the right design and they go …  w-e-l-l …  yes and they go TICK - right - and that’s the right plant then - but that is not the case, because the data is rubbish.  Listen

To the OAR  - the Operational Assessment Process  - checks and balances. There is no system like this in NZ. It needs to come here.

This very needed interview covers.
Water bottling in NZ and plastic bottles
The Green Party and that they are a consensus party

There is power in the people - we have just forgotten it

Rivers and streams - that the water clarity is such that a river is: walkable, wade-able and swim-able but don’t put your head under the water … That in relations to this, there is some very deceptive spin by the previous administration

In Tim’s younger life he was able to swim and drink in the stream that flowed through the back of his family farm. Not any more.

Farmers and good riparian rights - challenges of farmers to fence off drains as being far too expensive for the average farmer. This is an issue that has huge costs involved.

Change of consciousness needed to understand our relationship with the land and a living ecology

Purpose of our Nation

To be born - grow in health - and be able to live your life freely - that  

Gutted bio security at our borders, lacks cash and needs to be reinforced and grown.

Community involvement

Engagement of people

Get around the table create the dialogue and start the change

I asked him the question about 1080 - his reply - that it’s a can of worms.

Glythosate
Glyphosate in NZ Water?     https://www.greenparty.org.uk/.../green-party-meps-peed...
I omitted to ask him about Glyphosate in the waterways as on the 13 of May 2016 a group of 48 Members of the European Parliament (MEP) took part in a symbolic urine test ahead of the European Parliament vote to oppose the EU Commission’s proposal to relicense the controversial toxic substance until 2031.
The inspiration behind what was labelled the #MEPee test was the results of a recent study in Germany which found that 99.6% of people tested were found to have glyphosate residue in their urine.
The results reveal that every MEP tested has been found to have glyphosate traces in their urine, with the average concentration being 1.73ng/ml. That level is more than 17 times the safe limit for drinking water. The lowest level found among the group was 0.17ng/ml, almost double the safe level. If this being the case, that means that glyphosate molecules are suspended in the human body and humans a walking time bombs. Because we are an experiment in  motion.

In a previous GreenplanetFM.com interview with Dr Meriel Watts, by Lisa Er this is what was said.
NZ’s Government Department NIWA, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, tested the water of Auckland harbour and were very concerned at the level of glyphosate in the water - Yet the National Government of the day was ignoring the aquatic environment.
https://www.ourplanet.org/greenplanetfm/dr-meriel-watts-our-food-is-denatured-through-chemical-use-nz

The fluoride question came up too, as GreenplanetFM.com is an activist program and if you wish to listen to two noted overseas health professionals this interview is an ear-opener.

https://www.ourplanet.org/greenplanetfm/professor-paul-connett-dr-bill-hirzy-the-danger-of-fluoride

In Conclusion

There were many other questions that I needed ask to drill down further - however that will have to await to another time. This interview I trust will be listened to by not only to the layperson, but scientists in general and local and regional body councillors as we now work together to not only pull the strings of community together, but as a nation cooperate and collaborate together so as to regenerate and renew our commitment to a clean, green New Zealand.  A country that is not only a moral force for good, but also that we are a living example of a mature, independent nation, being a fair and honest player on the world stage.

An interview from a courageous scientist that will bring home to you the imperative of more transparent Governance.
  
1) Industrial Waters email - tara@nztiwf.org.nz

    The New Zealand Trade and Industrial Waters Forum

2) Here is the link for the New Zealand Trade and Industrial waters Forum group on LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/4484284

3) The link for the industrial waters conference 2018 - http://www.confer.co.nz/iw2018/

there is a lot of what we do here and contacts for the committee.

Note: These scientists are basically a technical organisation. They don't really have a social media presence yet - and admit they are not public friendly - but are scientist friendly. :)

Meanwhile as we all slept last night in our crew quarters all around our majestic planet - spaceship earth - whilst turning on her axis continued on her predestined path onwards in our galactic journey that some are saying is to a grand destination that we know not of.

Yes, that is right, as the 7.5 billion crew share breath that the ship automatically and in many ways magically  provides - we are also becoming aware that our water supply has to be venerated - in that our ship has also supplied us with fresh water for eons and it has only recently that we have forgotten its importance and the urgency now is to cherish these transparent, life giving - liquid molecules that constitute up to 70% of our body.

Yes, this is all food for thought as we realise that we are more than we have ever dreamed possible, due to certain crew coming into the understanding that the purpose for existence is to awaken and find out the purpose for existence - this time is now.

Dear crew the long sleep is now over …

Tom talks of the possibility of utopia, the harmonising and reconnecting with nature and where people are kind to each other - and that systems are put in place to ensure that human rights are upheld.

(Listen to Tom’s enlivened description of this process).

Matter and Consciousness

We open up with this quote below.

In 1957 an unheralded Nobel Prize experiment at the Brookhaven Research Laboratories in the US - took place.This had TD Lee and CN Yang win the award for physics, for showing that "cobalt in its observed radioactivity could tell the difference between its future and its past and utilises this fact in making a spatial distinction between its right from its left"  - “It is able to choose what direction it takes!”

That we have not heard of this is because the invisible and hidden is not seen as an urgent area of exploration - even in today’s scientific world.

The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.”  Nikola Tesla  

Matter and Consciousness

Matter and consciousness - and the mysterious and that which is hidden. Tom says this subject was closed down in academic circles during the time of Galileo and he explains why - however further in the interview Aristotle too is mentioned as also shutting down the intuitive as he was the first to quantify by weighing and measuring things, and that opened the way for ‘that which was hidden - to be ignored’ - as it was not really - real.  See write up of Tom’s previous interview.  https://www.ourplanet.org/greenplanetfm/tom-brown-revealing-the-hidden-knowledge-of-invisible-subtle-solar-and-planetary-forces

Knowledge of Higher Forces - curtailed

So any knowledge of higher forces was disregarded and officially banned by edict.   This Tom says is extremely important knowledge that very few know about. Hence why universities today focus virtually entirely on the physical - and is a far cry from the original meaning - from Latin universitas ‘the whole’, and not the root word Universe.

Matter is Not Inert

Matter may not be conscious as you and I, but it is not inert and there are experiments that show it is reactive and isn’t inanimate. Lily Kolisco’s work ‘Agriculture of tomorrow’ - one of the great Bio dynamic books   http://www.koliskoinstitute.org/about-us/lili-kolisko/  - Many decades of research, working with colloidal minerals and crystallising mineral substances above and below ground during different seasons etc.   Working with the noble metals and the planets - Gold in the sun, Silver in the moon mercury in Mercury, Iron in Mars Tin in Jupiter and lead in Saturn.

Many experiments with the changes in crystallisation patterns during different astronomical relationships  especially that gold does not crystallise properly when the moon eclipses the sun.

Metals can have the same response when drugged as animals and plants do.

Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose. Bose’s work with plant sensitivity and anomalous readings - see his book “Response in the living and nonliving” that metals can have the same response when drugged as animals and plants.

https://tzmvirginia.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/bose-response-in-the-living-and-non-living.pdf

Sun and Planets Affect Metals on Earth

Giorgio Piccardi, in the University of Florence chemistry department 1950s and 60’s his book ‘The Chemical basis of medical climatology’. Why some chemical reactions don’t work when what’s happening on the sun and the earth’s related magnetic field at the time. Plus other anomalies were noticed over decades based on the earth’s tilt towards galactic centre on March equinox - that there were dips in readings - colloidal solutions were showing these up. ( listen it’s only a 70 meg download)  

http://e-libdigital.com/download/the-chemical-basis-of-medical-climatology-.pdf

Crystals - Silica - Computer Chips - Memory - AI - Artificial Intelligence

The interview covering crystals and silica, crystal sets - a tiny crystal,  with no batteries listening to radio stations from around the world - to silicon chips in computers and memory to AI artificial intelligence and some scientific atheists wanting to put artificial intelligence into our body - (Ray Kurzsweil) so that we can enhance our memory capability and that what type of consciousness is machine consciousness (and the challenge of machines  having no ethics, normality or virtues)  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kurzweil#Criticism

Tom voiced concerns about AI - as does Steve Wozniak of Apple, Elon Musk of Tesla and Stephen Hawking the Cambridge Futurist - that we could/will become a machine operating system - (just like the Borg in Star Trek and lose any semblance of self and soul.)

Transhumanism and Solid State Entities.

Covering Dr John C Lily’s work with the ‘solid state entity’ - an energy that for a better description can incarnate into the equipment. That Tom (like me) says - is anti life - Ray Kurzsweil’s name comes up and his ‘trans humanist agenda’ that is basically heralding the era/error of the time of the machines - instead of evolving the soul and realising a more cro-creative natural state of being. Trans-humanism is a disconnection from nature and the natural world and could be said to be based around lower ego. By merging into a computer and just be around forever is like a hijacking of the human spirit’s journey - and blind to the many great esoteric truths of the past. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Lilly

‘AI” - Something to keep a close eye on.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs_HhZrCBdg

Rudolph Steiner and his Spiritual Understandings …

That mans mining of the earth has let out elemental energies and that there energies have incarnated into human bodies and these young beings many live by impulse and don’t yet have any real deep inner foundation and so through a progression like - go from kindergarten to primary to secondary and university as in universal. - Tom talks about the chakra system and that the overall picture in the vast scheme of things - all incarnating beings have human rights - all having the right of self development and to choose their path - but as we can see everybody is not born equal especially for self determination.

‘God sleeps and dreams in the minerals, awakens in plants, walks in the animals and thinks in man. What is the next evolutionary spiritual step - for us?

Tom discusses this ancient saying that goes way back in time.

Ancient Traditions?

Hamlet’s Mill and the precession of the equinoxes and its basis in an integration of nearly all ancient traditions

The 2nd coming of Christ and the rising of Osiris. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet%27s_Mill

Tom states that ‘we are in a rising as of this time’ - we are at the end of the precessional cycle  - Orion is at the highest point in the sky and it is going through these special alignments with the galactic centre.

He talks about events from Hamlet’s Mill - where some civilisations and cultures speak about ‘bitter millennia’  when the gates are open - solstice alignments - to galactic centre and the Pleiades are in here too - this great cosmic alignment that is going on - he says people have been waiting for this time … so Tom looks at astrophysics in relation to the ancient gnostics and the possibilities that await us.

Galactic Influences

Halten Arp - astrophysicist who was evicted out of the astrophysicist community - like a modern day Galileo - was on the 200 inch telescope at Mt Wilson in the USA and was a protege of Hubble investigating merging galaxies that grew out of each other. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halton_Arp#Critics  He was also a critical of the Big Bang Theory.

Karl Seyfert and active galaxies - that all spiral and elliptical galaxy cores go through periodic core eruptions - which could even account for our galaxy also affecting life on earth with die offs etc - part of the whole metamorphic process - That our distance from the galactic centre is 26,000 years  happens to be identical to our 26,000 year precessional cycle - so we are totally keyed into this process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Keenan_Seyfert  

Toms talks about quasars from another standpoint - ‘redshift’ and some wild offerings -  listen ...

Neutrinos

Tim’s question to Tom - What about neutrinos?

Are these mega trillions of invisible particles that come out of the universe and zip through all living beings and pass right through this planet then onward into infinity … are these the etheric garment of God that is spiritual in nature and basically omnipresent?

There is a Youtube channel called Sky scholar   offering insights about space.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntXJe9jTahA

The God Particle

We also cover the God particle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson

and that the Large Hadron Collider is the world's largest and most powerful particle collider, the most complex experimental facility ever built, and the largest single machine in the world, situated at CERN between France and Switzerland. Tom mentions that when fired up there is a ‘pertubance in the field’ that is in proximity to CERN.

This interview, like Tom’s first interview is extremely interesting and like his previous one https://www.ourplanet.org/greenplanetfm/tom-brown-revealing-the-hidden-knowledge-of-invisible-subtle-solar-and-planetary-forces is definitely worthy of listening to.

In this interview anti-privatisation and anti-corruption whistle-blower, Penny Bright, talks on issues around the three Cs - Corruption, Contractocracy, and Corporate Welfare, as well as issues around the private procurement model for public services.

Penny says the root cause of most corruption is privatisation. She asks why the Public Records Act is not being fully implemented and enforced in New Zealand.

If New Zealand is truly 'the least corrupt country in the world' - shouldn't we arguably be the most transparent?

She says public transport is not public, and asks what the implications are of a fuel tax.

Penny has been involved in opposing the Tamaki 'Regeneration' project and speaks about dubious government and private dealings there.

She talks on the murdered Maltese investigative journalist who exposed the Panama Papers and has found some disturbing New Zealand connections.

Penny also speaks on State Capture, where private interests significantly influence the government’s decision-making processes to their own advantage.”

INTERNATIONAL RULE OF LAW FORUM

Penny Bright, was invited as a NZ 'Rule of Law' expert, together with nearly 300 attendees from 75 countries to the 2017 World Justice Project International Rule of Law Forum at The Hague. There she informed the delegates that New Zealand is a “Corrupt, polluted tax haven.

She says, "My political 'bombshell' was about NZ's corruption REALITY, and

in my opinion, New Zealand is a 'corrupt, polluted tax haven - a banana republic without the bananas'. I also stated that the Transparency International 'Corruption Perception Index' (which NZ topped 10 times, sometimes 1st equal) should be screwed up and thrown into the rubbish bin of history.”

PRESS RELEASE THURSDAY JAN 26 2017

Penny Bright Independent candidate Mt Albert by-election says The 2016 Corruption Perception Index isn't worth the paper it's written on."

She says, "This 'Corruption Perception Index' is not based upon measurable, objective yardsticks - but essentially the subjective opinions of anonymous business people."

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1701/S00171/the-2016-corruption-perception-index-isnt-worth-the-paper.htm

“Here were objective, significant milestones or yardsticks for quantifying corruption REALITY, rather than relying largely upon the subjective opinions of anonymous businesspeople for PERCEPTION of corruption which in her view are a meaningless measure.

I pointed out how in 2010 how I had attended the Transparency International Anti-Corruption Conference in Bangkok.

Where we were told that the global procurement market was $14 TRILLION and the amount estimated to be lost in bribery and corruption was $2.5 TRILLION!

I had a HUGE lightbulb moment! Wouldn't $2.5 trillion ($2,500,000,000,000, or $2.5 thousand billion) help to feed, clothe, water and shelter a few poor people?

Then another 'lightbulb' moment - was that Transparency International were not looking at the underpinning private procurement MODEL, and only the private procurement PROCESS.”

PRIVATE PROCUREMENT MODEL FOR PUBLIC SERVICES:

As soon as you get into the private procurement (contracting out) of public services, formerly provided in house by staff directly employed under the public service model, you got into CONTRACT MANAGEMENT.

Government or Council staff were regarded as not competent to do contract management - so a 'bureaucrats would then hire CONSULTANTS to 'project manage' the WORKS CONTRACTORS, who would then usually SUB-CONTRACT. So by the time you got down to those in the boots and overalls getting their hands dirty and actually doing something productive - you might have up to 4 layers of pinstripe suits clipping the ticket, while effectively doing nothing.

How is that a more 'cost-effective' use of public money?

Penny says, “In 2010, at the Transparency International Anti-Corruption Conference, I asked a (high-faluting) panel - where was the EVIDENCE that the private procurement of public services, that used to be provided at central and local government level, was more 'cost-effective' than former 'in-house' service provision?

(It was like I had slapped the face of the person who was chairing the panel.

He literally did a 'double-take' and mumbled that there was evidence - but none was ever provided.)

My point to this 2017 World Justice Forum group - was that in my opinion, it was time to look at the whole underpinning private procurement MODEL for public services.

( IMO - it is the privatisation -private procurement - of public services which is the major source of GRAND corruption.”

THE ROOT CAUSE OF CORRUPTION IS PRIVATISATION:

Penny is one of the few people in the world actually saying that the root cause of most GRAND corruption- is PRIVATISATION.

How is it decided who GETS the contracts?

Remember - back in 2010 - the global amount estimated to be paid in bribery and corruption was $2.5 TRILLION!

This is a BIG deal.

The whole Neo-liberal myth and mantra - 'public is bad - private is good' upon which this massive privatisation of public services, locally, nationally and internationally was based - was NOT 'evidence based'.

The BIG business globalists - just MADE IT UP!

If there is no 'cost-benefit analysis' which proves the privatisation (contracting out of public services is more cost-effective' for the public majority of taxpayers and ratepayers - then it's 'CORPORATE welfare'.

Penny asks the most pertinent questions.

Shouldn't the public majority (the 99%) benefit from public monies - not a small minority of private corporates (the 1%)?

While there is a punitive 'Social WARfare' /'War on the Poor' regime waged against the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, there is, a completely different attitude towards the rich' on 'corporate welfare'.

Where exactly are billion$ of public monies being spent on private sector consultants and contractors?

How can you check for 'cost-effectiveness' in the spending of public monies being spent on private sector consultant$ and contractors, if you don't know exactly where these costs fall?

WHY IS THE PUBLIC RECORDS ACT NOT BEING FULLY IMPLEMENTED AND ENFORCED?

NZ LAW is very clear on this requirement for transparency in public spending.

The NZ Public Records Act 2005:.

http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2005/0040/latest/DLM345729.html

17. Requirement to create and maintain records

(1)Every public office and local authority must create and maintain full and accurate records of its affairs, in accordance with normal, prudent business practice, including the records of any matter that is contracted out to an independent contractor.

How can you have transparency or accountability without full and accurate records available for public scrutiny?

The NZ Public Records Act 2005 has been the LAW for the last TWELVE years.

Why is the Public Records Act not being fully implemented and enforced?

Penny clearly states that the full implementation and enforcement of the NZ Public Records Act 2005, would transform transparency and accountability, and this should be an urgent priority for this new Labour-led Coalition Government.

Penny’s call for transparency includes

“OPEN THE BOOK$!

CUT OUT THE CONTRACTOR$!

BRING NZ LOCAL AND CENTRAL GOVERNMENT PUBLIC SERVICES BACK 'IN-HOUSE' UNDER THE GENUINE PUBLIC SERVICES MODEL!

PURGE THE FORMER PRIVATE SECTOR BUSINESSPEOPLE FROM THE LOCAL AND CENTRAL GOVERNMENT 'BUREAUCRACY' AND BRING BACK GENUINE 'PUBLIC SERVANTS'.

and

STOP THE 'THREE 'C's!

The CONTRACTOCRACY, CORRUPTION and CORPORATE welfare.”

------------------------------

FUEL TAX:

In Auckland, what is being proposed is an Auckland Regional Fuel Tax, to help fund developments with 'public transport'.

However - there is no such thing, as 'PUBLIC' transport in Auckland.

The trains, buses and ferry services are PUBLICLY-subsidised, but privately owned, operated and managed, passenger transport operators.

Auckland Transport won't reveal how many public millions are being paid to subsidise private passenger transport, on top of their private profits. Their 'books' are NOT open - regarding the millions of public monies paid to subsidise these private passenger transport operators.

Penny calls to make Auckland Transport 'PUBLIC' again!

Get rid of Auckland Transport as a CCO, and bring it back under direct Auckland Council control. And no Auckland Regional Fuel Tax!

THE TAMAKI REGENERATION PROJECT:

The Tamaki 'Regeneration' project - has proven to be a “HUGE GENTRIFICATION SCAM” pushing state tenants off prime real estate. Under the National Government the ownership of 2,867 properties from housing New Zealand were transferred into this Tamaki Regeneration Limited – a 100% crown owned crown entity company. This company then is on selling the land.

Former Tamaki State tenants have been forced off prime real estate to make way for private mansions for the wealthy, and private profits for property developer.

Penny speaks passionately about this, having spent months researching this issue and spending time on site with some of the tenants.

Here is a video about this.

Penny believes there should be an urgent parliamentary enquiry into the Tamaki “scam”.

STATE CAPTURE

A form of corrupt practice, which, in Penny’s opinion, is endemic in NZ, is 'State Capture'.

'State Capture' is where (corporate) vested interests get their way, at the POLICY level of government, in order to get laws passed that serve their interests.

With whom are the 'policy analysts' consulting, before legislation goes through the Parliamentary 'sausage machine'? Penny says, “Check the Regulatory Impact Statements to find out.”

PANAMA  PAPERS

New Zealand in Penny’s opinion, is a corrupt, polluted tax haven.

It was murdered Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia who

'blew the whistle' and twice exposed links between Maltese 'Politically Exposed Persons' (PEPs) and NZ foreign trusts being used for money-laundering, information that had been revealed in the Panama Papers.

On 1 August 2017, the (former) Chair of Transparency International, Jose Ugaz, at a meeting of over 200 people at Rutherford House, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand, stated that John Key should be investigated over the Panama Papers.

2 days after Daphne was blown to pieces in a car bomb attack (16 October 2017), it was announced that former NZ John Key Prime Minister would become Chair of the Board of ANZ. The ANZ bank is the Australian bank which had been mentioned more in the Panama Papers than any other Australian bank.

Why no NZ mainstream media coverage of this story?

Penny calls for an investigation of John Key over the Panama Papers!

MALTA SCANDAL EXPOSES NZ TRUSTS AGAIN:

It was murdered Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia who exposed, via the Panama Papers, how NZ foreign trusts were used as money-laundering vehicles by Maltese Politically Exposed Persons.

The saga began in February 2016 when Caruana-Galizia revealed that Schembri and Mizzi had set up two Panama companies, Tillgate Inc and Hearnville Inc, owned by the Haast Trust and Rotorua Trust in New Zealand.

In April 2016, the Financial Review published new details of Schembri and Mizzi's New Zealand trusts and their attempts to open a bank account in Dubai.

A Malta magistrate is investigating the explosive claims of money laundering and corruption that have put New Zealand in the middle of a global cash trail from the family of Azerbaijan president Ilham Aliyev.

President Aliyev's daughter, Leyla Aliyeva, is alleged to have channelled more than NZ$1.6 million to senior figures of the Malta government, including Prime Minister Joseph Muscat's wife.

These include alleged payments to Panama companies owned by New Zealand trusts set up by the Malta Energy Minister Karl Mizzi and Muscat's chief of staff, Keith Schembri.

On April 20, Maltese blogger Daphne Caruana-Galizia reported that she held copies of documents originally stored in a kitchen at Pilatus Bank, which showed that Egrant Inc, a mystery Panama Papers company identified by the Financial Review last year, was secretly owned by the Maltese Prime Minister's wife, Michelle Muscat.

In March 2016, a Dubai company controlled by Leyla Aliyeva had transferred US$1.017 million (NZ$1.47 million) marked as a loan into Egrant's account at Pilatus Bank, Caruana-Galizia reported.

Joseph Muscat denied the claims, calling it the "biggest political lie in Malta's history".

Caruana-Galizia reported that other payments were made from Leyla Aliyeva's company to Pilatus accounts held by Egrant as well as Tillgate Inc and Hearnville Inc, two Panama companies that are owned by Schembri and Mizzi, through New Zealand trusts.

The latest revelations, if substantiated, are an embarrassment for the New Zealand government, which announced an inquiry into its offshore trust laws on April 11 last year, the day after the Financial Review revealed details of how Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca's Malta agent, BT Nexia, began setting up Tillson, Hearnville and Egrant five days after Muscat's election victory in 2013.

Mossack Fonseca's files were obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.

New Zealand subsequently amended its offshore trusts regime, requiring foreign trusts to file annual accounts with the New Zealand tax office, but with no further restrictions.

At that time, it appeared the Malta trusts had never been used, after Mizzi and Schembri's Panama companies were turned down by eight banks who refused to open accounts for them because they were Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs).

The Panama Papers, however, show repeated cases of overseas investors filing false or implausible sets of accounts with New Zealand lawyers, who have limited means to verify the figures.

NEW ZEALAND’S SIGNIFICANT ROLE:

The latest wave of allegations in Malta underline how easily the New Zealand disclosure laws can be avoided, which the new laws do not change.

If the reports are substantiated, they raise a far more serious picture of money-laundering, from one of the most corrupt countries in the world, in which New Zealand's foreign trusts played a significant role.

We need far more mainstream investigative journalism and reporting on this issue.

Here is a video of a small protest that Penny held in solidarity for Daphne Caruana Galizia, in Auckland on 3 November 2017.

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Penny Bright has been arrested 22 times after being (unlawfully) denied speaking rights at Auckland City Council, mainly on matters relating to water. Four District Court Judges have acknowledged the 'Public Watchdog' role - so that is why she describes herself as a judicially recognised Public Watchdog' on Metrowater, water and Auckland regional governance matters.

Penny has also been described in the NZ Herald as an 'anti-corruption campaigner' in the fight for more transparency and accountability particularly at local government. Penny Bright helped to set up the 'Stop the Supercity' group - which is totally opposed to the attempted corporate takeover of the Auckland region to run it 'like a business, by business - for business'.

She hasn’t paid her rates for 9 years, and won’t until Auckland Council tells us how our rate payers money is being spent. See her Greenplanet interview about this – here.

Having been a mayoral candidate three times, she has a public profile that people are bound to have an opinion about.

Always campaigning with an element of humour, Penny signs her e-mails with,

‘Her Warship’.

This interview was sponsored by The Awareness Party http://www.theawarenessparty.com/home/

Steve Papps joins Liz Gunn for Part II on what has shaped a child of a ‘Once Were Warriors’ childhood, into a man with the vision and determination to create change for our better health, in body, mind and country.

Steve’s Three Passions

Steve begins by explaining his three passions - nutrition, water guardianship and emotional wellbeing - which he has shaped into businesses whereby he can follow his passions,  and give back from his learning and his innate belief system.

Papps Nutrition springs from Steve’s own experience of lack of health and fitness. In changing his own health and eating habits, he immersed himself in learning, and found a passion for teaching others how to create physical and mental wellbeing through nutrition.

Life Force Water is the second of Steve’s passions. It springs, as the name says, from the human need for living water if we are to have optimum health. Many people have no idea that water needs to be as alive as our fruit and vegetables.

And his third wave of human interest comes in the form of Papps Consultancy which draws on the work he has done in studying the Quantum Field and how humans in fact shape our own realities every day - often without realising it. From this awareness, arises the possibility of shaping the sort of reality and life of which we each dream.

Conscious Food and Water Choices

Steve says what most people eat is not ‘food’- it’s man made processed ‘stuff’. It’s not full of life.

Equally with water. Living water has a life cycle. It goes from a ‘juvenile’ stage, through a ripening process as it comes down from the sky, falls down mountainsides in waterfalls, in to river beds and down through rocks into underground water tables. This water is alive.

After 3- 4 weeks, the life force in ALIVE water in a container, will support bacterial growth. This is a good sign, the fact that water CAN go off!  Water in taps and on supermarket shelves has been treated  to stop bacterial growth- which kills the life force in the water. This affects us on many levels. Chlorine may well be subsequently filtered out of the disinfected water. But the fact remains that the molecular structure- the life force - within that water has been changed. Something has happened in order to keep it ‘safe’ to consume. It means that water in the supermarket can sit on shelves for many months without going green.

The disinfected water affects the good bacteria inside of us. Our good bacteria are at the heart of our immune system.

To support good immunity, living water must be drunk fresh from Mother Earth

Most of our vegetables - along with vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients  - are in fact living water. Fresh food goes off. Living water also goes off. We want to take them both into our bodies in an alive and fresh state.  

Humans are around 75% water - bones, muscles, brains… and the quality of the water we consume affects more than our physical being. It affects the quality of our thinking and the quality of our lives.

Steve discusses the role water plays in the ageing process. Ageing is a dehydration process. People start internally 'drying out’  through chronic dehydration over a long period of time. People in the country who lived off the land and drinking fresh untreated water from underground aquifers, have a different energy . The life force in their food and water gives them a different, stronger life force.

By contrast, in NZ cities, every week , 9 people lose an arm or a leg through Type 2 Diabetes…which Steve names as a lifestyle choice.

Type 1 Diabetes is inherited, while Type 2 is a malfunction in the pancreas. Steve says that can be treated by going back to the lifestyle choices that created it, and altering those choices.

Steve sees dis-ease as an expression of toxicity or acidity.

When someone has cancer, the tumour is cut out - but five years later it may well return. Steve is much more concerned to address the CAUSE of the cancer. Why did that body manifest this imbalance?

Steve believes that if one person can heal from cancer, there must be a way for all of us to heal from it. His whole focus is the cause rather than the symptoms. The ultimate aim is always to enhance the health of the person. People need to get well for themselves and for their families. He says his company's deal with the results, more than the theories,  and he looks to see if the changes he helps people to make, result in their doctors reducing or eliminating medications after the health of that person improves. These are the true measures of success for Steve. Practical results,  grounded in improvements in the everyday lives of the people he helps.

If Steve was walking into a family of diabetics about to breakfast on toast, cereal and jam, what would his advice be? STOP ! Eat living food. No requirement for carbohydrates while the pancreas is not working ( which shows up in the body as Type 2 diabetes) . No exotic, expensive, exclusive foods. Primarily vegetables, protein and healthy fats. exotic. It’s real food and in the right amount for the goals of each person.

The Importance of Amino Acids & Fatty Acids

There are two essential food groups. The body cannot produce these: essential amino acids and essential fatty acids. Every cell needs these in the right quantity.

We are a population which is totally overfed and undernourished. When the body says “ I’m hungry” , it’s actually saying “ Feed me nutrients” . By removing nutrients from manufactured foods, the person eating these processed foods will find they are still hungry after even a large caloric intake. The body is still crying out for nutrition. And so people keep eating the food that is devoid of nutrients, and wondering why packaged foods are so often hard to stop and put down. With Fresh Living Food, this does not happen.

Steve also talks of good fats and bad fats- such as cold pressed organic olive oil, egg yolks, coconut oil, avocado, raw nuts. The man- made fats are to be avoided at all costs- hydrogenated fats, margarine, soybean or canola oil- these are toxic to the body.

Body Building

He also talks of his time competing as a bodybuilder. He had to compete against bigger men. He decided he had to get leaner than them, and he outsmarted the competition ‘in the kitchen' through his refined food study. He talks of all the contradictory information on diet . He has put himself through many different eating plans for years. That way he found the ‘holes' in the plans- the point of diminishing return where the food plan is no longer effective. He was able to refine an eating process that works, grounded in principles that apply long term, to create potent health.  

Steve discusses the mental toughness humans need to find to stick to making changes. It’s not discipline. It’s awareness. When you’re ‘aware' of something, it’s no longer hard.

He gives an example. Someone who wants to start a diet. They are not in the right state for success,  when they talk about how difficult it is.  So how to change the inner state? This is where his coaching in Papps Consultancy, kicks in. There’s a need to truly want what they SAY they want. Steve says  "Imagine if I said to someone- if you keep to the plan exactly for 6 weeks- I show you the money- you cannot deviate for one meal, for one day- then I will give you $10,000. “

We always move towards what we focus on. Now the focus, the attention, is on what the person wants. And it’s no longer a matter of discipline. It’s a change of awareness.

A lot of self help information is a misunderstanding of how the mind works. You need to apply the principles correctly. Goal setting has its place but misapplied, it creates an internal battle. It’s ‘hard'. You’re constantly trying to ‘manage’ life. Steve offers the opposite.

With the $10,000 analogy, that person is going after what they have ALREADY created in their mindset. A 'totally unrealistic’ mindset, combined with a willingness to take action.

It’s about learning how the mind works, and getting beyond being enslaved by thoughts. You master your thoughts. If it’s your servant, your mind can serve you. But if you let it be your master, your mind will torture you every day.

Steve gives a wonderful example of how the mind can take both sides of an argument inside someone’s head, and behave like the worst best friend!!

It’s not a Discipline, but an Awareness.

There are events happening in our lives. Then there’s the person’s story ABOUT what is happening. Beyond all of that is an infinite consciousness able to observe these thoughts, and see the dramas created. Observing the way the mind jumps about,  comes from just listening to your thoughts. Don’t judge the thoughts. Observe them.

Most people who have anxiety can deal with the ISSUE itself,  but not with the anxiety ABOUT the issue, because that is like a ghost. Anxiety is really just a projected, imagined future. Getting stressed and depressed happens when someone becomes anxious about the anxiety itself. Instead there is a totally different way of looking at that which liberates people from the anxiety.

Addressing Addictions

Steve talks of addictions. They are a product of the story going on in the mind. He talks of a relative who has always been addicted to marijuana.

He then asked about his rehab and he labelled himself an addict. Steve said that once you have a label, you have to live through those labels. Instead, Steve asked him if he had an accident and lost his memory, would he still have his addiction? Who would he become without that story?

Steve says you can’t have an addiction without a memory.

We fulfil our labels. It’s important to identify behaviours, yes. But a label is not going to serve the human ability to change and evolve.

The perception is often back to front.

Focus

Steve focusses on getting the person’s energy and health improved so they have huge amounts of energy and life force.

The same principles apply across all areas- business, relationship, children’s emotional wellbeing and success, food, health.

The most fundamental part is having clear, practical goals. Most people have a fuzzy idea of what they would like but don’t pin that down to specific goals for today, for next week, for the next twelve months.

If you’re a business owner, do you have a clear financial goal for next week?

Becoming Wise

Towards the end of the interview. Steve discusses the genesis for his own learnings in all these areas - his own life experiences. He talked last time of having three children by 19 years old. This drove him to seek out financial success. He explains that he became a store detective who built his own company, to create New Zealand’s largest store detective company after just a year.

He talks of studying Bob Proctor’s work and Napoleon Hill’s book ‘ Think and Grow Rich’. He learnt the specific laws that apply to wealth and to relationships. He applied the principles and brought in millions.

Then he misapplied those same principles. Every thought is a seed. It sets off a specific vibration. His thought that stymied his success was “ Just don’t screw this up” .

He explains that humans will always end up where their energy is.

He ended up with depression. He learnt through that pain. He says “ I broke” -  and it was a breakthrough.

Some of the worst circumstances can be the greatest opportunities for us.

Become aware of how to change that negative experience- accept where you are,  and then with awareness change the energy you bring to what is showing up your life.

http://pappsnutrition.com

Martin, jumps into the interview likening our current economic situation to a tarmac road - the ‘neo liberal’ tarmac road - that is now breaking up, as there are more and more crises - and in among all the cracks there are many kinds of green shoots coming up to form a new ‘commonwealth’ society - and this in many ways is exemplified by Lyttelton and Project Lyttelton.net.nz  - where Martin was being  interviewed by telephone from.  

That he states this is a global phenomena that’s actually happening in so many countries as a conscious change due to discontent with the ‘monetisation’ of so much of our culture and way of life.

Martin mentions that after the two huge destructive earthquakes that hit both Christchurch and also Lyttelton - the community pulled together and they both have been able to recover remarkably well - (and still having much work to do on this) and he asks the question. Does this prefigure the challenges we face with climate destruction if we do not take timely action?

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11935975   The slow moving disaster for NZ’s future - areas that are gradually being affected by rising sea levels.  

The Commons

How can we live and have access to both land and a home?

Marine talks about Community Land Trusts and how they can take care of the ‘commons’ of land, water and air, but mainly land for farming and housing. Yet, we have also lost many of our connections with the ‘commons.’

The failure of Neo Liberalism

Saying that the pendulum in NZ is swinging away from Rogernomics and Ruthanasia  (Slang for Two previous Ministers of Finance from the NZ Labour and National Parties that championed neo - liberalism) That we are now realising the need to re-balance our society during this present political times by inviting not only the public and private sectors but also the plural sector, the civil society sector - who he says we see for example in Project Lyttelton.

Community and Countrywide Ownership

That NZ was once a large co-operative country that had many commercial co-operatives - dairy farmers being the largest of them, but also, having huge Mutual Insurance Societies, Trust Banks up and down the country, Building Societies, Trust Hotels and Alcohol outlets - and we have basically let them slip out of NZ ownership and control since 1984, when the rightwing overseas bankers infiltrated the NZ Labour Party with the Neo liberal agenda, of self interest.

Co-operative Values

Cooperative Values of self help and self responsibility, community benefit, community participation, openness, transparency and community investment - which Martin says is a wonderful picture - why did we let all this go and why have NZers forgotten this profoundly important history?   (Martin was taken back to learn of this.)

Same in the UK

He says that in the UK in the 1990’s and early 2000s, many of the building societies that were member owned and were mutuals for savings, loans and mortgages were privatised     too and then they went bust! Resulting in the taxpayers shelling out a trillion pounds to support them in 2007-8.

In the UK Martin belongs to and banks with the Nationwide Building Society, and it’s still member owned which is the largest mutual still operating and it is very efficient and more effective and provide better service than the big five banks of Britain, that he terms casino banks.

Co-operative originated in UK

3 He talks about the early Co-ops in the 19th century and early 20th century in UK and the Newcastle area and spread to Australia and NZ - See Rochdale Principles.

The Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, (RCEP) founded in 1844, is usually considered the first successful cooperative enterprise, used as a model for modern coops, following the 'Rochdale Principles'. A group of 28 weavers and other artisans in Rochdale, England set up the society to open their own store selling food items they could not otherwise afford. Within ten years there were over a thousand cooperative societies in the United Kingdom.

These were to counter - liberal laissez faire economic business systems of today - dog eat dog world.

https://community-wealth.org/strategies/panel/coops/index.html

Research published by the Worldwatch Institute found that in 2012 approximately one billion people in 96 countries had become members of at least one cooperative.[2] The turnover of the largest three hundred cooperatives in the world reached $2.2 trillion – which, if they were to be a country, it would make them the seventh largest.

This was one way of pushing back for the individual and those less financially advantaged  … unity is strength.

Now today - how can we reinvent cooperative methods and recreate different ways of cooperating  … this is what Martins sees as our localised challenge.

Today in the UK

In England in Gloucestershire the Stroud Commonwealth enable social businesses - that were very interested in local food. Having enabled the development of one of the first of 6 community supported agriculture cooperatives.

http://www.stroudcommunityagriculture.org/

This is a consumer cooperative who commit to buying produce from farmers a year in advance and they guarantee that income for a whole year. There are 290 people in this co-operative - they have a budget meeting every year - they agree with the farmers what should be grown and they support the farmers wherever it is feast or famine.  

Now Stroud Community supported agriculture is an exemplar of this very different way of running a farm. Now there are over 200 of these consumer cooperatives throughout the UK. Listen …

Ooooby  (Out of our own back yard)

Martin talks of NZ’s Ooooby as a world class exemplar of a grassroots food distributor - of boxed fresh organic fruit and vegetables run by a team with Pete Russell originally out of Waiheke island, now in Auckland and with connections into Australia and the US.

https://www.ooooby.org  

Using leading edge software - to really connect people with quality food.

Also, Ooooby is looking at how ownership can be distributed among the founders, customers and producers. - They are exploring new ownership forms - the sharing of the  ‘common wealth’ of their enterprise. Calling ooooby - a real green shoot.

Purchasing Land

Enabling farmers and communities to buy land and then put this into a farm trust.

A template for young farmers -listen - (it is only a 70 meg download = 35 family fotos)

Martin gives an example of how 8 hundred thousand pounds was raised and exchanged for shares - from 8,000 people - Farmland Trust. Listen to how they make it happen. Started off with only one extra job, now there are 27 jobs.

Now Co-operative UK https://www.uk.coop/is the trade body set up - to facilitate cooperative development.

As a result several thousand different  provident and industrial societies have emerged out of this that have groups of people co-operating around renewable energy, for owning the village pub or owning the value shop. This has all come about from a standing start back in 2005-6.

Click to Listen - Martin shares lots of valuable information especially that we need an organisational structure that helps people reconnect with the land - through buying shares as well as a structure for investment - so the co-operative form is ideal for this.

Connecting with like Minds

This includes every year having festivals, courses and workshops - to keep the energy dynamic and people educated and learning.

Plus making the annual general meeting a festive event.

Reconnecting with the land and learning how to do this via artistic workshops from bird watching to biodiversity - interpretive walks and fantastic design workshops by permacuture  - horticulture,  bees etc is all part of a holistic understanding of our connection to the natural world.

Todays food revolution of fresh local, organic produce is also a cultural revolution as it is feeding our soul, giving nutrient dense vitamins and minerals to us as brain food - so that we make good decisions etc especially because of our deepening spiritual connection to the land. Plus with co-operatives slowly emerging especially in the UK it is an economic revolution as well.

Housing Ownership

Housing model - to find ways of owning your own dwelling.

Community Land Trust    

Land is seen not as a commodity but as a commons - to be stewarded  That for each community to steward their land commons is for community benefit - thus a lead structure is required.  http://www.communitylandtrusts.org.uk/what-is-a-clt

Common Land -  Freehold land in Britain can be held in common by a kind of community land trust called the National Trust - which is a body of 3 million members owning 1500 farms and own 3 or 400 stately homes - and people have the right to walk there - and some areas where commoner farmers have the right to graze cows there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Trust_for_Places_of_Historic_Interest_or_Natural_Beauty

A Community Land Trust

http://www.vermontcf.org/Portals/0/Uploads/Documents/bclt_strategic_plan.pdf

Burlington Community land Trust in Vermont - Shepherded through by Bernie Sanders - 3000, houses owned by their community land trust - which owns the land - where you can buy houses at 2/3 to 1/2 the market value - because the other half is owned by the land trust. A very interesting model.

Other Subjects Covered.

Co-operative Land Societies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_cooperative

Letchworth Heritage Trust

http://www.letchworth.com/heritage-foundation/about-us

Covering ohu’s that the NZ Labour Government started off in 1973

in a concession to counter-cultural values, it sponsored the development of ‘ohu’ – rural communes.

Happiness architecture and beauty -  Kevin McCloud of Grand Designs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_McCloud

Special low energy homes that are environmentally benign.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/sep/04/grand-designs-presenter-kevin-mccloud-seeks-to-raise-50m-to-build-600-homes-a-year

Martin is here in NZ at the invitation of Caroline Hughes of the NZ Land Trust  

http://www.thelandtrustnz.com

Martin Large of:

https://www.hawthornpress.com/about-hawthorn/

Mainstream science has looked at the Universe in a somewhat ‘tunnel visioned’ way, and have still not connected everything up in a wholistic/holistic process - into a greater picture - yet Thomas says when we put this big picture together - we are living on a magical plane of existence.

Also, that we are connected by invisibility, be it the air, the magnetic field - then we have the microbiome - bacteria that are in our gut, gastrointestinal tract that weighs about 1.5 kilogram - that composes a gigantic amount of our DNA.

We Have Multiple Brains

Tom goes on to say that science is talking about the brain being the intellect, the heart is the intuition and the gut with our microbiome - being the instinct. Tom says that it’s the gut that connects us to another reality the 3rd brain - Dr Marco Ruggiero - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DKgT5Go6sU -  tells of the brain microbiota that is our human gut.   And that there maybe a fourth brain operating within our brain as well.

The saying ….. “I had a gut feeling” - that many people state, is now being validated.

That we are absolutely interconnected - Also a new modality called ‘M braining’ - www.mbraining.com - is about multiple brains - and that leading edge researchers are saying that when ‘consciously’ we bring all these 3 brains together into coherency - we find that as a human - we are far more aligned - that we negotiate life more gracefully due to the fact at all our ‘brains’ are ‘systematically aligned.’ Meaning - we make correct life decisions

Greater Awareness

So that when we make the correct decision - it’s because of this coherent alignment - that some say this intuitive aspect may reach out into the fourth dimension and breach the time barrier - thus we are ahead of the curve.

Tom further states that there are neurological studies that show that the brain is actually making decisions before we consciously make them.  Retrocausalilty - which Tom says is fascinating - https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/retrocausality-can-the-present-affect-the-past/

Which brings up free will - and Tom says he thinks that we do - but … - listen to the interview.  

Globalised Food, Effecting our Gut

Tom goes on to say that due to our globalised marketing and food distribution systems, that we are eating so much food that is out of season and out of synch with our own microbiome -  https://www.nature.com/subjects/microbiome - i.e if we are not eating locally this is causing disturbances in our metabolism thus affecting us with subtle mental lapses.  

We can experience a psychological effect due to eating food shipped in from overseas that’s causing mental aberrations due to the affects of having incorrect bacteria in our gut dealing with all kinds of food, from various climatic zones and regions. 

Tom introduces us to Russian Science.

Sergey Vasilieve

The Russian scientist Sergey Vasilieve on long range action fields - regarding the influence of sun and planets on planet our planet Earth.  http://astrozet.net/articles/ZemletriasEng.pdf

Plus Alexander Chizhevsky’s  1897 to 1964 - work on helio biology  - how the sun’s influence on the biology on planet Earth. Plus biological rhythms.  That humans are affected by the sun’s 11 year solar cycle. and much more.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Chizhevsky

That his research on instantaneous action influence across time and space - is a long way in advance of Western science.

Sunlight and the Laws of Physics

Tom goes on to say that sunlight is instant - that it is instantaneous - or space scalar or like Tesla transmissions.

Stating that all light is instant and that “we are thoroughly connected in real time to the universe.” That stelar transmissions are instant - This is really important information to research and broaden our understanding.  Toms says that behind everything - there is another level - that we have no idea how fast light is really traveling and he is profoundly knowledgeable and researched on these hidden energies.

That the Russians are into plasma physics and the electric universe - they are far in advance of ‘public’ Western science.

The Russian Vladimir Vernadsky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Vernadsky 1863 - 1945 and the Noosphere - In Vernadsky's theory of the Earth's development, the noosphere is the third stage in the earth's development, after the geosphere (inanimate matter) and the biosphere (biological life). Just as the emergence of life fundamentally transformed the geosphere, the emergence of human cognition will fundamentally transform the biosphere.

In this theory, the principles of both life and cognition are essential features of the Earth's evolution, and must have been implicit in the earth all along. (Tim) - A future sphere of mind that will out grow the biosphere yet integrate with it, where at heart the human race develop into a greater understanding that we one global family and that the possibilities of intuitive - telepathic unity are pronounced - this is one of the choices that humanity can take - if we awaken to ‘who we are’.

American Julian James 1920-1997 is mentioned - The origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. An interesting perspective.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Jaynes

Renaissance Pulling Back the Curtains

When Galileo first used the telescope there were two things:

That the telescope was a military instrument - that could be used for war and because of his status in Venice at the time this is one of the reasons he was able to obtain it.

In doing so he discovered the moons orbiting Jupiter and realised for himself that the earth was revolving around the sun.

Tom says this was also still a time of witch hunts - Where he says that ‘the right brain shut down and man’s left brain took over’ … by weighing and measuring things - dispassionately.

Science and the Measuring and Weighing of Things -

Don’t blame everything on Galileo

Physics - the flight of the cannonball - .http://www.physics.mcgill.ca/~moore/P101/Lectures/Lecture-5.pdf

Tom further states that as an extension of Galileo that the Accademia del Cimento (Academy of Experiment) in Florence Italy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accademia_del_Cimento - Actually issued an official: contra leva tatam - maxim  - stating that you were not allowed to talk about the higher forces any more …  only that which could be weighed and measured was now an official edict!    

Hard Science had begun!

Rudolf Steiner Opens ‘Inquiry’ All Up Again   

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Steiner    1861-1925

This is why Rudolf Steiner started off Anthroposophy so as to overcome scientific limitation - as Steiner said they were now entering the age of the ‘intellectual soul’  - but Tom said that in order for us to develop properly (before we entered that realm) we had to develop the discursive - which is the non intuitive form of consciousness … but we have become trapped in it. Meaning that science sees, No Soul, No God, only matter.

Toms says that by following Galileo’s cannon ball narrative - we come to Cern today in Switzerland and the Large Hadron Collider? - where underground scientists are still smashing Galileo’s cannon balls together - meanwhile above ground, life is happening on the surface - that scientists don’t even believe exists - because they still can’t measure it on their equipment …

Tom quotes from Steiner:

That when mankind gets to the end of his descent into matter he will end up with a vacant metaphysics.

Listen to Tom’s viewpoint of the movie - ‘What the Bleep’ - and where it drops out.  That there is no comprehension of the higher forces - that we call the etheric forces - which are basically warmth, light, chemical and structural activity and life.

Yet Nikola Tesla stated: “The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.”  

That these forces basically weave all of life around us and we are yet unable to weigh or measure them … but you can perceive them and this is done in the intuitive development of consciousness …

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Steiner pointed to Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe’s work - the metamorphosis of plants - listen …. now it gets fascinating

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe

Ernst Michael Kranich

Cosmological botany - Planetary influences upon plants -  

https://translate.google.co.nz/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst-Michael_Kranich&prev=search

Goethe and archetypal plants … and his ability to see using his higher mind.

Tom says there is only one actual plant - the vegetative surface of the planet - which goes through all these different metamorphoses.

How do plants grow and especially vines and creepers - they are influenced by the planets - especially Mercury.  

The sun is the stem, the roots are the moon and the leaves are Mercury  and when they grow further out they are influenced by Venus - that for instance - Bind weeds like Morning glory tendrils that turn around a stake or anything that can be attached to - to grow towards the light … due to the influence of the orbiting of Mercury. Listen …. fascinating

Jagadish_Chandra_Bose -  who is also mentioned in the Autobiography of a Yogi and the Secret Life of Plants

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagadish_Chandra_Bose   - Listen - equally fascinating …

Bose's place in history has now been re-evaluated. His work may have contributed to the development of radio communication.[22] He is also credited with discovering millimetre length electromagnetic waves and being a pioneer in the field of biophysics.[35]

Professor Giorgio Piccardi  from Florence University 1950’s and 60’s  - chemistry dept  studied chemical reactions due to the sun’s influence.   https://translate.google.co.nz/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio_Piccardi&prev=search   - Including viral diseases following solar cycles - diphtheria, polio scarlet fever - listen …

Lili Kolisko  - A brilliant student of Rudolf Steiner    - http://www.koliskoinstitute.org/about-us/lili-kolisko/    

Paul Stamets - “Mycelium fungus to save our planet” http://www.fungi.com/about-paul-stamets.html

ALSO in this interview:

Archetypes within nature

Holographic universe -  yes, but what are projecting on?  This is what interests Tom.

Covering the wave particle duality.  

The sun represents the dot and the blue sky represent the sheet. - and it happens in front of us every day.

In Toms closing statements he mentions.

The Bankers - and the international slave system - are still in control.

The system is us, neglecting our inner responsibility and connection to the universe and our planet -  he says we have to wake up!

On the Aotearoan Maori - he says that we need to get savvy and realise that there is another story on New Zealand.

He whakeputanga and the 1835 declaration of Independence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Independence_of_New_Zealand

This was an extremely interesting interview - The only disappointment was that I, Tim got in the way by talking too much. When it was all about what Tom was wanting to offer.:(

Tom was once the editor for Borderlands in the USA.

http://borderlandresearch.com

https://www.ourplanet.org/greenplanetfm/tom-brown-takes-us-down-the-thorny-path-of-truth

https://www.ourplanet.org/greenplanetfm/tom-brown-researcher-into-energy-space-mind-and-matter

Don Huber who has just been here in NZ  is also a  former Colonel of the U.S. Army Reserves Bioterrorism Research Unit. He has taught courses on anti-crop bioterrorism and serves as a consultant on biological weapons of mass destruction and emerging diseases. He advises U.S. agencies on bioterrorism and biological warfare. He also goes by his word - that Glyphosate is a ‘Trojan Horse’

Professor Emeritus Don Huber, formerly of Purdue University states that there are three facts that everyone needs to understand about GE or GMOs:

1. despite what the media and so-called “experts” proclaim, there are NO peer-reviewed scientific papers establishing the safety of GMO crops
2. epidemiological patterns show there’s an identical rise in over 30 human diseases correlated with our increased usage of glyphosate and the increased prevalence of genetically engineered proteins in our food, and
3. genetically engineered foods, as well as conventional crops that are heavily sprayed with glyphosate (the active ingredient in Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup), have lower nutrient density than organic foods.

Don Huber who spoke with me at the PlanetFM studios two months ago, here in Auckland opens with the statement that NZ farmland is still basically free of GE and GMO’s and relatively unpolluted with its attendant spray - glyphosate, however he states we need to make sure GMO’s don’t breach our borders, and that we need to keep NZ - GE Free and to make every effort to scale back our use of glyphosate - urgently.  

Soil is a living entity

The soil is a living entity in its own right - it’s not just dirt. Every time you step on an acre of soil you’re stepping on up to 10 or 20 tonnes of living matter. Bacteria and fungi and the micro organisms of life. (just like the trillions of microorganisms in our intestines keep us healthy too)

A Cleaner Greener New Zealand

Don says that NZ can still be an answer to the world - because we have not contaminated a lot of our soil- yet he admits that we have some excessive chemical use in some areas - he sees that clearly and also the lack of knowledge of what these chemicals are doing. That their use makes life easier in some respects - but when farmers look at the long term process, the impact that it has on the individual, the family and the society does not actually make life easier. He says we still have an opportunity to have a working relationship with the soil, and capitalise by offering up quality organics with nutrient dense food that the rest of the world needs.

Control of World Food by Vested Interests

He states that there is an overt attempt in many areas of the world to destroy this opportunity. The desire of vested interests for monopoly, control and power without regard for the overall consequences of these practices needs to be recognised. That we are seeing our increased vulnerability - and a lot of it is because people have forgotten - he says that where we once had simple land practices - modern day scientific farming has brought us inflammatory bowel disease , end stages kidney disease and diabetes plus the extreme epidemics that we are seeing in the US and other industrialised countries.

He states we have not had to experience these because we have maintained high nutrient dense food products for our animals - grass fed and not necessarily corn fed animals etc.  Stating that this is the message and the information that the world needs.

Taking Traditional Breeding to a New Level.

The message that Don Huber is sharing is that we are only harvesting 25 - 30% of the genetic potential of our best crops - and he said if we took the time and energy (it does not come free) we can develop ‘that expression’ of that genetic material and do it by a traditional breeding manner, rather than the virus type of approach that we see with genetic engineering. Because we have no idea what the unintended consequences that can occur with that - are. He says we have all the systems in place to be able to do it this traditional breeding program properly. The constant looking for a ‘silver bullet’ is a mistake and it takes us further away from the natural harmony that we have been embedded in for centuries and millennia.

Impacts on Farming Communities

Sociological impacts of small farms being bought out and amalgamated into large corporate farms is depleting the rural sector of families as people sell-out and leave the district. This is affecting farming communities across the board in NZ, the US and Australia. That the model which is growth and bigger and larger farms is not human or community friendly. The bigger the farm, the less time the farmer has to interact with one’s neighbours and the community loses out. Because you are not able to spend enough time to really get to know each other and interact as neighbours.

Harmony of the Land and Community

Being able to manage the ecology and living in harmony is an imperative. He talks of community and also that not only do crops grow but everything grows including the community in a magnitude that meets the needs of a society and the individual - so that vegetables and animals plus families can all grow together.

As a Colonel in the US Army Reserves

As an US Army Researcher (1957-1998) he also studied many aspects of bioterrorism. Mentioning what the military thought was a critical component of a good defence was diversity - that to make sure that all our crop species were not of the same genetic makeup, as in 1970 and 71, where 70% of American corn hybrids were attacked by a fungus that developed a mutation and all 70% of the hybrids were susceptible to that disease. Yet he carries on to say that 98% of soybeans, 70% of corn, 100% of sugar beet and cotton are all 1 green or 2 gene characteristics and those genes are all to promote disease susceptibility - not resistance - none of them are designed or engineered for greater disease resistance - everyone of them have to be more susceptible to the diseases so that you can get the expression of the genetic engineered trait - that the mode of action for some of the chemicals like glyphosate - its whole mode of action - is to give the plant a bad case of aids - then they are susceptible to all the soil born pathogens and that is how “round up” for instance works - it is to destroy the disease resistance of those plants that receive it that haven’t been engineered with an alternative.

He states that all it would take is just one simple mutation to make cotton, alfalfa, corn, soybean and canola - all those with the ‘roundup ready gene’- to be totally susceptible to a very severe disease. There are now documented over 40 diseases that are much more intense when associated with the glyphosate herbicide - because of the increased disease susceptibility  - which he says leaves the US extremely vulnerable from a bioterrorist event - or for a natural event as per the Northern corn leaf blight epidemic in 1970 and 71. - Listen to the full extent of this, it is very important  

Threats of Legal Action

He talks about GE crops being a Trojan Horse and that every farmer who sows GE seeds has to sign on the dotted line that they take full responsibility for any accident or cross contamination or anything relating to that crop. Letting the GE Corporation off, of being liable if anything does get out of control.  Listen to the introduction in the very 1st minute of this program

Food Essential Human Right

He talks about agriculture being the basics of human society and survival and that that humans have to have carbohydrates, proteins, fats, plus have minerals and vitamins  - without these the individual does not exist - so that when they are patented and controlled by corporate interests in the power controlling manner that we are seeing - without any liability or restrictions or controls - it leads to the downfall of the society.

The Demise of the Precautionary Principle

Don says the precautionary principle has been thrown out the window, when once it was a very valid and viable aspect in risk management - but today there is now no consideration for it at all.

The Escape of a GE experiment gone wrong in the USA - now entering the Pacific

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2017/01/grass_seed_industry_fearful_ab.html

Professor Huber mentions the escape of ‘creeping bent grass’ - ‘roundup ready’ - engineered used primarily for golf courses - that escaped field trials up in the US - and that these grasses are very promiscuous and move along with the wind and it hybridise with other grasses and now it can not be contained. It got loose from 2 small private research locations and now is endemic in Washington, Oregon and Idaho - it’s now along the Snake River in Southern Idaho and Oregon into Washington and is now totally resistant to glyphosate - the rivers flows into the North Pacific and Don says the Pacific ocean will now take it far further into the Pacific basin and that it could even be a worldwide problem. Because it plugs up irrigations systems and drainage systems - ending up as an extremely invasive weed.

http://www.bluemountaineagle.com/Local_News/20160628/farmers-worry-who-will-control-escaped-genetically-engineered-bentgrass

The company Scotts Miracle-Gro - who allowed this GE experiment to escape the laboratory has been unable to eradicate it and now that it has basically contaminated the above States, farmers who have been growing organic alfalfa for instance, and then exported it to China have had China reject and return it due to the GMO contamination and there is a total legal wrangle around this due to a corrupted agenda by the status quo not being upfront and honest in taking responsibility for this unpublicised continuous disaster that continues to this moment.

Innocent Organic Farmers are Being Affected

This means that those who have a living and a livelihood around organics are being affected by this spread and that everyone who is finding their product contaminated with this GMO bent grass, are having to bear the loss of income and or OF their business. That those who have been negatively impacted by this, need to be compensated - and so this is where the battle lines are drawn on the lack of indemnification. This is also what MSM - mainstream media remains very hushed about and as a consequence middle society either in the US, Canada, Australia or NZ know nothing about. To our collective detriment.

Don calls these so called GMO - silver bullets - as time bombs waiting to go off.

He says we have had enough time to witness the destructive behaviour of the generic experiments that have been going on around the planet.

He sees them and the deterioration of the soil - and the increased diseased problems in our plants.

GE & GMO’s a Coming Major Tsunami of Health Problems

The deterioration in the health in our animals and in humans to the point that he says we are on the threshold of a major tsunami of health problems.

Cancer

End state kidney disease

Inflammatory bowel type diseases

Celiac

Crohn's disease

Gluten intolerance

Leaky gut

The situation is becoming so dire that slowly over time - like the frog sitting in the hot water - nearly all the young doctors, veterinarians, plant pathologists just out of university and basically programmed to not think, but only regurgitate what that have been taught - think that the above diseases are now just normal diseases and are unable to connect the dots to the onset of the GE and glyphosate insertion into the health system - especially in the USA.

This insightful interview covers:

Spontaneous abortion or miscarriage of pigs, goats and cattle - on land that has been sprayed with Glyphosate in tandem with growing GE Foods.

That it was now normal for many women to have numerous miscarriages before they can have a live birth and that even worse - that the doctors are not doing any autopsies on miscarried fetuses - instead just quietly incinerating them - Listen to this interview !

His wish for the future

he wants his grandchildren to have the opportunity that when they wish to have children that they do not have to go through the heartache of multiple miscarriages etc. He says we have to make a stand and that time is now.

He states that in El Salvador  25% are expected to die from Glyphosate poisoning of their kidneys - he mentions Sri Lanka and Brazil and that the people are suffering there too.

Dr Joseph Mercola link

https://nz.pinterest.com/pin/126030489545794596/

Joseph Mercola food integrity gmo don huber

European Parliament: Green Members of Parliament tested for glyphosate in April 2016.

48 Green Members that took part in a symbolic urine test ahead of the European Parliament vote last month to oppose the EU Commission’s proposal to relicense the controversial toxic substance until 2031.

The inspiration behind what was labelled the #MEPee test was the results of a recent study in Germany which found that 99.6% of people tested were found to have glyphosate residue in their urine. According to ELISA test results from the accredited Biocheck Laboratory in Germany:

The results reveal that every MEP tested has been found to have glyphosate traces in their urine, with the average concentration being 1.73ng/ml. That level is more than 17 times the safe limit for drinking water. The lowest level found among the group was 0.17ng/ml, almost double the safe level.

Now most Greens will be drinking the best quality water, eating organic food and yet this is what is happening. What will this do to our DNA, semen and ovaries over time and future generations and in our babies and infants? Are you asking this question?

https://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/2016/05/13/green-party-meps-peed-off-with-glyphosate-test-results

Glyphosate’s half life can be up to 22 years in the soil - which appears contrary to the advertising.

The US Geological survey in Florida shows that many of the Counties in that state have as much as 4,200 pounds of glyphosate per square mile.

This affecting all invertebrates, bacteria, bees, earthworms, fish the whole ecology is being impacted by glyphosate.

Lake Erie one of the Great Lakes is being studied by scientists at the University in Wisconsin and found that 1 third of a pound of phosphorous in Lake Erie, comes in for every one acre of ground (area) that is in the watershed.

He says what is few million acres? - do the maths - and that’s why we have a green Lake Erie, with dead carp and dead bluegill and other fish?

Lawsuits are piling up ready for Court  

Listen to hear how many Lawsuits are waiting in the wings as class actions become more common - so as to compensate people who have been affected by poor health and that they are looking for the cause.

Glyphosate is found in the air, surface water, run off and well water because it is a highly water soluble compound and has been found in animal, human and plant tissue.  

In NZ some farmers are spraying Glyphosate on grass, then 4 days later letting their cows eat this foliage - cows are then being milked - result is NZ milk, butter, cheese etc is going to the NZ and world market place.  Professor Huber states that Glyphosate bioaccumulates - in cows hearts, brains, liver, kidneys, bones, and the milk.

Note that cheese has difficulty being manufactured, because it is a fermenting process and Don has seen cheeses that have failed due the the death of the microorganisms during fermentation.

The same with malt barley and fermentation for brewing beer - the microorganisms suffer when heavy use of glyphosate is used.

Professor Don Huber has hopes for New Zealand

Encourages us to hold the line -   for as an 80 year old with 50 years in the game - he has seen this track history of GE and GMO and sees that it is a twisted tale of avarice and deception.

This is a wake up call for New Zealanders who care about their health, happiness and our ecology.

US Military Service Researching Bioterrorism

From 1963 to 1971 he was assigned to the U.S. Army Edgewood Proving Ground and Ft. Detrick Biological Laboratories in Maryland for research in chemical and biological warfare. He became Operations Officer (S-3) in a USAR Medical Group before moving to Medical Intelligence (business) Department Of Defense.

In 1973 he took command of a specialized Strategic Medical Intelligence Detachment (MIDS) assigned to The Office of the Surgeon General and U.S. Army Medical Intelligence and Information Agency, assisting in formation of the Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center (now NCMI). He carried out these duties while serving as a professor at Purdue.

Though technically in the Army Reserve, Dr. Huber, whose expertise was in the Soviet Union’s biological warfare program, was part of elite nine and ten-person teams of specialized world scientists. In this capacity he commanded MIDS for eight years. Most of these scientists including Dr. Huber worked overtime without pay.

He moved from command of MIDS to Senior Medical Intelligence Analyst and then as Associate Director of the Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center. Retiring from military service after more than 41 years, he continues work with our intelligence community, where he actively participates in oversight security of biological weapons programs and threat pathogen concerns.

Dr. Huber teaches courses on anti-crop bioterrorism and serves as a consultant on biological weapons of mass destruction and emerging diseases. He advises U.S. agencies on bioterrorism and biological warfare.  

He currently serves without pay as the American Phytopathological Society’s Coordinator for the USDA National Plant Disease Recovery System program and is an active member of the Threat Pathogens Committee.

A message from Tim - Let those that scathingly criticise Professor Don Huber ‘walk a mile in his shoes’.

The Philosophy of Farming and Our Intimate Relationships with the Land and Biota.  As New Zealand has been always known as a country that farmed cows and sheep - we are renown for being both innovative and highly productive, yet we can to far better than this.  

Graeme Sait originally from Taranaki who has spent most of his life way from NZ is a global leader, and the question is asked, can one man make a difference?  Is it possible that one person’s knowledge and enthusiasm can produce a counter tipping point to farming and land management - into a new upcycle. One where in a few short years, soil across our whole country can be revitalized, rivers, lakes and aquifers cleaned up, less livestock, (cows) needed but enabling far higher productivity? More Co2 from the atmosphere being sequestered by the microflora, the mega trillions of bacteria and fungi that live and comprise the soil? Resulting in more sustainability across the ecosphere?

Why? Because science is belatedly realising that the answer is found in the soil - healthy soil.

Graeme Sait, is the co-founder of Qld Company, Nutri-Tech Solutions (NTS), a recognised world leader in sustainable agriculture/horticulture. He is a sought after, global keynote speaker, plus was the founder of Radiance, the 6 day Wellness Festival in Queensland that attracted crowds in excess of 12,000. He has many years of researching health and wellbeing and the benefits of all the correct foods especially fats and oils to teas, herbal remedies plus soil health agricultural systems and biological farming etc.

Learn of the profound interdependence of soil microflora of bacteria and fungi that is crucial to plant growth, healthy soil (and sequesting Co2 from the atmosphere). Just like the micro flora in our gut and digestive system, when we are free of chemical additives, everything flourishes and comes back into balance.

www.nutri-tech.com.au

There's a grassroots revolution taking place as we read and its emergent principles are so profound that it is ushering in sweeping, positive changes to land use, farming and market gardening practices to our beleaguered planet, Mother Earth.

This most refreshing and insightful interview covers minerals, soil bacteria, fungi to plant health, that extends to vegetation, animal and ultimately to human health. Not quite organic, it however, leads us back into the organic world.

His inspirational vision for agriculture and human health has been documented in over 300 published articles and he is currently completing three new books, covering this vast subject. A much sought after, entertaining and informative speaker, Graeme has inspired audiences all over the world.

Global warming emissions and acidification of the oceans can be mitigated by conscious use of soil bacteria, soil carbon and humous and if we use appropriate knowhow found in biological agriculture … astounding possibilities not mentioned in mainstream media will give the youth (and all people of our planet) a much needed boost in morale and optimism.

In South Africa, the uptake of biological agriculture is expanding at near exponential rates as farmers witness the viability and in particular the yields from healthy soil of vital healthy produce. Lead by Woolworths 460 supermarkets nationwide, they only source fresh food from certified Biological farmers and producers.

Listen to the profound biological agricultural changes happening with Dole the world's largest producer and marketer of high-quality fresh fruit on the astounding shifts within this corporation that are happening at this very moment.

And in Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, having saturated the land with chemical and toxic agriculture, and the resulting highest percentage of cancers per head of population anywhere, are just now, changing course into biological agriculture.

Having personally witnessed two of Graeme's presentations myself, you will come away totally inspired to far better health practices, plus a greater respect for nature and the depth of knowledge this man has regarding physical health and well being.

His many interviews on GreenplanetFM.com - cover such a range of subject matter - it is so huge and compelling.  (Do a search)

Covering the cause of the top diseases such as heart, cancer, diabetics, alzheimers and chronic fatigue, to cod liver oil's superb results, as well as coconut oil, the use (or non use) of cooking oils to mineral up-take,  plus dumping your microwave oven, to no tilling of your home garden to the incredible results of rotation of cows grazing on pasture is the big story of the future … the list goes on.

The holy grail is soil health, based on bacteria, fungi, earthworms in concert with nature and reciprocity is the essence of this biological approach to producing healthy food.

WHY?

Farming over the last 60 years plus, has been based on the mistaken analysis in the 19th century of plant growth and that NPK, nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium were basically perceived as all that plants needed to utilize to grow, when in fact there are 74 mineral compounds that are all part of whole growth, however Western man has been full-on into unbalancing the soil to where we today have unhealthy soil structure, basically depleted in the other 71 minerals, with far less soil bacteria and fungi, resulting in unhealthy plants, animals and now humans - all due to factory farming, extractive agriculture and an increasingly toxic chemical ideology.

Fortunately, this is finally changing.

An inspiring interview regarding our collective future.

Previous GreenplanetFM Interview: Microcosm in the Macrocosm

http://www.ourplanet.org/greenplanetfm/graeme-sait-soil-health-management-human-gut-flora

http://www.ourplanet.org/greenplanetfm/graeme-sait-globally-recognised-revolutionary-keynote-speaker-on-soil-animal-and-human-nutrition

http://www.nutri-tech.com.au

Māori were living in Aotearoa, New Zealand when Abel Tasman from Holland in 1642 but especially English navigator James Cook in 1769 - put NZ on the map - that’s when the British and Europeans took notice with the early arrivals introducing many different ways of life. This included firearms, alcohol, the bible and private ownership.  

Loss of Connection

This progressively diminished Māori connection especially with the natural elements and within their own Māori peoples - that upon the colonialisation of NZ - this was not what Māori thought was going to be the end result of the ‘te Tiriti o Waitangi' - (the English version of which is known as the ‘Treaty of Waitangi') – an agreement between two sovereign parties: the British Crown and the Māori .

Misinterpretations and violations of the ‘Spirit of the Treaty’ led to break down and huge personal loss which were basically ignored - and Māori grievances becoming prominent as a result, marginalising many in their own country. Wars over land and confiscation by the new Government were widespread. But this was no different from European conquest in Africa, the Americas, Australia etc.the original inhabitants became tenants in their county of birth.

Whakapapa - Genealogy - Bloodlines (and more)

Overriding Māori connection is the central theme of Māoridom being whakapapa …  and papa   pa and pa  - two words - Catherine’s understanding is that - pa - denotes the idea of touching something - and when it is doubled - one can literally say that it doubles the original idea.  If pa is touch, what is double that? Imagining when we see a double word like that - it is a transcendent idea of the original idea …. In this example it’s “connection”, which is central to Papatuanuku - Mother Earth - that connection - that is sacred - integral  - so whakapapa is a core essence of who you are - because it’s our bloodlines, but more than that - it is that Māori belief is that they descend from God.  That we´are children of God.   

Catherine’s learning comes from her Kaumātua and Kuia - her male and female elders.

Kaupapa  purpose (and more)

Kaupapa   kau means  - two parts - ka and u - ka is like an activator - it sets you in space and time -  u - is like the idea to grasp something  … kaupapa and - the papa part reminds you of your whakapapa - which reminds you of your connection to Papatuanku - the Earth Mother - the deity - the divine personality which is our Earth  - and she then connects us back to Io-matua-kore  - our parentless one - who was the first child if you like of pure potential energy …  that Māori track back to the source energy - the source of everything.

She said that we need to fundamentally realise that from way back up until now that we need to grasp the idea that we are a divine spark  - so  from that awareness, what are we to do? What is our kaupapa?

Catherine says that upon this spark realisation - she is not going to be small … she is not here to waste time :)  It's just “pono”: Truth.

Listen to her passion and power!

Realising our Potential

Catherine decodes for us the divine art within all people - and that we can grow into the light of our own true selves - when we are fortified with this deeply acquired knowingness - coupled to Aroha (compassion).

This is where Catherine vibrantly expresses herself in a very big way - that she wishes to leave a legacy - and change the world - and she is acutely aware that this is possible. We can make truly glorious transformations in this world.

A river being recognised as a living being

This lively interview covers the Whanganui (awa) river here in New Zealand with a catchment area of over 7,000 square kilometres as finally being legally recognised as a living entity in its own right - that under Maori auspices ‘ the river owns itself’ - and that it can now be revered as a living extension of Papatuanku - Mother Earth that is in itself heralding a paradigm shift to one where we recognise the sacredness of life and that we exist in a living pulsing universe.

Same for the Te Urewera park being over 2,000 square kilometres being the historical home of Tūhoe. Part of their traditional territory.

This interview introduces Bolivia and Ecuador and ‘ the rights of nature’ under the umbrella of Pachamama  - that the world is waking up on a planetary scale that within the the atmospheric bubble of the biosphere we are far more intimately connected than we realise. Through air, water and minerals.  Plus an essence as well.

That things within nature are our relatives - we are all connected through the web of life - that all biota share breath - be it animals, trees and vegetation plus humans all breathing in air and like other animals we humans breathe in oxygen and breath out CO2 whilst other more fixed biota - trees and vegetation breath out O2 and breathe in CO2 - in a profound symphony of interconnectedness and homeostasis.

And she says why should only humans get rights? Nature needs them too, which then brings up the intrusion into the natural world of Corporations declaring themselves as having legal personalities and in the US where it is entrenched and they are really pushing this agenda of Corporations having human rights. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood

Where Corporations are saying they are equal to humans in having human rights and even superior to humans and natural persons and environmental rights and she sees this as just an abomination - that the judiciary and the legislature of countries are going down that road and have abused and corrupted such a critical idea. That as she has a Law degree, she carries more weight in her knowingness.

The interview continues around a statement that Tim poses to Catherine, who deftly answers it in a diplomatic matter and from a higher level of consciousness.

Tim states: That because the Māori acknowledge and revere their ancestors and their past, whereas the Pakeha or white man especially in NZ, Australia, Canada and the USA, who as recent immigrants to these countries have all left their origins of Britain or Europe in the 17 and 18th century - have in many ways separated from their roots and in not honouring the past, instead consume the future - which we see as Corporations extracting from mother earth at an increasingly furious rate and leaving environmental desecration behind them - including major social purples for the localised inhabitants.

We are all Consciousness

Catherine, answers by stating - we could look at this and possibly get bogged down  - instead she ramps this thread to a higher level, saying before we start looking at us based on colour or culture - that we are consciousness first - that she is ‘wairua’ in spirit and that we are humans first - then our other identities follow - that she is a woman - and then you can say she is Māori and that she does not want to get into separation an us and them thing - it is a ‘we’ thing - that’s what we are - humans living on a planet.

That there are so many crises on earth today and we have to address them together and we all have value and we all have something to offer to find the solution and she implores us to come together in the spirit of cooperation and solve that which is surrounding us and coming up over the horizon.

Unity of Purpose

So this is both our opportunity as well as our challenge - this she says ‘is the holy grail of where we must go’ - so can we come together and collaborate more and see the commonalities and not go to the differences - first - that just our reaction to go to these differences first when the true answer is the coming of unity of purpose and embracing goodwill in our individual and collective journey.

Catherine says we are here to experience diversity but in peaceful accord or words to that effect.

Listen … She is a superb communicator   

The Journey is the Reward

It’s not about the destination - it's about the journey - and the discovery during this process / unfoldment.

She talks about some of her friends that have been given over to their grand parents for their upbringing - and they are a different breed of people - and it is clear as night and day - and it's lovely - that the children have a reverence and a respect as well as a calmness about them - that they are more grounded. She notices that in most cases their perspective is more expansive. Catherine would like to see this happen more, because Māori have done this before, but through the colonisation of NZ many old Māori traditions have been diluted and changed and many lost.

Children and Education - Knowledge of your Surroundings.

Knowing the bird life in their local area, their sounds, plus how many grasses does a child know? - and insects? - the difference between benevolent insects in comparison to honey bees and wasps and hornets. Plus trees and herbs, especially for their health giving properties. Fish names and whereabouts also.

Catherine covers earthing - getting outside on the lawn or in a field and lying in the grass and connecting barefoot. Or tree hugging and the electromagnetic science of feeling the electromagnetic field - that we can become in-balance if we are sensitive to be a ‘body whisperer’ in being receptive to what the environment and nature itself is whispering and breathing into us.

People say knowledge is power and Catherine jumps in saying ‘nah nah nah’ - acting on knowledge - is power …

She talks about academic associates who keep adding degrees to their name and continuing to educate themselves but possibly not having the time to share this new knowledge as in receiving and then giving. The same goes for our body and spirit - we need both a healthy spirit - wairua and a healthy body ‘temple' - it’s all about balance and combining all the parts of ourselves to become a full whole being. And she says that we have to be our best at the same time communing with nature to grow into the light of our own true selves.

Covering James Cameron’s movie Avatar that all the roots of trees were interconnected into one vast neural network right around Pandora the moon - and that the indigenous Na’vi could also connect through their hair to both trees and animals that were part of the natural order of that whole ecosystem. That there was in fact no separation - all living beings, Na’vi, animals and trees were interconnected. We humans are too -with the sharing of breath.

Chaos theory that has ended in it order

Catherine mentions chaos theory and eventual order out of chaos as in Mandelbrot theory - where all the parts are reflections of the whole - like the Russian dolls one inside the other - inside the other - inside the other - of nesting dolls Matryoshka - matry for matriarchal - motherly.

The ubiquitous Bruce Lipton comes up in Catherine’s conversation that we as a humanity ‘the human race’ are an evolving giant organism’ in our own right - as well as our planet being a super organism as well - that within the universal context that God is flowing to evolve what she is (she laughs) - universal consciousness or whatever we want to call it - Io (in Māori) and that the whole shebang - God is continually expanding and refining and finding new ways to experience itself - and so it is never ending … being eternal.

That we need to recognise this and that we are a part of that which surrounds us as we shift our consciousness to another higher level. Catherine excitedly states that she really wants to lean into this as she feels like it is being on the fringe of something new - where we can break out of our skin encapsulated ego and awaken to the true brilliance of who we really are.

Involving Everyone and Looking Within.

Then the question how do we assist in engaging people to encourage them into the realisation that we are all on a profound spiritual unfoldment, if we only shined our focus into our inner life and illuminated our shadow and our ego, that actually holds us back when we are here to release ourselves of our darker limitations.  That the fear of ‘change’ being one of our barriers to engaging …  We tend to make sure we avoid pain and seek out all kinds of pleasure …  as people like and prefer certainty and dislike uncertainty intensely and that is why people fear change. Thus our society remains conservative.

Catherine talks about the ego looking back to the pleasures of the past or the future - when in fact the goal for us all is to be in the present - because that is where all the gifts are.

Cosmologies.

That the universe is both Yin and Yang it is both Tapu and Noa from a Māori perspective

The breath of Life -  the Ha - comes into Catherine’s - discourse  - including change and chaos.

Tim throws this into the conversation:

Ourplanet.org - is the Mothership of GreenplanetFM.com  - his key quip - ‘it’s more than a revolution it is a paradigm shift.’

New and Larger Concepts

That we are co creators - if we are born of the Divine and we are divine sparks we must … have some of the characteristics and attributes of God - or universal wisdom and energies … which is creative power and being co creators

    * She thinks that the young and the millennial are moving fast and awakening to many empowering possibilities

    * Science and spirituality is converging - quantum mechanics and unified field understandings and wholeness

    * Science is also saying that most indigenous people have been right all along - that our body has another energy field or soul/spirit and that our planet is a super organism.  That everything is an illusion - that we are all just energy fields - same for all matter

    * That the Golden Rule for Māori is tika, what is right and correct - Pono truth and integrity -  and Aroha is compassion - and more … Love

    * If we are just mindful to the best of our abilities - (as above) we will go far and create miracles  

    * It’s about values and your 'wairua' - spirit

She talked about consequences when violating natural law = Cause and Effect

Teaching Children - Tamariki (children) and Mokupuna (grandchildren)   that acting too proud has consequences

Wants the study of ‘Civics’ to be in the curriculum into schools as most young people are disempowered and lack real connection to one’s local community

Civic - relating to the duties or activities of people in relation to their town, city, or local area and iwi - Māori peoples.

Plus more science into schools - the study of basic consciousness and basic quantum physics as she thinks the cart (focus on the molecular world) is currently before the horse (understanding consciousness).

Then at the end I belatedly ask her about her moko - her chin tattoo - and an interesting exchange happens. First Nation Peoples in the South West of the USA have them too.

This was a very insightful energised interview and sharing that is very compelling for all who wish to deepen their inquiry into indigenous matters.

The ‘kaupapa' (purpose) of Catherine's website is to share knowledge and wisdom that expands the collective consciousness, and contributes to the empowerment of people everywhere to be happy and free.  

This kaupapa is underpinned by her desire to progressively realize her own personal happiness and freedom.  But, as often said, one cannot be truly happy and free unless ALL are happy and free - so, I guess this will be an ever-evolving journey rather than a destination.

https://www.catherinem-ikenn.com

Catherine (Bl/B.Soc.Sci, LLM) hails from the two Māori peoples of Ngāti Kuri and Te Rarawa whose traditional territories are located in the Far North of the North Island of Aotearoa, New Zealand.  Married with one son, she has a strong passion for indigenous human rights, environmental protection and lifelong education.

In the mid 90's she worked as a Government Policy Analyst and as a solicitor in Wellington. Since 2000, she project managed her Te Rarawa peoples’ historical Treaty claims settlement negotiations with the Crown, and later became a negotiator herself for her Ngāti Kuri peoples' settlement negotiations - both settlements of which were legislated in 2015.

In 2005 Catherine was awarded the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Indigenous Fellowship (representing the Pacific), and continues to represent her peoples in different UN work, as well as on two technical working groups (regarding climate change, and the Monitoring Mechanism for the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) affiliated with the National Iwi Chairs Forum. She has also held several trustee positions for her peoples’ governing boards, and local schools (she's currently on the Board for Kaitaia College).

Womens Rights are Human Rights, but do we live in a society of sexism, patriarchy and unconscious bias? As Chinese Leader Mao Tse Tung said, “Women hold up half the sky.” In fact in New Zealand women make up 52% of the population and so hold up just a bit more than half!

EMANCIPATION


Kate Sheppard and her fellow suffragists gathered the signatures of nearly 32,000 women to demonstrate the groundswell of support for their cause. The result of this was that the Electoral Act 1893 was passed by both houses of Parliament and became law on 19 September 1983. 

New Zealand women gained the right to stand for election in 1919. The first female MP, Elizabeth McCombs, was not elected until 1933.

It took until 1984 for the number of women in Parliament to reach double figures. 
In 2014 there were 69 males in parliament and 31 women!

 Should we rest without full emancipation of women being implemented in our society? Since the women’s liberation movement quietened in the eighties society has landed up with wide and worsening inequalities, and women suffer most in this type of society, directly and indirectly.

One hundred and twenty four years since women got the right to vote, the journey is far from over! “The gender pay gap in this country is symptomatic of a bigger problem”, says Angela McLeod in this interview.

New Zealand ranked tenth in the Global Gender Gap Index 2015 after countries such as, and surprisingly, Rwanda and the Philippines! New Zealand climbed one rank to ninth last year owing to improving its position on the Economic Participation and Opportunity sub-index, with higher female labour force participation. Since we were the first to give women the vote, we should expect to be first!

New Zealander, Sandra Coney gave an excellent speech at International Women’s Day this year. She says, “I want to raise here a precept of the early women’s liberation movement that is still highly relevant. That is, you measure women’s progress not by how women are doing at the top but how they are doing at the bottom.


A LIVING WAGE


In some circumstances women still get paid less for doing the same job as men.
 There is a 9.4% gender pay gap in New Zealand. This is ridiculous, and often low paid women workers are exploited, yes in this day and age.

 The minimum wage needs to increase as many women are trapped in low paid work. Benefits then can rise and that will help the many solo parents, mostly women, who are struggling to survive and are sometimes in abject poverty.
It is from that background that exploitation of women and violence against women can appear.

TRADITIONAL ROLES
We all know the historical role of women in the kitchen, as caregivers and nurturers and there is nothing wrong with that. However women must have the choice to be all that they can be. Some enjoy the home environment, although in the current financial environment many are forced out to work for financial reasons. Even then many women are the primary cooks and cleaners at home and jobs are not shared equally between partners. (I for one, would prefer to cook a meal than mow the lawns!) However only 3% of firemen (FireMEN) are women. And as a man just pointed out recently, there are not too many male midwives around. So traditional roles still play a part in our society. Many people refer to doctors as HE and nurses as SHE for example. However we must be sure that these differences occur because of choice and not from patriarchy.

UNCONSCIOUS BIAS
More insidious than individual issues is the promotion of bias in the media, and retail areas. Try going shopping for young children and find non gender specific clothing. It is not easy. Pink for girls and blue for boys is very prevalent along with violent hero pictures on boy’s t-shirts and pink fairy dresses for girls. Toys are similarly categorised. This gender bias is much more evident, as I buy for my grandchildren, than it was in the eighties when my own children were young.

Watching the sports news on TV is another area of bias. Male sport dominates and so you may be unaware that our NZ women’s rugby team, for example, has won five World Cups and the men have only won three!
It is very clear that there is gender bias in the workplace.
 The government has reached its target to have 45% of women on State Sector Boards, but the private sector is quite different, with only one business leader, Kate McKenzie CEO of Chorus, in the top NZX 50 business leaders.


EMPOWERING WOMEN
In an attempt to overcome bias in employment, the New Zealand Law Society released a draft Gender Diversity and Inclusion Charter for comment by lawyers.
“The voluntary charter is an initiative of the Law Society’s Women’s Advisory Panel that was set up to look at ways to support the retention and advancement of women in the legal profession. It also aims to address pay equity and encourage the implementation of unconscious bias training for all lawyers and key staff.”
As well as the law society driving reform within its ranks, we need government legislation to drive a more equal society.
Empowering women is the most important thing we can do to build a better society.

The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality on which Angela McLeod is a member of the New Zealand committee seeks to:

Establish high-level corporate leadership for gender equality.
Treat all women and men fairly at work – respect and support human rights and non-discrimination.
Ensure the health, safety and well-being of all women and men workers.
Promote education, training and professional development for women.
Implement enterprise development, supply chain and marketing practices that empower women.
Promote equality through community initiatives and advocacy.
Measure and publicly report on progress to achieve gender equality

.

To hear more on women’s rights, please listen to Angela McLeod in this interview.


Angela McLeod is the past president of the Federation of Business and Professional Women, New Zealand, and a  UN Women National Committee Aotearoa New Zealand Councillor, 
Upper Hutt City Council Chair, and is on Wellington Region’s Waste Forum.
She says:
“I have lived in Upper Hutt all my life and I’m passionate about our city and environment.  I want to: put our interests first; fight to keep us out of a Super city; strengthen our local economy and community; upgrade all our train stations; keep our water publicly owned, from source to tap; clean up the Hutt River and build an effective rural strategy.  
My husband (Mac) and I live on a lifestyle block in Whiteman’s Valley and we own a local retail business.
I have been and continue to be, involved with local and national civil society groups.”
Angela has much to say on women’s issues including the upcoming election.

This interview is sponsored by: The Awareness Party
www.theawarenessparty.com

In 1973 the North Koreans realising that they were not making any progress with South Korea on formalising Peace, wrote a letter to the US House of Representatives and the US Senate asking for a Peace Treaty and they have never received a reply, so here we are today - why no reply?

Well the answer is quite simple - it has nothing to do with North Korea - and Peter gives a documented quote from Condoleezza Rice. US Secretary of State 2005–09.

Saying what it does do, is expose the extreme cynicism of the situation and the complete lack of respect for other human life if you are not American.   

Quote - “the North Koreans are like some sort of road kill on the highway of history …”

What is really going on is about America - and the US containment of China - policy.

Most people do not know that there was no peace treaty signed by North Korea and the USA - so a ceasefire was arranged - as both sides knew that they could not prevail. Evidently this still irks the US military.  

Peter still reckons that up until 1971 - they were still keen to have a go at ousting the other - but US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger went to China and President Nixon a year later, changed the geopolitical map - and North Korea suddenly realised that if another war happened that they may not now be able to rely on China  so - after weighing this US China dialogue - they decided to ask South Korea to have a peace treaty and get closer together again. - and though they had some talks and it was thought a good idea - nothing really happened (and every year up until today - the successive Kim’s have in their New Year speech proposed and asked for a Peace Treaty.)   Hence the above overture to the USA.

Peter Wilson of the NZ DPRK Society   - New Zealand - Democratic People’s Republic of Korea  Society - (Also known as North Korea.)

Backgrounder

Peter Wilson is a freelance consultant who worked for the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Food and Agricultural Organisation, including alongside the UN in the UN Development Program - where previously he had worked for long term projects like 2 years in Papua New Guinea and 4 years in the Philippines - implementing long term projects and that eventually morphed into short term projects - like project planning and supervising and troubleshooting. He ended up working twice for the UN in North Korea the first time being in 1997.

Media Programing

For decades North Korea is a country that the media has always portrayed as an: impoverished rogue state; secretive state; the world’s most isolated and Orwellian state; the whole rotten carcass of the North Korean state; a nuclear weapons state; instability within the rogue state; Stalinist state/the last Stalinist state; a failed state with nuclear weapons/ nuclear weapons state; the state as a religious cult; the world’s most closed state; police state; failed state.

Peter says that in the study of the media’s description of North Korea’s state of well being - that every different adjective is used as a prefix before ending in the words ‘North Korea’ and when compared with South Korea there is no such prefix used in front of the words South Korea.  Which shows huge amounts of bias. So that we have all been conditioned to see North Korea in a decidedly negative way.  However when he looks at where the articles in the media come from they are Bloomberg, Reuters (head office New York) Time New York Times, Washington Post - they are all American sources and reflects the Washington line - And Peter states that Washington looks at the world through a different type of prism from what we in NZ look through. And it is true.

(Yet, the fact that Donald Trump calls these above publications (that include CNN) being fake news agencies - brings Peter to laugh about the ironies of existence).

The situation of North Korea

Having worked for a small UN Agency 20 years ago in Pyongyang called the International Fund for Agricultural Development - Peter had access to virtually the whole of North Korea in 1997 - where he witnessed first hand the plight of the famine at that time. Though it was bad - it was nowhere as near as horrendous as the Western media portrayed and that the reason why this drought lead famine was due to continuous bad weather and climatic conditions and the fact that North Korea was kept out of the international system - due to the USA locking them out of the International Monetary Fund - which meant they could not belong to the World Bank - or to the regional development banks like the Asian Development Bank  - That Peter says that the Americans one day, must have blinked and North Korea became a member of the International Fund for Development - which is just a tiny extension, as a multilateral financial institution.

Peter has spent the last 40 years of his entire professional career having worked in 21 different Asian countries especially in all the poorest and problem areas which in 1997 took him to North Korea - because they were at the height of their food crisis. It was a US$50 million project dealing in fertiliser and improved crop production of which Peter was involved in $13 million of that - for increasing production of small livestock such as ducks, geese, sheep and goats. When he first went there he had little knowledge about that country - probably less that the average person today knows - mainly because today we are getting more news coverage.

However what little he didn’t know really did not stand upon to that he really saw on the ground. That life in North Korea is very different as to what is portrayed by the media - in this case the US media.

His most recent visit was last month, August 2017 having worked there on two occasions and on the 5 other occasions he has visited he has represented the NZ DPRK society.  This time he came back a little bit staggered.

The Economy is Growing Fast

He said the economy was booming!

He estimated at least three times the numbers of cars on Pyongyang streets since he was last there exactly two years ago. The shops are bursting with consumer goods. Their military deterrence missile/nuclear programme has accelerated.

It was brought home to him that sanctions are totally farcical. They just don't work!

From all we are told by the media, North Korea is an aggressive threat to the world. They are not. North Korea's crime is to stand up to the United States and not allow US Corporations to trade there!

The South Korean Central Bank’s latest study maintains the North Korean economy grew at least 3.9% last year - However Peter thinks that the growth could be a lot more than this 3.9%, due to the way the GNP is assessed by the South Koreans.

Peter says that over his numerous times of visiting that he can easily see that the standards of living are increasing and it is quite different from what is portrayed in our media i.e they are not having to eat grass!

As Peter has been working in a large number of Asian countries for 40 years, that to be effective he said you have to understand the system - where the power is - who is up who - and if you don’t understand that political context - plus the social context you will not get what’s going on in these countries. So in having to visit many strange situations, assess them all and then be productive -  that was the factors that he dealt with.

This interview covers:

US Black Basketball player Dennis Rodman and his frequent visits to North Korea to assist in sporting skills and opening more understanding. That Rodman wants to play peace-keeper between Trump and Kim

That Peter in 1997 was asked to be on the ground to see exactly what the drought was like and the famine that the Western media told us about. He says it was a privilege to be selected for this UN assessment trip which as an extension of the World Food Program and Food and Agricultural Organisation. They were awake to this as there definitely, was a problem. So this team - possibly the first Western team ever was able to travel extensively right through the country because for the aid money to go to North Korea, the United Nations had to know the seriousness of this event.

But what they were looking at didn’t actually gel with what North Korea was telling the world -because people were not dying by the thousands (or eating grass) and though there was hunger there were not nearly as serious - a problem as we had heard from the Western media - and Peter was able to see that there was not a huge increase in the deaths of elderly and children.

Climate: the ground in North Korea is frozen hard for 6 months a year and that only 15% of the land can be used for arable farming.

The North Koreans say they have 172 frost free days a year - they don’t say that they have so many sunshine days a year, or so many rainy days like we do in NZ. So for 6 months of the year they have to work really hard through this time to grow enough food - but as North Korea is a very mountainous country with only 15% arable land they just can not produce enough food in that small area - and they utilise whatever space they can. Peter says that historically they have to work really diligently, and though their agriculture is technically very good - he says they have to make sure that they have enough food for the coming winter.

The Failure of the Soviet Economy affected North Korea

This is where the deconstruction of the Soviet Union comes in, in the early 1990’s - for when it deconstructed the USSR - North Korea and also Cuba had always been subsidised by the Soviets, and as they were going broke - they were not able to give food to their ex client states (like Cuba too).  That when the bad weather hit North Korea - there was a major shortfall. Because they could not source cheap diesel and fertiliser and when it came to food - especially grain, it all stopped because they had no trading system with the West at all.  

So that when Russia finally emerged out of the USSR it was broke - and needing hard currency themselves wanted payments for goods in hard currency  e.g US$ - but North Korea had none of that either.

So the North Koreans actually exaggerated their circumstances a little and they were able to receive free food from Oxfam and the other charity agencies. Which he said was quite clever of them.

Peter then states that to this day - certain overseas mouth pieces state that two to three million people died - but he says - that’s not true - and that sure, there were some deaths - maybe 250,000 over many years maybe up to 750,000 people, Peter says that there may have been 3 to 400,000 premature deaths that happened.  Note NZ contributed aid at that time

However when George Bush 2 came to power he swapped the game plan and instead sent food to Africa. So the North Koreans still need to now top up their food requirements - grain wise and they they have been able to buy this on the international market as they have the cash. What is not known is that the US put the first sanctions on North Korea in 1950 and they are proposing to do it even more. - but it is clearly not working … as the North Koreans are making their own consumer goods as well.

Consumers Goods & Military development is accelerating

So North Korea’s military development has accelerated and so has their standard of living and the economy is growing and the sanctions just don’t work.

Nuclear Tests, Missile tests ands Satellite systems

Containment of China
The reason why America does not want a peace treaty of any sort is, because it's all to do the US containment policy of China. The US wants forward defence in South Korea and Japan, and as far away from the United States of America, however Kim is bringing home to the Pentagon and the State Department - that he has the technology to build missiles that will one day be able to reach the heartland of the US, but North Korea is yet not in the arena of placing a nuclear warhead on a missile.

Meanwhile across the radio waves, TV, satellite systems and the internet the US is ramping up North Korea as the bandit nation that will definitely send an intercontinental missile to America or any of its allies - and this story has been fanned by the US corporate media - and the South Korean people have bought it - plus the Japanese public and 99.5% of the whole world - have been taken in by this continuous rhetoric.

US wanting to be the Dominant Country on Earth

(With hundreds of bases globally the US wants to be the only dominant player on planet earth. They are not looking for partners other than the Anglo American alliance, with Israel somehow inserting itself into the equation as well. China is still in the ascendancy and is overtaking America in most areas of production and trade and modernising its military very rapidly. Thus China is seen as the greatest threat).

General Wesley Clark Youtube  (Mentioned in this interview by Tim)

The reason the refugee crises came to Europe over the last number of years was given by General Wesley Clark about 10 days after 911 when he went to the Pentagon and was told by another General that the US was going to take down about 7 Middle Eastern countries. And this has basically happened and is still happening under cover of the Arab Spring revolutions. Syria being the latest and then - on to Iran. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RC1Mepk_Sw     

The Neo Cons in the US are the ones directing these actions. Plus, an unconscious humanity not taking any responsibility throughout the West to address the Neo-Con agenda.

Peter mentions William Blum - ex CIA agent who tells about the list of 57 countries since WW2 that the USA has been involved in attempting and in most cases changing a regime to whom they wanted . https://williamblum.org/

The fact that is: of all the countries that have stood up to the USA - it is North Korea. Which regrettably makes them more hated by Uncle Sam who uses all means of propaganda that can be trained on them by US corporations to constantly demonise this country.  Note NZ was demonised when it became Nuclear Free and thus was ejected out of ANZUS, by the US.

Rejection by the US Government - again.

In January last year - the North Koreans made a proposal to the United States - and said that if you halt your war-games with South Korea - they will freeze their nuclear development program - and this will give us the space to talk - Washington said NO.   

Because of the US military controlled Governmental intransigence - this has driven China and Russia even more closer together. Plus, Putin has come out supporting this freeze - but to no avail.

New Zealand's Role  
The Helen Clark Labour Government many years ago opened up diplomatic contact with North Korea and was consistent in remaining in contact - however the National Government under Sir John Key has cut this link  - and there has been no contact for 3 years and Peter states that it is Wellington’s fault, because Pyongyang wants to talk.

Being  Shunned
At the time of Nobel Peace Prize winner, Barack Obama’s 2nd Presidential election the North Koreans sent a letter to him asking for the cessation of hostilities stating that they wanted a Peace Treaty.

Asking for:

Recognition of their  sovereignty -

Wanting the lifting of sanctions -

Wanting all foreign troops out of the Korean Peninsular -

Finally asking to talk about an implemented and Internationally agreed upon Nuclear Free Korean Peninsular -

The answer from Obama - nothing ….

Peter states that today this is still the North Korean Policy of wanting a Peace treaty

Finding Neutral Nations to broker an agreement (Where is NZ?)

Norway is seen as a country with the courage and the vision to get out into the world and forge peace and bring people to the table - whereas NZ shies away from any ‘major global engagement’ and for reason we do not understand.

Ache in Indonesia, Palestine, Sri Lanka are mentioned as having Norwegian involvement and Peter tells of meeting a diplomat from Norway by chance in Pyongyang and asking him why not North Korea seeing Norway's has been so worldly active? With the diplomat saying the reason there is no action on the Korean peninsular is because the USA would not be happy.

Other Subject Matter Covered.

The North Korean Voting System

Covering of the Leadership of the three Kim's since the 1950’s and why only them? Peter stating that they are following a Confucian model and it is not really that different from China or Vietnam and or Laos.  That North Korea, also sees flaws in these systems - saying that the rural people in both China and Vietnam are being left out of the equation.

The North Korean’s are making their own business model and not following exactly what China or Vietnam are doing - they are doing their own version of business - because they know that the people in the cities in China are doing well but as above the people in the countryside are not and the North Korean Government want to even the playing field. They are conscious of this inequality in Vietnam as they see it as worse than that of China - and Peter says they look him straight in the eye and they’ll tell him “it is no better in the West - where the rich are getting richer and the poor remain poor.”

They say that they are still looking for a better way - whilst still holding to their socialist ideals being egalitarian and they are modernising and getting ready to interact with the global economy and have a fairer society for their people.

Listen to Peter …

Education

English is now being taught in Primary, Secondary & Universities Whereas in 1997, it was only being taught in universities so as to teach diplomats and so forth..

Agricultural food production

30% of food is now traded by sole traders - where as many years ago it was all run by the state.

Health and Medicine

hospitals are very good - well trained personnel.

They were using interactive TV technologies communicating with other doctors and nurses in the other towns and cities.

Housing

in the last 20 years - Peter surmises that nearly the whole country has rebuilt or modernised all it’s housing and apartment blocks, in the 20 years he has been visiting the country - where in 1997 it was just a country of square concrete grey block houses - but today huge changes and now there are some architecturally stunning apartment blocks been built.

Peter encourages whatever new New Zealand Government that gets elected to restore relations with North Korea, just like Helens Clark’s Labour Government did prior to this previous National administration.

Notes:

There was only 54 minutes to cram as much as we could into this interview.

US Activist Gloria Steinem and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maireed  Maguire  an Irish Peace Activist - Marched  for  Peace in  Pyongyang  23rd May 2015

Peter Wilson  

NZ DPRK Society

http://asaa.asn.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/asian-currents-13-08.pdf

The article entitled "The Demonisation of North Korea."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QaNA9eSQVE      18 minute video ( with Anchor NZ butter)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=387&v=yPYxrmxOvcQ   fly over better than thought   

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/92073468/terence-obrien-baptism-of-fire-for-brownlee


The orchestrated “Korean crisis” is not about North Korea. It is an orchestration that lets Washington put nuclear missile bases on China’s border, just as the orchestrated “Iranian crisis” was the excuse for putting nuclear missile bases on Russia’s borders.  
Paul Craig Roberts: Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury for Economic Policy and ex Associate Editor of the Wall St Journal.
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org

Steve Papps is here in conversation with Liz Gunn who admits from the outset that Steve was a valuable mentor to her when she was going through a divorce, short on funds and even shorter on self confidence.

From those days, they have cemented a firm friendship. Steve has helped many people who are in challenging life situations and unsure about how to find a way through, and how to blossom again as people.

A very harsh childhood

Steve Papps has three businesses - Papps Nutrition, Papps Consultancy, and LifeForce Water. All of this from a man who grew up in a home that by his own admission was a “Once Were Warriors” household.

Liz asks him about the early challenges he faced- an unavailable father, an alcoholic mother and a house where parties, violence, police being called in the night, and dire poverty, were the norm. Yet he found bright spots - the good foster families who took him and his brother in at times, a love of learning and of his schooling in Remuera thanks to the state housing in which they were lucky enough to live.

Steve talks of having to have a pillow over his face and ears as a boy ( and he still does this) to be able to go to sleep. With that pillow over his face, he would make internal resolutions that he would be a father who hugged his children and was connected with them, and also a man rich enough to provide for his children so he could give them the kind of  childhood he was not enjoying . These were the early days of his unknowingly developing his ability to create a different reality for himself.

Determined to excel at school and in sport

Steve was determined to excel at school in sport. With his bright mind,  he also soaked in the good learning. But at 13, that state house was pulled down and the family were moved to a much rougher area and to a school in Penrose. From there, the two brothers started getting involved in drugs and alcohol and his schooling suffered.

When he was 16, he found out he was to become a father. He had an innate sense of what is right. He chose to stay with the mother of his child and sought out work. By 19, he was the father of three children .

Being responsible as a young 17 year old

At 17 he took on a commission job. He realised he could make in one day, what he was making in a week in his other job. He followed the advice of his Maori mentor exactly- “ I didn’t out think it. I did exactly what he said “ . He had to keep a positive mental attitude and never give up. He simply never gave his attention to the negative thoughts. His first day’s sales were a record. “ You see Liz, I had to sell ( or ) my son didn’t eat “. By 18, he had risen to assistant manager of NZ for the company, and he was running a whole team.

Steve then alluded to the second company he began - a security company which became extremely successful for him.

Using certain Principles to focus on Success

Liz and Steve discuss the principles behind success, by looking at Papps Consultancy’s aim-to help people with their consciousness, to help people understand how the Universe really operates . Everything is a reflection of the internal world, the internal thoughts.

He took these understandings in to Papps Nutrition and into body building. From coming last in his first competition, after studying the nutrition to help him win, he ended up representing NZ at the most prestigious amateur championship  Mr Universe . “ I became passionate - I outsmarted the bigger guys in nutrition and I studied how my mind works “

Steve now gets up at 4.30 am and does a 12 to 14 hour day at work plus his workout . By the end of the day, he still has the same level of energy as at 4.30, and he says it’s because he knows how to eat, how to drink water, how to think and how to breathe .

Combatting poor health and eating choices.

Steve talks of the growing levels of poor health in society . One example is the epidemic levels of diabetes - 9 people a week in NZ losing a limb because of diabetes - and yet he has seen evidence that it is able to be healed. “ Obviously there’s evidence that as a population,  we’re doing something wrong . And it’s the way that we’re shopping, the way that we’re eating “

He says that most people are overfed and at the same time are starving-  starving of nutrients.

Steve tells the story of a client, Colin, who had Type 2 diabetes. He was addicted to drugs and alcohol when he met Steve. He was very depressed. Steve did a nutrition plan for him . 8  weeks later, he had an appointment with the doctor and he was off all medication. His own doctor said to him “ Whatever you’re doing, just keep doing it” . The doctor added a follow up comment to that, which may surprise you when you listen to this interview.  Steve was bemused- and he and Colin were both confused by the doctor’s comment. Colin’s life story completely changed with his better health, his diabetes healing, his drug free life, his weight loss from 124 kg to 82 kg, his fitness programme, but most of all , with the different thinking patterns he developed through his talks with Steve,  and the coaching he received.  Thanks to the shifts from that different perspective which Colin developed, he is now in a happy relationship, has a young child, travels around the world , and is on his way to getting his own home.

“Discipline gets you started, it’s just like turning the key in the ignition. What is required is awareness. Discipline will get you started but awareness keeps the change”

Discipline but more-so - it’s Awareness  

Steve and Liz discuss the idea of awareness, and the difference of that from just positive thinking. He tells the story of Rene, his friend who now runs a successful business . But he used to have a false sense of “ NEXT week I’ll get my business started” ( and Steve talks about how people do that with fitness too - and in many other areas - “NEXT week I’ll get around to that “) . Steve tells the story of how he challenged Rene’s desire to stay within his comfort zone. Liz asks what happens when that human being takes that leap off the cliff.

Steve says every successful person will tell you about the failures they have had. It’s part of the process towards success. You can’t succeed without failures. And they’re not even really failures. They’re part of the refining of your consciousness.

Consciousness and Energy

Everything is energy, vibrating - protons , neutrons, electrons… but in their most refined form, it’s just one energy expressing itself in many forms. There’s actually only one energy vibrating on different frequencies.

When it comes to money, it’s all about the vibration we hold - it’s nothing to do with how smart we are, how many hours we work , or even the product itself!  It’s as if there is a mirror. The mirror will reflect back to you the essence of the energy at which you vibrate. Ask -for example-  how do I truly feel about money today ??  Steve has found that every wealthy person has one thing in common: they truly expected to be wealthy.

He takes a further common example- the woman who grew up in a home seeing her mother abused and now, as an adult, set at that frequency, she will tune in to an abuser, just as an abuser will tune in to a victim. It’s not from her conscious thoughts. What she needs is an awareness of deep subconscious energy ." Everything in your external world is a reflection of your internal world “

That person - that behaviour- can only stay in your life by you giving it attention.

Tuning in and becoming focused

Steve gives a powerful metaphor for tuning your energy,  by likening the 'tuning in' to changing the frequency of a radio.

Reality is happening inside of you. It’s only your attention to something that makes it ‘exist' outside you.

Changing from within

Everyone is trying to change their external world, not their internal thinking patterns and beliefs. That is where the misunderstanding lies.

These are shifts in fundamental understandings. "Reality happens on the inside and the story we’re playing out on the inside, we’ll see hardened into physical form on the outside. But that’s not reality “ .

It all starts from within. Someone who is vibrating from frustration will manifest frustration around her effortlessly .

Our bodies consist of trillions of cells with their own intelligence  

In each of our bodies are 37.2 trillion cells. That’s 37.2 reactions per second ! That’s an incredible intelligence flowing through us every second. Life flowing effortlessly. There are laws that operate this universe. The influence you have is tremendous and these laws of the universe are exact. The laws of the Universe. You can apply them in each area of your life. You can have a totally different life . But if you don’t even understand them, it won’t open up for you .

Awakening to possibilities

Liz asks Steve about that little boy with his head under the pillow, daydreaming of a different life. Living it in his imagination. Steve talks of Einstein saying that imagination is more powerful than knowledge. Imagination is Image- in-action.

Liz refers to that third company - LifeForce Water - and the book on water which Steve has written. And she asks him about his successes making millions in a security company. And how he also misapplied the principles which had helped him build up wealth and success, by saying to himself “Don’t you mess this up”. Liz says she will discuss this with Steve in greater detail in their next programme.

Learning from mistakes :)

And Tim Lynch, who was sitting in the studio waiting to edit the interview, later edited in the reaction of Liz when she thought they were all off air! It’s a spontaneous, heartfelt reaction to a man Steve Papps,  who helps others from his own heart.

Papps Nutrition - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oil6YUKk3Hs

https://www.pappsnutrition.com

A conversation between two lively caring Kiwi women about the state of our nation.

Liz Gunn and Lisa Er took time this week to Korero about the state of the nation and the ways in which New Zealanders can educate ourselves about our country and our world.

(A korero is a conversation or a discussion.)

Sadly, the wider research on our country’s current poverty and homelessness, on our record suicide numbers, on the widening gap between the haves and the have nots, can have the sense of a litany of failures . There are many reasons to feel discouraged.

BYPASS MAINSTREAM MEDIA

Yet the freedoms offered by the internet, and online (and radio) discussion, can offer a way through this sense of overwhelm.

Lisa and Liz discuss the ways in which to become more informed and to find the courage to question the norms and the prevailing viewpoints often sold to us through media acolytes of the government viewpoint.  From there, it’s rewarding to become actively involved - by each of us making our own contributions, in our own corners of this country we love. Liz talks of her work with the homeless on our streets and Lisa refers to the nurturing of a system of values as a bedrock for political and societal decision-making.

Perhaps the biggest issue coming in to the election is the need to find the passion to stand up and to speak out. Certainly that is the spirit in the studio when Lisa and Liz meet for their discussions.

ISSUES

One can see on social media much distress about the poverty in New Zealand, lack of housing, homelessness, and frustration about the state of our rivers and lakes. There are those who passionately want change, to cannabis laws, 1080 drops, fluoride in our water, and the banking system.  Others want to ensure that our food is safe and labelled, and that genetic engineering is not let out into the environment. Education and health figure strongly in the list of concerns that people have. Some people concentrate on single issues and become experts, and others view the issues from a bigger picture.

However all of the above, and more, need to be included in the discussions we have, especially before the elections. Unfortunately the mainstream media tends to focus on leaders and not on policy so some people feel disinclined to vote.

Corruption is another issue that people find hard to accept but as Nicky Hager show us in his two latest books, “Dirty Politics”, and “Hit and Run”, we need to be very awake and aware.

HOPE

Both Liz and Lisa hope that joining in with this korero -  through your own listenership - will nurture passion in each valued listener, and bring the simmering fire in your belly to life in a burning blaze of  thoughtful discussion on the main aspects of New Zealand life that need to be improved . Such outspokenness will lend an urgency to pre-election build-up, and may even inspire our families -and especially our young - to sign up as voters, and speak up as Kiwis.

Links

UNICEF report: New Zealand 34th out of 41 developed countries for child well being”

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/93583589/unicef-report-wellbeing-of-kiwi-kids-languishes-behind-other-developed-countries

“No lunches for poor children”

http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/shows/2017/05/lunchbox-differences-in-decile-1-and-decile-10-schools.html

This programme is sponsored by The Awareness Party

Caroline Robinson is the founder of Cabal, a creative studio exploring and advancing new pathways for regenerative development. Results of Cabal’s public art collaborations can be seen across Auckland City and beyond.

The whole living systems practice behind these artworks, informs Cabal’s wider role as an integration facilitator, contributing to complex city-making projects by supporting project teams to grow the capability to work in full reciprocity within their unique community and place.

I first met Caroline at Dave Breuer’s - Anew NZ ‘group mind gathering’ - at AUT - Auckland University of Technology.  There she had a huge blank art board at this visionary function that let her visually translate the stories that speakers covered, to that very engaged audience.  This enabled people to see how intellectual concepts and mental information can be elegantly transcribed into a visual form that was holistic in intent and that lead us to explore as participants, how we the people can become involved and renew our whole country.

Based on Measures of Genuine Progress (and “genuine economic success”), as a challenge to the misuse of GDP, via the measurements of social, cultural, economic, environmental and governance wellbeing - with the public shared visions determining the goals of wellbeing.  (See at the bottom of this posting.)

Measuring Human Joy and Contentment

Dr Ron Coleman from Canada was at this function to explain and Dr Marilyn Waring http://www.marilynwaring.com/ as an Ex National Party Member of Parliament (who went/rebelled against the National Prime Minister Robert Muldoon, many years previously) introduced Ron as she had been doing work on the ’true’ cost of living index and how do we measure success - particularly our decision making process at a governmental level. Known as the ‘genuine progress indicators' - meaning not just managing the gross national product and financial benefits from across the country - but also understanding what makes us flourish - what brings joy and happiness and peace as well as bringing balance in a holistic way.

Today, Caroline as an extraordinary creative artist - is still very much aligned with the notion of ‘genuine progress indicators’ she remains very interested and curious about what are the conditions that we need for life to flourish within our homes, within our communities, our nation and our planet.

Community & Connection

Asking the question? - How do we create a flourishing for all of life - including ourselves?

Food being a conductor of getting together to eat and share … gatherings around eating and sharing - being a universal common ground - and in the world of today that needs to be more unified - Caroline's focus is - how do we bring this all together?

So what is it we need to improve? Like how do we re relate to each other - connect the fragmentation and those who have been isolated from each other?  How do we best do this? So that we are working all together as a more dynamic whole?

Because the processes of regeneration of rebirthing of healing is becoming paramount as there's a lot that is out of balance and in crises - there is much that needs to be addressed.

So what is the journey we need to take to come back into wholeness and that everybody has a role to play in this.

And with the experience and the practices that she brings to the conversation -

The Land and Sacred Place

Caroline is very aware of place and the historical implications of how did that particular area come into being - the terrain, the living matter, the water sources and courses - the Maori tribes or iwi that were present prior to the coming of the white man - the sacredness of life over a very broad context .

That there are many areas of land in Auckland that housing and buildings sit on - yet underneath these houses are a hidden creeks where a spring once was. That in today’s urbanised sprawl a little rivulet - or tiny creek, can be a wonderful play area for young children - where the water is clear, healthy and cool. Kids can see their reflection, see the stones or marine flora around it, maybe cockabullies or kura - freshwater crayfish - yet today’s developers will most probably put pipes in this area and pipe all the water away underground and thus the stereotyped boring industrial housing complex - hypnotises us into a thousand high priced houses looking basically the same, on a treeless landscape - scraped of nature - is the NZ culture of homogenous sameness?

Auckland Connection -Tamaki Makaurau

Coming from a Taranaki farm near Stratford in the rural landscape, that had many different animals - gave her a deeper sense of nature and its richness. That when she arrived in high density housing Auckland gave her cause for reflection.

Tamaki Makaurau - Auckland, gave her another understanding of place - of the Maori, the mauri (essence) and going deeper and feeling the grief of the landscape and ecology of what has been lost - in the vast forest of what was once Auckland and the covering up of water courses or arterial waterways by burying them and piping that water to the sea as per the Horotiu stream for example that used to run down the centre of Queen Street in Auckland.

That there are springs or puna that are even very close to the PlanetFM radio station that emanates pristine water that bubbles up out of the volcanic rocks and lava - very pure water - and there are around 51 volcanoes that comprise the whole city of Auckland. With numerous cones that we can climb, dotted around the city.

Public Domain and Community Involvement

Caroline has a feeling for public domain and community projects

She has been involved in the Panmure and Glen Innes suburbs of Auckland for the master plan for the town centre - bringing story of people and place, including geological and ecological activity so as to define and development projects.

In this process - getting to know each other as humans is so very critical. if we are to develop trust - mana - wairua and mauri - all are integral to deeper connection.

Living Earth Papatuanuku.

The mentions Te Urewera in Tuhoe country - as a park with human rights - that for the Tuhoe people and the NZ Government acknowledge at some level that ‘the land is a living being.’  Papatuanuku - Mother Earth.

Caroline is focused on find a space for people to work out the complexities of the challenges that are facing us - and allow them a way to work themselves out.  

Regeneration

In this regenerative practice it covers working out complexity - that there is a harmonising energy within nature that has the ability to work things out. Caroline says it is in many ways ‘beyond consensus’ - and in ‘trusting the wisdom of life.'

It knows how to work complexity out - all we need is the space to take the time to connect - and communicate - share the breath and weave family - and though this sounds philosophical there is a very pragmatic quality to it - see her sculptures along the motorway in Grafton gully in Auckland - where the artwork has an intention to speak to the resonance of that place and its history and respond to that.

She says that the art does not need to be a sculpture - that it can be a building as in the Living Whare in Taneatua - In Tuhoe country - it could be a roading project - even a skyscraper - (Listen)

That everything we do - needs to become an art form.

That the universe is a work of art - that our planet and all its biota and landscapes are an art form - thus the importance for us as humans is to create our homes on our home planet into art forms that embed beauty and geometry as a reflection of the magnificence of creation and of what we can evolve.

Something that Caroline says meets all of our needs at once … be it every building built - every community developed can be part of a regeneration into a greater whole. Economic - social, cultural - spiritual and our human developmental journey they can all coalesce together - it is possible.

That the universe is a work of art - and our planet and nature is one too

The Living Future Institute - https://living-future.org/

The Living Building Challenge - has a ‘check out test’ where if you are an architect and/or builder you have to use only materials that are ecologically sustainable and non polluting?  

They have a red list of 25 chemicals, that cannot be in any building materials.  

Firth Concrete in NZ now have a product that is biologically safe and comes up with a big tick.

You can now check your home building products - https://living-future.org/declare/declare-about/

‘A Declare Label’ Answers Three Questions:

1. Where does a product come from?
2. What is it made of?
3. Where does it go at the end of its life?

The Regenerative Economy is becoming a renewed mantra for today and tomorrow.

https://medium.com/@designforsustainability/towards-a-regenerative-economy-bf1c2ed6f792

Regenerative Building - One being finalised in the Wynyard Quarter here on Auckland Waterfront   Educational Centre for Sustainable Coastlines.  http://sustainablecoastlines.org/the-flagship/

Biophilia - living in accord with your home that is embedded in nature and all of life.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biophilia_hypothesis

This interview covers Homelessness too.

The amount of homeless in this country is a crisis here in NZ.  That there are ways forward on this important issue for people to have a home and be safe and secure  Not only warm and dry homes but homes that become temples of belonging - places where we can really belong and be and developed ourselves …   We can do many things, we can build good homes, we know how to live on and with the land - grow gardens and quality food - let’s have a conversation about the larger NZ - where we all live.  So that we are really regenerating life. (Listen)

Omaru stream Glen Innes  Auckland - One of the few remaining streams that have not been piped and buried.    

https://www.watercare.co.nz/SiteCollectionDocuments/AllPDFs/Glen_Innes_Matters_Feb_2017.pdf

“Ko au te awa, ko te awa ko au."

The whakatauki above, translated into English, says

‘I am the river and the river is me'

Call to Action

Caroline says: “climate change is a deadline for humanity …”

http://www.cabal.co.nz/

Introduction to Regenerative Development (5 short videos)

https://vimeo.com/album/4650028

As per in the introduction of Dr Ron Coleman - Genuine Progress Indicators.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genuine_progress_indicator

I have just had Professor Mark Orams' in the station for a very uplifting exchange on the state of NZ’s inshore waters that connect out and around to embrace our whole planet.

His own interests focussed on marine recreation and sport - high performance sport, leadership, coaching and outdoor education.

A professional sailor who as a youngster was a keen ‘yachtie’ winning both NZ and World titles as well as a crewman on Sir Peter Blake’s round the world winning team - plus been involved in two America’s Cups as well.

He calls for collaborative work and for ordinary people at grassroots level to lead from the front. For having a healthy understanding of the vastness of our ocean systems - and having spent a lot of time racing and visiting other countries, recognises that from a planetary perspective - the global marine systems are in increasing trouble and that these challenges must be urgently addressed.

Acknowledging that NZ has still got an opportunity to initiate the much needed corrective measures if we are to arrest the decline of fish stocks, ocean pollution, drifting plastics and runoff from the land - among numerous tipping points.

Indigenous Connection

Mark says it is our engagement with nature that has to be addressed as we pakeha and white races have put distance between us and the natural world - whereas indigenous peoples are affiliated far more closely as they have lived more embedded in the natural process. Pacific Islander and Maori have a natural affinity to the cycles of nature. Especially harvesting food, and survival  etc  and of their understanding of the seasons and the food planting and gathering. He further reiterates, that for indigenous peoples - that connection goes beyond the basics of knowledge and integrates through into cultural connection as well as spiritual wisdom .

Having been around as the human species for about 200,000 years and a great majority of this time - all of us has been deeply connected with nature - we all have been indigenous peoples.

That for we in the developed world, especially Australia and NZ it has been a relatively short time - that we have actually lived apart from nature - quite possibly only about 3 or 4 human generations - or from the industrial revolution onwards. What this means is that in our DNA - in our ’substance’ for the greater course of our history we have had that deep connection with nature as part of who we are.

Mark then goes on to talk about our immersion into nature and the psychological shift of our perspective as we embed ourselves into the greater awareness of the immensity of its power. Covering also our spiritual well being - and that through recreation, getting away from city and urban life and going bush, to the mountains, on a river or a lake - to sea, that recreation is actually ‘re-creation’ - and the time to restore our energies and well being.

Covering working with nature as against it - reading the signs, wind direction, water currents, moon phase and aware of the weather and being able to astutely adapt to harness the natural forces of nature - by bringing about a greater attunement and wellbeing. Where we can not control wind, waves or rain, but we learn how to adapt.

Some days - all goes well and the elements are warm and soft whereas some days or nights nature throws the full force of its fury and we have to be very focused and alert - thinking ‘gee - am I going to make it through this?’

He says that the contrasting situations are healthy as they are awe inspiring and re-connecting and they give us a different perspective that we cannot control Mother nature or control everything that happens to us or everything that surrounds us. What this does it forces us to slow down to the pace of nature and he says that this is a very healthy thing. Because most of us today are rushing to everything - to work, home from work, events and other commitments and our days are very, very full - and we control largely what we do - where we go, when we choose to do it - or others control it for us.

However, when we are out in the middle of the ocean in a very small boat we cannot determine what happens - and in these situations be it calm or stormy - it can be very primordial - a very basic thing and Mark sees it as a very good thing as it lets us get a true feel of nature - inside.

Listen

New Zealand Environmental Challenges compared with Overseas.

Speaking on the waters surround NZ - they are largely pretty clean especially the further out we go, however closer into the shore we have numerous challenges because 3 or 4 generations ago (40-60 years) the conditions were far better, but NZ’s population has increased with much development around the Auckland coastline. As well as globally the population has now jumped up by an extra 5 billion people/consumers since 1950.

This huge spike in population has had a large affect on this country, on the shoreline and coastal waters. However he says we can still engage with the sea today where our health is not put at risk - whereas with so many countries overseas the coastal waters are so polluted that you would never swim - let alone, put your head under the water - worse swallowing a mouthful or having it enter your body by a cut or an abrasion  - especially where there are large populations living on the water’s edge, or that their catchment drains into that coastal ecosystem.  So there are compromised ecosystems as a result of human activity and our disposal of waste products either deliberately or accidentally that he says is very sobering … so much so that it is always a joy for him to come back to NZ waters and a cleaner marine environment, which he says we cannot take for granted and that we need to be very vigilant about it and that we have to work very hard to maintain.

Everything is Connected

Everything is connected - what ever we do on the land has an affect on the inshore coastal environment - the same pattern has occurred - for example - car tires and the chemicalised particulates wearing off on to the road - off the tires, as well as the dripping of fluid out of car exhaust pipes onto the road - then it rains and runoff and stormwater enters into the coastal waters - curtailing and  degrading the area and forcing away fish and shellfish from rocks and surrounding bays - etc - for example Auckland’s East Coast Bays are virtually devoid of the super abundance of fish life of 80 years ago. 

Talk to any person of 60-70 years plus of age and they will say that things are know where as good as they once were. There is a lot of wisdom in the Elders and they  can tell us how it’s used to be like - so that we have this information that is telling us about this long term slow, chronic degradation - and this is very difficult situation to solve!  

What We Can Do

For answers, there are some worthy innovative NZ’s schemes at present - marine protected areas which are stark contrasts to the degradation that is happening. These  are Goat Island at Leigh http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/auckland/places/cape-rodney-okakari-point-marine-reserve-goat-island/

on the East coast - North of Auckland and Tiri Tiri Matangi Island http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/auckland/places/tiritiri-matangi-scientific-reserve-open-sanctuary/ that have been locked away for a sufficient amount of time and are now thriving - especially as Goat Island was left to its own renewal other than to stop fishing and extractive industries and now it is alive with fish and a huge drawcard for people wanting to see how NZ once was. As for Tiri Tiri Matangi - tree planting has occurred plus the introduction of native bird species and now it is a paradise of greenery and bird song - where once it was barren grassland denuded of trees.

So with ‘commitment, will and effort’ - we can bring back nature with some conscious decisions being made to turn things around. NZ has many ‘off shore Arks’ where islands have been set aside to become sanctuaries for endangered native flora and fauna and these are very successful that they are Islands of Hope - John Craig and Neil Mitchell on bringing Tiri Tiri Matangi into being  - that bold decision making is needed - like Prof John Moreton and Bill Ballentine did with Goat Island as advocates getting people to think about protecting the marine environment and bringing people with them.

Grassroots Action

These examples Marc says are really important - because when we act together many superb results can come about. These are empowering stories and that our future can be far better as a result. He says grassroots are the answer  - he is a massive fan of the people who work in the ‘not for profit sector’ - people whom have made huge sacrifices of time, energy and money and made enormous sacrifices for causes that they believe in.

From large  organisations like the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society http://www.forestandbird.org.nz/ to the small ones like the Motutapu Restoration Society http://www.motutapu.org.nz/  or the education group ‘Experiencing Marine Reserves’ http://www.emr.org.nz/ - a small not for profit charitable trust that takes children into marine reserves to show them deeper qualities of nature and what marine protection can do.

Volunteers by the Thousands

Right across NZ here are hundreds of thousands of NZers who volunteer to make a difference because they believe in it. He says that these dedicated people are just not acknowledged enough which is a great pity - they are the real NZers - the real kiwis doing great things out there - we need to be proud of what they do - they are unsung heroes - never getting national awards or headlines in the media. To Mark they are the real heroes of NZ. He encourages us to take leadership and see what we can do around your particular area and take some people with you and do weeding and clean up beaches, streams etc.

Local Communities Working Together

Local communities - in nature, with and for nature - establishing win wins - as meeting good people and achieving a satisfactory result,  because he says there is a primeval connection that after a full day or a week of working together - we will go home and have the best nights sleep in a long time because we have met and worked alongside people from vasty different walks of life, all with good intentions and especially being team spirited.

Good People Committing To Co-operate

Mark states that the portrayal of human behaviour and existence that comes through the MSM media is not an accurate portrayal of the great majority of people - the great majority of the humanity whom live in this world and in NZ are good people - they are well intentioned - they care about their families, they care about their neighbours and they care about nature and they care about their country - These people don’t get the headlines!      Listen ...

There are people everywhere who have decent values and morals and will help you out - who will be friendly, who will greet you - who are people you can trust - this is the essence of being a decent person - it’s important to remember this.  Plus, that we hold these values for ourselves as well and take the high road.  

Values and Principles.

He mentions that some of the above principles may have been more prevalent 30 to 60 years ago - but the principles of honesty and integrity and decency and looking after one another are what he feels are at the heart of what is is to be a human - and certainly what it means to be a New Zealander.

We talked about Sir Peter Blake and team spirit and what this means.  Though a cliche, a champion team - will always beat a team of champions - what is needed is a tight synergistic team. He said Peter intuitively understood a number of things.  

He could take on a competitive team that could have more resources, perhaps be more talented, be more experienced and beat them because of the power of the team.

Where as a member of his team you always felt that you were important - that you mattered - that your opinion could add value.

So even if you were sweeping the floors or cleaning the toilet or the person with a brain the size of the planet making computations of fluid dynamics and design of the boat - you were important.

That we are all part of a greater whole and that we all depend on this planet that we share.

When we pool and pull together collectively - we make a massive difference.

Conscious Choices

Decision that we take - the products that we buy - the packaging that we use - the cars that we drive - the decisions we make of the companies that we support - or the candidates we vote for. We need to be Aware.

In the end Mark says that we have to do the best we can with what God gave us and that this is the mantra that Mark lives by.

Listen ...

Covering the ‘Overwhelmers’ - Fukushima - radiation in the Pacific ocean - etc - how do we address situations like this? Plus Climate Change.

What can I do as one individual to be able to make a difference?

Mark says - collectively this is where we make major changes.

Saying that we need to take heart with Sweden’s Volvo’s decision to make all electric or hybrid cars in 10 years time. That they don’t make these decisions lightly - that they are ‘reading the tea leaves' - they see that there is a greening of the market place and they are positioning themselves to take advantage as well as lead …

Voting

Voting with your dollars - not buying from certain corporations who are at variance with your philosophy - thus more people supporting this notion will impel the company to change its outlook - its products range - its way it connects with consumers.

But first - before you lead others - lead yourself - walk your talk

Mark talked about mental health and that we in NZ have some major challenges around disempowered people - especially male youth in this country of getting to a point of a dark space - that when we do good things for others or nature and give of ourselves - we also reap the rewards of that good act as well - that by giving we have a better sense of our purpose - we have more satisfaction as to who we are as a person that if we like, we really can achieve a greater level of contentment and happiness.

He says that ironically that one of the answers to mental health is to dedicate at least some of your time to helping those who are less fortunate and are in such a difficult situation than you are.

Being Respectful

Without being disrespectful Mark says that a lot of the mental health challenges - are actually quite inward looking and are quite self serving - it’s about me - it’s about awww  - I’m in such a difficult situation and my life is terrible and I can’t find a way out - and he is not disrespecting that - but one of the ways forward is to actually start thinking about how we can help others, because there are always people who are in a more difficult life circumstance than us!

If we are able to do something that can help them or if we can find a way to reconnect with nature and that we can plant a tree or a series of trees or do something that can allow us - that at the end of  the day - we realise that our existence has mattered - that it has made a positive difference. That through us being here - the place is better than it was - these things have an enormous personal benefit for us - listen to the interview for more on this serious subject.

Separation from nature - from our society and the community - it leads to material things outside of ourselves that can cause many problems … listen  … these are distractions

Giving is Important - from Ourselves to the Collective Greater Good.

This interview covers communities coming together.

Technology as a separator and not necessarily a bringer of people face to face and eyeball to eyeball and closer into hugging distance.

Mark talks about Natural Empathy

That we have wicked problems - climate change - plastic pollution - declining fisheries - coastal sedimentation  and near shore pollutants

All these are our collective fault - we are all part of the problem.

How can we come together and to do something different - as opposed to making them worse?

That we start this philosophical conversation and have the ability to make compromises

“I will give you this - if you will give up that.”

Mark asks us to find ways to end polarising viewpoints.

That as we all share the same planet - let's come together to resolve these issues for the sake of future generations.

Dr Mark Orams - most definitely worth listening and taking in.

It’s all about an unfolding journey of working with the land experimenting with new and unconventional methods to bring balance to the ecology and yet be able to have the soil sustain them with high quality, nutrient dense - organic food. A life that he and his wife Rachel and children absolutely love.

Greg has also been involved in a significant tree planting program that coincided with the Air New Zealand Environment Trust wanting to plant trees to offset some of their aircraft emissions. This enabled them to bring their environmental footprint back down to earth - by planting 85,000 trees, the vast majority being natives.

The Family Farm

Greg Hart, his wife Rachel and family live beside a 30 hectare lake - (80 acres) on 1500 acres or 650 - hectares - which Greg says is an average size farm in the Hawkes Bay region for 1 and a bit person to run …

Their lake was where tuna or eeling took place by early Maori - plus waka or canoes have been found sunken in the lake too. These link back to Maori families, that Greg has connections to.

His farm is a mixture of beautiful rolling hills and some flat land and some steeper hill country with about 30 acres of remnants of native bush which he has been recently adding to.

Unfolding Journey of Discovery

It’s all about an unfolding journey of working with the land experimenting with new and unconventional methods to bring balance to the ecology and yet be able to have the soil sustain them with high quality nutrient dense organic food. A life that he wife Rachel and his children absolutely love.

He has a web page called ‘Restoring Paradise’ - where 1,000 years ago his area would have been in perfect balance …

It’s about working with the land, not extracting maximum yield - experiencing family, joy, people visiting and sharing.

Greg has been involved in a significant tree planting program that coincided with the Air New Zealand Environment Trust wanting to plant trees to offset some of its aircraft emissions and bring its environmental footprint back down to earth - by planting 85,000 trees, the vast majority being natives.

The plan was to restore ecosystems and regenerating native forests

To also become a working model of a sustainable regenerating agricultural system and have an open farm where visitors are encouraged to come and reconnect to nature and see where and how their food grows and comes from.

Because at present, NZ’s ecological systems, particularly due to dairy farming are becoming more out of balance.

A big driver for Greg is about sustainable food systems and food milage based on oil, and all the fossil fuels consumed in growing food. Grain imports coming from overseas to feed the pigs and chickens has a large ecological footprint.

In Greg’s estimation even his hens are not really sustainable either due to lack of granular food - with less organic wheat being grown in NZ.

Perennial as against Annual crop planting

Greg’s looking at more perennial crops so as to stop the continued cycle of growing each and every year, with more labour and fuel consumption disturbing the soil, the soil microbes, greater erosion etc.

He has noticed that his pigs are doing quite a lot of damage to the soil on his farm and he has concerns about lack of soil cover and that with recent rains - can wash away this precious soil into drains and away. etc.

Regenerative Agriculture

The present focus is on regenerative agriculture - it is somewhat like organics and an ecological approach to sustainable land management -  like building up soil carbon and humus in the soil.  This is by reducing our carbon emissions due to the way this particular system sequesters Co2 out of the atmosphere and locking it down in the soil, as the soil is the biggest sink of carbon - it’s naturally built into the ‘earth system’.

So regenerative agriculture takes and locks down carbon and makes the soil more fertile resilient and also capable of producing more nutrient dense food.

Darren Doherty - http://www.regrarians.org/about/ -

a Permaculture practitioner teacher from Australia - states: if the 5 billion hectares of agricultural soils around our planet were to increase their soil carbon content by 1.6% it would take out 100 parts per million of co2 out of the atmosphere - which is quite doable - this locking it back down in the soil. We could drop c02 content from 400 parts per million to 300 parts per million and it would really benefit our global food production.

Regenerative Agriculture increase biodiversity - whereas the present Neo-Liberal system is still cutting down forests to expand industrial agriculture - Greg is heading in the opposite direction and setting aside the less productive food growing areas and planting trees and restoring ecosystems and he is noticing the incredible increase in insects and bird life and nature is growing back into restoring itself with natural cycles starting to kick back in.

Water Quality

This brings up water quality and with quality humus this acts as a natural water filter and the need to keep the soil after heavy rains from washing into water courses, rivers and out to sea - affecting fishing beds etc.

Holistic Thinking

Greg uses a holistic grazing system and again ‘ holistic thinking’ is embedded throughout the methods that he is using right across his farm as he endeavours to intuitively read what nature requires to rebalance itself and build up the soil carbon with its trillions of microbes - the microflora - especially bacteria and fungi - the 'workhorses' of our planetary ecology.

The use of industrial fertilisers and chemicals are harming the soil biology - especially over the long term - when he wants the soil and planet to be thriving from day one.

Greg's Philosophy is ‘do no harm.' 

One of his farming heroes is American Joel Salitin  - PolyFace farm -http://www.polyfacefarms.com/our-story/ - Time magazine called him the most innovative farmer in the world and he is also a brilliant communicator - He is stacking enterprises on his land - by looking and mimicking how nature generates food.

Embedding Micro Enterprises across the Farm

Being innovative, Greg has created some small micro units - where someone can milk the cows and rear some calves and make an income from that. He is also direct marketing meat from the farm with home kills - and he has people with beehives - doing honey etc - and he sees there are incredible opportunities on the land that he is stewarding and care taking.

Having his own Lodging for Guests.

Having a portable saw mill is advantageous - he uses after cutting down  his own trees into timber - which he used to clad his lodge that sleeps 17 people down on his lake side.- The Lodge can be used for reunions, events, workshops, presentation etc  and many families and groups come to hang out in nature and reconnect with themselves at a deeper level. Even Corporate groups to breathe deeply again and chill out. It’s especially handy around education about earth systems etc, and of the necessity for people to understand the transition to regenerative agriculture.

Deepening Our Connection

That there is so much more that can be done to work with the land but Greg emphasises that it is about people working together and deriving more meaning at the same time.

The interview covers Pure Hawkes Bay - http://purehawkesbay.org/ - that is wanting GE free status for the region and has a lot of local Council support whilst the Federated Farmers from the opposite perspective are arguing against it and the conscious people of the region!!!

Greg's farm is an all grass system - no crops like turnips, swedes, maize and potatoes - as he wants to keep the tractor in the shed and see if he can live without disturbing the soil as much as possible.

Which leads again back to Holistic Grazing

Alan Savoury originally out of Zimbabwe http://www.savory.global/ - who observed the grazing animals of Africa from buffalo and zebra and to the bison of the American plains and with near on millions of animals in these herds  - these animals live on a very long seasonal rotation and continually move along eating the tops of grass a lot of it tall and defecating and urinating at the same time. Whilst following hoofed animals break down most of the stalks which are composed of mainly carbon and are pushed down into the dung, into the soil that over time this has built up a deep rich organic soil rich in soils microbes. -

These African areas and great plains in America have some of the deepest richest soils that we have on our planet. That the richness of the soil allows great numbers of animals to be fed over millennia and the animals just kept moving - hence these areas are incredibly rich in grass, soil and deeply rooted plants and grass life. It’s turning sunlight into food for grazing animals.  It’s also  like composting on the soil surface.

Grass is basically a carbon pump, the leaves are solar panels - plants are one of the most effective ways of sequestering co2 out of the atmosphere and pulsing it down into the ground.

Greg is doing the same with his cattle using electric fences and moving the cattle everyday - and the rotational moving around the farm has the grass regenerating very fast and healthily. Because they are not eating every blade of grass percentage of leaves and stalks are still being ground into the soil along with dung and urine - the grass springs back into life quickly after …

Back to Joe Salitin and a carbonaceous diaper - dung + leaves and stalks + urine builds up and covers your soil. Caring for it. Listen to the interview

Note that pastoral agriculture is still the backbone of the NZ economy - but is is based on importing mega amounts of fertiliser for agriculture a lot of it phosphate from North Africa and Greg says that all the energy in mining it and trucking or railing it to ports - shipping to NZ then trucking to where it is processed then trucking it out to the rural regions and putting it in an aerial top dressing lane has huge costs as well as an ecological footprint skyrocketing.

Will we have a crimp in fossil fuels in the future? If so Greg is prepared to work as if there could be one.

Greg has learnt from courses in Biological Agriculture - (Listen to 4 interviews by Graeme Sait, as well as Arden Anderson, Christine Jones on GreenplanetFM.com) as well as organics and biodynamics and he finds that this holistic grazing management using these natural cycles has so many benefits.

Utilising Grazing and Tree Cropping Together

Greg then talks about environmental web sites that are saying if we want to save the planet we have to give up meat. Saying that he does not see any vegetarian eco systems in the world - yet animals are part of this nutrient cycling - and he is focusing on growing food producing trees on his farm - to get away from cultivating annual crops for our food. Where instead an integrated perennial polycultural system where you have food producing trees nutrient cycling trees and animals also working through the system - grazing under the trees etc.

Greg talks about vegetarianism and a meat diet - (listen) re rice and pasta wheat not grown in NZ  same for pulses are all imported. These use up food miles. Meat is local.

Mark Shepard - ‘Restoration Agriculture’ - https://permacultureapprentice.com/permaculture-profiles/new-forest-farm-mark-shepard-100-acre-15-years-of-establishment/  - that all our energy and cultivation is going into annual crops - rice, wheat, soy and corn - it’s so energy intensive every year - that the soils get ploughed up and the sun bakes and bleaches soil organisms in the heat and then rains can come and wash the soil away - it is disastrous at many levels   - there is no sustainability in this, especially when you add chemical sprays and fuel use.

Nut trees in NZ, Greg says is a grand idea reducing our need for a lot of  annual soil cultivation. Walnuts, almonds, and hazel nuts have potential in this country  

Universities - the need for natural soil science.

Universities are not doing deep soil science - studying nature - but instead are looking at chemical band aids and trying to force feed the plant whilst in many cases destroying the microorganisms that are pivotal to feeding the plant. Many scientists are also spending so much of their time writing submissions for funding that they are spending a great deal of their time endeavouring to dream up ways so as to be financially viable. The commercial expediency of the Neo Liberal winner takes all approach to business - is devastating true scientific research in NZ.

Today’s industrial farming has only one big winner, and they are the large agro combines and corporations. Whilst the farmer in so many instances is chemicalising his farm, depleting nature and selling unhealthy produce onto the market.

Sam Lang - https://www.nuffield.org.nz/projects/ - Nuffield 2016 scholar travelling the world staying with Greg looking at sustainable systems and to get financial support to do these studies finds that finance is quite difficult to obtain in the current commercial environment - especially researching a green option.

Covering his crowd funding program with ‘million metre streams’ -https://millionmetres.org.nz/ - planting around his lake on his property.

Diversity of nature and a diversity of people who end up visiting - it’s the friendships and relationships and the warmth of connection - he loves sharing with people a farming experience.

People can also become ‘a friend of the farm’ with an annual membership and people can - using that money plant trees with Greg's vision of ‘Fields of Food.  https://www.mangarara.co.nz/product/friend-the-farm/friend-of-the-farm-subscription/ -

He has just had a visit from the Grand Chancellor James Cook hotel in Wellington and this keen group have turned up 5 years in a row and each year they grow another row of food trees on his farm - and this is what happens when you are receptive to work with the NZ public. In the future Greg says that there will be so much food that visitors will take it away and surpluses given to charities …

We also have to get away from this scarcity mindset - to one of abundance 

This is only a portion of this very interesting interview. - Tim

These 2 recent videos which include Mangarara - The Family Farm and Greg's philosophies. "Restoring Paradise" and "Regenerators"

www.mangarara.co.nz

When the Christchurch Earthquakes struck 6 years ago - Project Lyttelton was already in operation and they were in many ways pivotal in assisting in and around Lyttelton during and after this disaster.

Project Lyttelton in the South Island could be deemed one of the more unique communities in NZ - as enterprising people are doing effectual things as they build warm community relationships that support each other in their daily life. Situated on the other side of the Port Hills only a few kilometres from Christchurch  http://www.lyttelton.net.nz -

Why does a community come together?

Because these people enjoy warm hearted company that belongs to a creative and caring organisation. One that has the component of Time Banking being integral and is within the umbrella of Project Lyttelton - it is in many ways the glue that along with mindfulness and love - hold this little community together. When the Christchurch Earthquakes struck 6 years ago - Project Lyttelton was already in operation and they were in many ways pivotal in assisting in many areas of this disaster.

That as a community it is very open to ideas - if someone comes to them with a concept they will first - run it past their ‘vision’ - and if it fits and if there is a champion of this vision - they will take it on and support that idea. The important component, is having a champion to run it - as often ideas do come up, but if they have no champion it fails because no one is ‘eating  breathing and being it.’

When they take on an activity or enterprise, Project Lyttelton also puts an advisory group around it, as it can be quite lonely, and this advisory group can then offer ‘group wisdom’ to support and assist it in steering this idea or concept into fruition.

Mind Maps & Time Banks Are Important

So they draw up a Mind Map to get a spatial plan of what ideas come up - many of them innovative and what Margaret has found that time and again, that a Time Bank is integral in nearly every mind map that they draw up - because a Time Back has the names of people who have the skills and the know-how and connections to make projects happen.

Time Banks, Margaret says, are the blood supply or the nervous system of the whole area - that as a singular person championing their own project where you have to be your own lawyer, accountant, marketeer, artist, salesperson, go-for - when you are part of a team - you draw from the collective skills of your Time Bank. This is the gift and magic of organising a time bank in your localised area. You are resource rich!

In NZ Time Banking is based around people’s secondary skills - that are not their main form of income - as they are taxed if they are following their primary financial means of earning a living.  For example - if you are a builder who can do hedge cutting by swapping an hour with a florist who is prepared to paint your garage - one hour of each doing what they are ‘2nd best at’ - is how time banks are structured here in NZ. In the USA and the UK - time banks are exempt from tax - so NZ is very behind with the times on this issue. Where in future there may be an opportunity in NZ when more Time Banks become ubiquitous across the country - there may then be legislation passed that allows an accountant to swap an hour of their accountancy time to have one hour of lawn mowing done, by a full time lawn mower - in return.

A Large Membership for Their Area.

The localised Lyttelton Township has a population of 2,500 and around the broader basin it’s naturally a lot larger - yet their Time Bank has around 780 members - which offers up a very broad area of skills that can be drawn on.

They also have Savings Pools where people save collectively and yet lending to each other interest free - and the trust that is around this unique way of pooling money is very abiding.

Huge Amounts of Trust.

Margaret says that one of our biggest blocks is around how we think and that we need to have a totally new look at how we bank, because we have in some ways a large collective block on how we see banks these days - from the large ubiquitous commercial banks and our unknowing-ness around Savings Pools, Cooperative Banks - Trust Banks  Time Banks and Green dollars.

Strong Values Base

Project Lyttelton is strongly values based - which they don’t actually name - but have a postcard with pictures of these values on - which ‘hint’ as to what these values might be. Margaret talks a lot about love and also generosity and kindness and the practice of generosity does amazing things and to offer things to people - not expecting anything in return - allow marvellous things to happen.

Rebecca Solnit’s book: A Paradise Built in Hell - Extraordinary Communities that Arise from Disaster - http://www.onthecommons.org/paradise-built-hell#sthash.R8lu4JYo.dpbs

Where in disasters people do come together - Whereas Hollywood may show mayhem and everyone running amuck but in reality - people all pull together - they sense a deeper connection - Margaret says that when a disaster happens, everyone ‘drops their stuff’ and only think about helping their neighbour - that before the authorities finally show up - that little window before - is like paradise (group mind connects) - because everyone is working together - and now today, with that disaster behind them - many people go back to how they were prior to the Earthquake and forget what once was - and Margaret understands that - because our world is run on a financial model - that earning money and getting money to buy things is the central thing - and this brings about disconnection again.

Listen to Margaret talk about how the Time Bank came to be of huge assistance in the Earthquake that also affected Lyttelton - big time.

Associate Professor Lucy Ozanne  has written a document on Time Banking -

http://timebanks.nz/resources - That during the time of a disaster, was actually documenting the Lyttelton Time Bank before that disaster struck and was able to follow through giving major insights to its efficacy - as there is very little research on a group being monitored prior to and during a disaster. This document has gone world wide showing that a Time Bank can be pivotal when disaster strikes.

Challenges

The NZ Authorities acknowledged and appreciated what Project Lyttelton accomplished during and after the Earthquake with no financial support. However Margaret says that Time Banks need to be acknowledged in such a way as to pay the administrators, because they cannot live on just credits alone etc - as there is rent to pay and all the other costs in living are many. She says this needs to be changed (because at another level they can act as an auxiliary Civil Defence) and it’s too hard for Time Banks to just exist without greater support from the established order. As Time Banks can run far more efficiently if there is someone working in a paid role. This way the community would become far more cohesive, mindful and caring.

Funding for local initiatives like Project Lyttelton is becoming more difficult to obtain too - for reasons unknown - community initiatives of closer knit neighbourhoods is very difficult to enable Government officials to comprehend - so she and the Project Lyttelton team are looking at social enterprises to enable them to support themselves.

Social Enterprises

Their farmers market falls into this category - on good Saturdays they have 50 plus stalls at their market - which all pay a fee that pays the Farmers Market manager as well as supporting the community garden. That Garage Sales* are another social enterprise - and this is continuing from strength to strength. (Listen to this interview) People will give stuff and earn ’time credits’. Plus Project Lyttelton have rented an earthquake deserted (but safe) building where people also bring all their items* that they want to sell.

Community Group Involvement

If you are a community group you can come and run that Garage Sale with that group officiating and at the end of the day they can receive the ‘profits of the take' etc and that is the way community groups can piggyback on outreach of Project Lyttelton's goodwill.  For example $500 profit was taken on one particular Saturday.

And they can have 4 Garage Sales a week. They have two part time employees - so they are providing work. People who are in real need - they don’t have to pay … Margaret, says she loves this model and it feeds people at multiple levels - and the people who run it get to know who needs what in the community.   (listening is best)

Time Banks Again - there is not a model that suits everyone - as all situations are different - however the general principles apply - transplanting one model to another area though good in theory - always needs to be revised and changed for that other area or region.

Living and Thriving in the Community

Margaret gets her weekly shopping from the Farmers’ Market - due to it being organic and fresh - not from the supermarket where a lot of produce is packaged cartoned and tinned.

A Local Co-Operative

Project Lyttelton has a ‘friendship’ partnership in a Co-op in Lyttelton which has whole foods and it is owned by 200 people in Lyttelton - this is where Margaret obtains her whole foods, etc - so she shops at the Farmers’ Market and the Co-op. That the Co-op also acts as a conduit for all the localised farmers and producers that can sell their products into it and whatever organic produce that they only grow in a very short season - they can bring it to the Co-op.

Social Interaction

They do a lot around food - and shared events - Farmers Market on Saturdays are the best social bumping space to meet people. 

Project Lyttelton has a board meeting once a months and they eat and discuss things - paid staff and volunteers meet every week and there is always food there - the savings pools meet every month over a shared meal too.

Another fun event is called grow your own - and a dinner of your own growing - (Listen)

The important Essence or Ingredient of Community is:

Openness - being open with all your accounts - let everyone know where you are getting your money from.

Being Truthful  

Love

Being Values based

And Appreciative Enquiry  - looking at what is going well and seeing why it is going well - and transferring why it’s going well, to other things and projects - and while it is going well including values, like looking at clear communication and acting kindly towards each other.

Including understanding conflict resolution - not that they have had real conflict but to embrace the skill of negotiating through goodwill. Gaining skills to work between and with each other. 

The Significance of Appreciative Enquiry

Put up an idea and the very next question is, where’s the money? - Project Lyttelton very seldom gets that question now - listen to how they manifest their money  - note it is very inventive and novel …. Margaret says if they have a dream -  put it out there - drop all attachment to it - and then it starts happening … and all sorts of possibilities come into being … keep talking to people - because they may have skills and they may be the answer.

What NZ needs to involve themselves with, is that each NZer is encouraged to find what finds them joy and what they feel drawn to and follow this notion.

As this is an Election Year we need to be more involved at a national level and raising questions as to what we would like NZ to become …  and raising questions. 

Be involved in letter writing, submissions - attending meetings even marches and rallies  Margaret said she is not drawn to such things, but when times require it she has done it from time to time.

Thinking Global and Acting Local - is where her passion resides.

Present Focus

Project Lyttelton are in the process of running a repair cafe … and remoulding plastics … looking at their waste stream - educating people into the finite nature of our resources - using things wisely and effectively - plus recycling, reusing and reducing items. 

She mentions Doughnut Economics  - Kate Raworth https://www.kateraworth.com/

As we are taking and extracting  far more from our planet’s resources - some say we are taking far more than our planet actually can replace.

Becoming aware of our ecological well being - our mental well being and our spiritual well being. Deepening our connection with life.

The Global Commons - recognising that the global commons belongs to no one except the biota of our planet - The Global Commons is the opposite to a corporate raid.

Connection at a Higher Level

Margaret wants to see a method where ‘groups’ can be in contact and develop the skills in linking organisations together so that we can share - be more cohesive and connected with each other - especially spokespeople.

By building the capacity to communicate nationwide across the sectors - grassroots groups - organising for a common purpose. So that we network our vision to more and more New Zealanders across the country, pulling the threads of community closer together.

Such as ‘Not for Profit's’ in Christchurch need to form a Time Bank and all work together - and start linking up with expertise and material things like a shared truck or digger as an example.

In a Future Scenario Margaret would like to get rid of party politics - as it locks down initiative - and that we are now caught up in the games that are being played between various parties  - as there is no real discussion - (which she admits is a sweeping generalisation) but we understand what she is saying.  That the issues have to be debated in a far more open forum.

Instant Localised Internet Voting

She would also like to see ‘instant localised voting’ on a ’safe, non-hackable’ system that allowed people to vote on initiatives at a very localised level - that are binding - in that smaller regions could have more control over their affairs - and possibly voting on Daily Issues even - they would come up on your computer at specific times - maybe every day and this would involve us in ‘Participative Democracy’ and we could vote on the issues. (Listen to the interview)

She also wants a group of people within the localised community to become ‘the voice of the community’ - so that instead of having one person speaking on behalf of the community that these ‘elected people’ - from youth to elders -  can then speak - knowing that at heart they have the communities blessing - Margaret says there is a lot of wisdom embedded in her community so why her? And when you get this group together - you can pay them in time credits

This is a very thought provoking and empowering interview of bringing ‘conscious’ care to you localised area and community.

http://www.lyttelton.net.nz

“We need to base our farming on biology, not on chemicals,” says Dr Meriel Watts.

“New Zealand needs to WAKE UP to what is going on in conventional farming in this country.”

“Our food is denatured through chemical use, and New Zealand, compared to the rest of the world, lacks the political will to address this.”

Educating the New Zealand Public

New Zealand needs to face up to the widespread use of chemicals that are applied in agriculture, either topically or coated on seeds, and how the chemicals affect our food and therefore our health. There is a toxic plethora of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides, along with artificial fertilisers that make chemical companies masses of money, but are not to the benefit of us, the consumers.

One might think that a so called clean green country, like New Zealand, would be keen to show itself as just that, but instead we apply toxic chemical after toxic chemical all over the country.

In one evening meal, that is not organic, you could be consuming as many as 17 different agro - chemicals in small quantities. Research on how they all work together has not been done. New Zealand’s chemical assessments are not being based on science.

Encouraging the NZ Government to involve itself in a Global Awareness Movement   

The Formal UN Recommended Organisation SAICM- (Strategic Approach to International Chemical Management) states that highly hazardous pesticides be phased out and replaced by agro-ecology. (Agro-ecology is known as organics in NZ.) However, although 170 countries are involved and send delegates to the meetings, incredibly New Zealand has not chosen to be involved, and seems unaware of the serious repercussions of chemical use.  Meriel states that the heads of the Departments for the Environment, Health and Agriculture (Primary Industries) need to attend to learn, and realise the critical situation that NZ is in.

Where is the powerful influence that keeps the toxic chemicals in use? Here’s an example from the US.

Dow Chemicals has given a million dollars for Donald Trump’s campaign fund. Dow are makers of Chlorpyrifos. This pesticide has been banned by Sri Lanka and Yemen and US scientists have identified it as a major concern, but of course after that donation, the hopes of getting it banned in the US have been dashed.

A New Chemical that has Shown Up on the NZ Market!

In New Zealand we are unsure of the influence by companies like Dow. However the pesticide Chlorpyrifos is used here in New Zealand. There is not much political will to ban it, and although home gardeners are not allowed to use it, the government still allows its use on farms, and by commercial gardeners.

Children are especially at risk. Chlorpyrifos is an acute nerve toxin and suspected endocrine disruptor that has been linked to numerous health issues. It has been found in human cord blood and is known to cause foetal damage and neuro-developmental disorders.  Most recently, it has been linked to an increased risk of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children.

Chlorpyrifos is found at particularly high levels in children. It is prevalent in fruit and vegetables; also in dairy products, nuts, cottonseed, wheat and wheat-based products such as bread and pasta, rice, maize, chickpeas, fish, muesli, jam, olive oil, pizza, hamburgers, raisins; also soft drinks and drinking water.

HAVE YOU EVEN HEARD OF CHLORPYRIFOS? Before this interview, I hadn’t.

How do NZers have their Elected Servants in Government,
Take Heed of Ubiquitous Chemicals?

So why does our government lack the political will to put a ban on chemicals like chlorpyrifos, glyphosate / Roundup, 1080, and the bee threat neonicitinoids?

Agriculture is the largest sector of the tradable economy in New Zealand. This means that farmers have a strong voice around decisions made that affect them. They and the large chemical trans-nationals will undoubtedly have influence regarding decisions made, that could affect them. However we the public need to have a voice about what affects us – namely some very toxic chemicals.

NZ’s Government Department NIWA , the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, tested the water of Auckland harbour and were very concerned at the level of glyphosate in the water - Yet the Government is ignoring the aquatic environment.

The Soils are a Barometer to Healthy Food, Animals & People

“Our soils are sick from greed-based, irresponsible agricultural practices, pesticides, chemical fertilisers, erosion and mineral depletion, all of which stop or reduce adequate microbial activity in the soil, rendering them sick and/or dead and sterile. Sick soils make for sick plants and sick plants make for sick humans and animals.,” Says the president of the US National Health Federation, Scott Tips.

If the soil is poor, not enough micro-organisms are taken up into the plant. So we are replacing nourishment with chemicals. The answer to growing good strong healthy plants that do not need chemical assistance, lies in the soil.

We cannot put the entire blame on farmers, says Meriel. The whole approach to pesticides has to change, from home gardeners, to household use as well as farm use. We can’t very well demand farmers change without stopping using fly spray, for example. Fly spray is made with synthetic pyrethrum and is carcinogenic.

The level of cancer is soaring around the world and yet we are not informed about agricultural and industrial chemical use, and its effect on human health.

New Zealand is between 10 & 20 Years Behind -
When we Need to be Ahead!

New Zealand is, in Muriel's opinion, between 10 and 20 years behind in understanding the side effects of pesticide use. This is unacceptable.

She challenges which ever government is in power to create a caring state and ensure the health of all people throughout the country. One main way to do this is to walk away from the chemical cocktail that affects us all.

Dr Meriel Watts had a Bachelor of Agricultural Science and a PhD in risk assessment of pesticides and the consequences of its flaws for pesticide policy.

She has been working on behalf of civil society for 27 years on pesticide issues and safer alternatives – including for Greenpeace and the Soil & Health Association. Now she works (since 1993) for Pesticide Action Network (PAN), a global network of about 600 civil society organisations in 90 countries – coordinate PAN Aotearoa NZ, Senior Technical Advisor to PAN Asia Pacific, the regional centre in Malaysia, and represents the global network at UN chemicals conventions, agreements and technical groups.

Meriel has been involved in NZ’s organics sector for about 24 years – including helping to establish and run Organic Farm NZ – a low-cost certification scheme for growers supplying only the domestic market. Together with her partner, she runs a certified organic farm, on Waiheke Island, supplying locals with fresh fruit, vegetables, eggs and olive oil.

Author of 5 books on pesticides, Meriel has contributed to numerous other publications including monographs e.g. on both the glyphosate and  chlorpyrifos, act.

Her most recent book = Replacing Chemicals with Biology – Phasing out Highly Hazardous Pesticides with Agro-ecology -  is about why we need to phase out chemical pesticides. That successful growing without pesticides is possible and is now being proved globally and what policy changes are needed to get us there.

The websites mentioned in the interview:

Replacing Chemicals with Biology: Phasing out Highly Hazardous Pesticides with Agroecology:  http://pan-international.org/resources/

and

UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, report on pesticides to UN human Rights Council, A/HRC/34/48: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Food/Pages/Annual.aspx

Also of interest may be:

PAN International List of Highly Hazardous Pesticides: http://pan-international.org/resources/

PAN International Consolidated List of Ban Pesticides: http://pan-international.org/resources/

PAN International Monograph on Glyphosate: http://pan-international.org/resources/

------------------------------------

This interview was sponsored by The Awareness Party

Liz, is asking for some leader in NZ to stand up and have the courage to say that we as an island nation, want a GE Free country and be the organic food bowl for the world. With no more Monsanto influence and definitely no more glyphosate.  

She wants us to become a ‘planetary ark' and be that 'organic food bowl’ for the world.

Plus, she WANTS a really clear - NZ Government funded - free from influence - media platform TV - Radio and newsprint / digital where we have quality policy journalists back again, investigating anything within the public domain as well as envisioning healthy possibilities for all of our children’s - collective future.

After leaving broadcasting, Liz spent a decade in Australia as a full time Mum and having to learn child rearing with no backup of grandparents or nanny help which she had had when she had worked full time for TVNZ. So she really learnt to be a hands on Mum and how to connect emotionally with her little ones and so it was a wonderful learning curve as a human being, noting that she underlines that she learnt more from her children than they learnt from her.

Deeper learning of the Self.

Liz also speaks about her experience then of a profound lack of confidence. At first she thought it was post natal depression, but realised that there was a deeper layering - where she had parents that they themselves struggled and Liz shares the challenges that her mother had and the subsequent burden that Liz carried as a result of their relationship and she was not able to really be there for how Liz wanted - a mother to-be.

To this end Liz learnt to become very adept at putting up a front - and ironically ending up on television - very capable on the outside - she was seen as always happy when she was a young lawyer yet struggled with health related problems that resulted in a deep lack of confidence - yet she was able to portray the opposite in the world, by looking and acting happy.

With bringing up her children and marrying the inner Liz to the outer Liz and then understanding what has shaped her and in decoding what is it she is here to be and do - who is the Liz? How does she integrate her desire to serve in the world with being a whole authentic human being and realising and reconciling that both her parents did their very best to bring her up as best as they could. And Liz goes into this in expressing her humility - realising that we can let go of things that do not serve us and that are not real - and we can become the people we probably were put on this earth to be - but often through painful experience.

A difficult marriage was another part of her learning and she states sincerely how grateful she is in many ways - though she laughingly says she is not fully reconciled with that yet:). Because like her childhood experiences with her mother - it dug up all  the things that she did not want to look at - and what she couldn’t escape … So she says to her kids as well -  that life - like the Buddha says is about suffering - so you accept the suffering - but Liz then brightens saying that this life is like a gorgeous mysterious university course that we did not even know we had signed up for!

That the lessons will keep coming back and back - the same lesson often until we have the inner resilience, the inner fortitude  - and the willingness to look at what that lesson brings us.  Thus we learn and we grow and we can then graduate to another class. Which she laughingly says - has been like the last 10 years …

Covering myths and legends and Joseph Campbell and our journey of traveling deep dark valleys - and the struggle to get through the day, like just getting by by crawling as if in a dark place - but being a mum and committed to her children there is no recourse other than to hang in with her kiddies as she was so committed as a mother and a parent.

A Near Death Experience and a Greater Understanding.

Then Liz tells of a broken heart moment in hospital when she nearly died as doctors worked diligently on her heart and she witnessed this by ‘looking down on everything from the ceiling - (this could be said to be an out of the body experience or a near death experience) - she said for a moment she felt that she was floating on the softest warmest, most loving golden clouds and realising that she could stay there, this was wonderful - I can give up - this is easy - and at that moment both her beautiful children were right at the forefront and the feeling was so powerful - ‘I can’t leave them, they still need me’  - and that the urge for life was so much greater than the urge to run away from the pain of life - and she came back to her body - to recuperate and heal.

Then the discussion covered ‘the purpose for existence - is to find out the purpose for existence’ - and Liz was emphatic it was certainly not about power or money or status - the house we own or the cars we drive  … that those things are so deeply ephemeral and so transient and for many it is a frightening place because so many people fear death.

What Liz says that experience taught her that she had nothing whatsoever to fear.

The interview then covers names like Ramana Maharshi and Gangaji to the Dalai Lama.

Questioning Material Values

Liz surmises - why do we in the Western developed world set about to amass so much material wealth, houses, bach’s, numbers of cars, boats clothes etc.  If we didn’t fear death would we just get on and experience life instead?

What she feels is that material wealth means nothing other than what she can leave in the hearts of those that she loves. And her greatest achievement is loving her children with all her heart. Listen to this as Liz expresses herself so deeply, in such a warm and humble way.

That for children to open like the lotus flower and being the humans they can be - and this is what she feels needs to be extended across the community of NZ.

This interview also covers an experience Liz had in Sydney when she was at a function of the media magnates the Murdoch’s where she witnessed these very successful media barons and realised that with all their collective expertise and media and satellite outreach that if only they wanted to bring whole countries together and have communities connect and share in a better tomorrow - these people could basically create a large shift in changing the world into a more peaceful and harmonious place. However in her intuitions of seeing them huddled most of the night with Rupert and Lachlan, including James Packer in a corner - out of the way at this function - she realised how close yet how far away we are at pulling the threads of humanity together.

That if they only felt connected to all people - they would feel so loved and valued in the world - that wherever they went they would feel so much goodwill flowing toward them - however this is not the case.

That Liz found that she had so much compassion for them - because the elder Murdoch who owns Sky Television and the Australian newspaper and a huge slice of Australian and British newspapers and until recently virtually 75 % of all NZ suburban newspapers  Once owning the Controlling Interest in Wellington’s Dominion newspaper and being the 2nd largest media conglomerate on earth owning 20th Century Fox and the Wall St Journal and a huge number of media companies.

That she just intuited that their energy was not warm and light hearted and that they were basically not happy at all.

Generosity of Spirit

This conversation then continues around generosity of spirit of giving and bringing a little joy to people who are experiencing unhappy lives - especially on the streets here in Auckland where the homeless are seen in greater numbers even though the NZ Government is crowing about our $4 billion surplus for the last year.

Then Liz tells  that when back in Australia of giving her last $2-00 to a homeless person when she found that she was unable to withdraw any cash from her account at an ATM. So being in Sydney away from NZ - taking a leap of faith giving that $2.00 minute amount away to a destitute person in the street and making them feel acknowledged and then having to go through the challenge of having to rely on the goodwill of friends to help her out over the ensuring days.

Micro Funding those less fortunate

Liz’s dream is of having enough funds to set up micro finance for women, especially those women who have come out of failed marriages and have to start again to make a living - or in Africa where a death or disability throw the onus on the woman to make a living. And it has been proved over and over again when women are able to receive a loan for a chicken coop or garden seeds - that they are fastidious at paying back their loan. That they in most cases are brilliant at running their little businesses and they get the family back on their feet when they may have to learn totally new skills to find a creative way to make a living.

So with micro funding Liz wants to assist NZ woman to get back on their feet by becoming independent as in many cases they have given up their career to take on family responsibilities whilst the husband has continuously advanced his own career thus he is always skilled up. Thus there is a lot of fear and trepidation for middle aged women having to rejoin the workforce and back into the thick of things in a new job, new technologies, new expectations - new performance quotas etc  

This is a difficult arena for women - look at TV in NZ there is no older women there, at the moment.Ageism is still prevalent.

Liz’s talks about her work, when starting out as a young lawyer - and how she saw the reality of it. But, she found what disillusioned her was that if you have the money - you can get the best lawyer in town and they can stitch up the case by getting someone off - when in fact they were the guilty party.  When she thought that Law was about justice - that the present government has made huge cuts to legal aid in NZ recently, that many Lawyers did not agree with this - even those who were innately conservative themselves.

Homelessness - how could this happen in New Zealand?!

Liz says her heart aches to see the number of homelessness we have here in NZ especially Auckland )and particularly in a year where the NZ government are 4 billion dollars in surplus - which coincides with the election coming up in less that 3 months time). That she has been going around Auckland and making videos and interviewing the homeless and hearing all their various stories.

She is mortified - as this should not be in NZ - we are basically an extraordinarily caring people - but … and she in meeting so many of these homeless people and seeing a profound dignity in many of them and the hopeless situation they are in.

A kind and caring compassionate woman …

Stand up before this election and make a fuss about homelessness.

The Dalai Lama’s statements about humility and connection come up and yet there are many laughs during this interview.

Covering what Mike King is doing with youth suicide in NZ and that this too is a stain across our nation.

She tells of an experiment with rats and heroin and the environment. The end result is that after rats are put in a stark and boring environment - given the choice they all turn to heroin instead of drinking water. But, when they turn their cage into a myriad of things to do - to climb, swing, run on a wheel, snuggle into warm covered areas - they eventually all end up rejecting the heroin and instead they enjoy the variety and opportunities of a captivating environment.

Many people in a state of homelessness have been involved with drugs, but had they been in an environment that had offered them possibilities to learn and to grow and experience a more conducive atmosphere - of connection - many would not be suffering as they are today.

Possibilities of changing both our outlook and our inner state of being

This then introduces Bruce Lipton and our body of around 50 trillion cells - and his theme - change the environment for the better and the situation will change accordingly. That all our organs are working in unison and we are not doing any of this consciously. That as a top scientist / professor at Stanford University in the USA, he realised that we need not be a captive and slave to our genes. That we can by ‘shifting our consciousness’ evolve our genome and become far more healthier humans.  Books - Biology of Belief and Conscious Evolution. 

Liz see NZ as having changed dramatically in the last 9 years

She sees so many homeless and as a mother - wonders how this has continued to escalate.

Liz shares that NZ needs to become more sovereign and independent - that when David Lange of the NZ Labour Government saw that our country had a large majority wanting to be nuclear free nation this gave him the mandate to make us a Nuclear Free country. Liz feels that as a small independent nation (and we trust a moral force for good) that we be weary of US influence being too strong here and for example the lack of transparency with the Waihopai Face Eyes Echelon spy station in the South Island being cause for concern.

Regarding trade  she like many here in NZ who were voiceless felt a great relief that the TPPA did not go ahead and that we need to be adept at finding innovative ways to sort out fair trade.

However there is also the challenge of transparency of Government - and this is an important issue - which is also a global issue. That we New Zealanders have to be both more alert and proactive to make our elected servants in Wellington bow to the wishes of ‘we the people.’

In reiterating what she sees as issues.

1)    The homeless

2)    NZ becoming a GE and GMO Free organic agricultural food bowl for our world.

3)    A new Transparent media outlet for open communications - TV, Radio & Digital.

This is what in a democracy media is all about, not glove puppets  - John Campbell has gone - this is dangerous for democracy we dependent on a free and courageous media.

Nicky Hagar if you like him or not - he was vilified for laying out so many truths - which were all shoved aside - with no-one in Government prepared to accept the lies that the Government had hidden.  This is why we need a conscious NZ public and this is why Liz has been called to act like a warrior woman, and a Mother.

There is too much at stake and too much to lose.

NZ’s fisheries and marine environment are currently being mismanaged for the benefit of a few heavyweight fishing industrialists. Sound familiar?

After 30 years and repeated examples of dysfunction including reports of widespread labour abuse, fish dumping, misreporting, and monopoly institutional stagnation, the time is right to return to the basic principles of managing New Zealand’s natural resources for the benefit of the nation.

With an nationwide election on the horizon we the people are having to decide how our precious marine resources are going to be managed, now that we know that the Ministry of  Primary Industries refuses to listen to the People.  

Scott as a spokesman for LegaSea - a public outreach that wants to go beyond the 35,000 fishing club members in 58 clubs and talk to the vast number of people who either love fishing - do a bit of fishing or get a few fish that they share with their neighbours or just like the idea of having abundant in shore coastal fisheries.

This is what they have been doing over the last 5 years communicating with fisherfolk.   They also encourage people to make contributions so as to share the load as they look towards taking care of NZ’s spectacular marine environment so that everyone can both enjoy and fish from.

The challenge is to engage with complex NZ Governmental Ministry led management, processes. Especially the world’s leading internationally acclaimed ‘quota management system’ - which most recreational fishermen will know is far from the truth. Most in the know realise it is a farce. Listen to this interview.   plus Previous interview with Scott.

LegaSea’s database has 45,000 subscribers and growing as fisherfolk realise that recreational fishing are being squeezed out by the NZ’s National Government's Ministry of Primary Industries - lock stepped with industrial fishing.

Scott tells of working in cooperation with the NZ Sport Fishing Council and having to take the Minister and Ministry of Primary Industries (the Government) to the High Court, the Appeal Court and then the Supreme Court in the 2005, 6, 7, 8, and 9 journey, where certain Governmental and Ministry activities were regarded as illegal and poorly conceived management practices for the plentiful kahawai the ubiquitous peoples fish where the Law came out on the side of the righteous and not the Government - thank you Justice Reese Harrison and thank you Chief Justice Sian Elias for the superb judgements that full costs were awarded in the NZ Sports Fishing Council’s favour. Note neither of the above two Governmental parties appealed!

Sadly Sanford’s and Sealord’s the big two industrial fishing Corporations - because they are very well financed did what they continue to do, but what came out of this, is this:

The Supreme Court ruled that ‘the Minister’ shall allow for public interests and recreational interests - and may set the total allowable commercial catch at zero! - if he or she is reasonable.

(Question: What type of Government is it, that ‘the people’ have to take their own elected servants to the Highest Court of the Land to get them to come to heal? )

LegaSea are wanting to:

Establish a Royal Commission of Inquiry

Objectives:

We need to redefine the purpose of fisheries development and establish institutions and instruments that achieve the environmental, economic, social, and cultural benefits due to all New Zealanders from the use of our natural marine resources.

Nothing less than a Royal Commission!

To allow Recreational Fishers to have restored public confidence in the management of our inshore fisheries.

(Tim countered - with the importance of a ‘neutral selection process’ for this Royal Commission - that they select the appropriate prospect - not jobs for the boys - like retired ‘well connected’ business people or politicians who have been put out to pasture. Because these ‘commissioners’  would be, taking home $1500 a day to sit and mull over what decisions to take, that will not necessarily be in the fishing industry’s interests).

It was ventured and stated that it was fair to say that the incumbent National Government of today is very closely aligned with the commercial sector - and a Royal  Commission of Enquiry - to get this momentum over the line - against the run of play - is a must! - full stop! - 

Citizens Initiated Referendum

LegaSea are giving serious consideration to initiating a Citizens Initiated Referendum - which in 18 months could give us an answer - an unbinding one - but it would let NZ know what the general consensus is regarding our ocean taonga. (treasure).

Recently the CEO of Seafood NZ a representative organisation of all sectors wrote in an update:

"That the proportion of New Zealanders who felt the industry’s reputation has deteriorated compared to the 12 months earlier increased from 10% in 2015 to 17% in 2016.

Those deteriorating public perceptions put us in a dangerous position the lead-up to a critical general election with a resurgent Opposition aligned with environmentalists that may be unsympathetic to fishing.

We have already seen Government policies out of left field around marine protected areas that impact on fishing space.

The best way to keep the politicians out of our industry and secure our property and customary rights is to enhance our social licence. If the public are reassured that we are good people doing good things for the benefit of all New Zealanders, the political parties will see no reward in challenging that.

To that end, work is well advanced on a communications campaign aimed at influencing public opinion.

It will go public in July, based on prime time television promise to protect our precious ocean resources.”

The above is the way the Fishing Industry is going to soften you up, the unsuspecting NZ public.

1. Allocation Principle to Guide Decisions

The other urgent reform is a new Allocation Principle to be added the Fisheries Act. This Principle would guide Ministerial allocation decisions and be based on a commitment made by Labour Minister Colin Moyle, Minister of Fisheries, in 1989. This commitment is commonly referred to as Moyle’s Promise –

“Where a species of fish is not sufficiently abundant to support both commercial and non-commercial fishing, preference will be given to non-commercial fishing.

This position reflects Government’s resolve to ensure all New Zealanders can enjoy and benefit from our fisheries.”

This Allocation Principle needs to be added to section 10 of the Fisheries Act 1996 to achieve the following outcomes:

1. Encourage fisheries to be managed at higher, safer levels.
2. Demonstrate a clear disincentive and consequence to commercial overfishing and depletion.
3. Guide Ministerial decisions so a more precautionary approach can be taken.

Bottom Line

The bottom line is that commercial fisheries are wanting more fish. And the recreational fisher folk are basically getting in the way.

Scott states emphatically that:

The inshore zone needs respite care. Benthic (seabed) diversity and abundance needs restoring, and the priority needs to be to remove all industrial methods.

A century of ever-expanding use of heavy, bottom contact mobile gear has changed the seafloor from a thriving benthic community of organisms to a desert of fine silt. This silt is resuspended and distributed further each time mobile, industrial fishing gear is towed across the sea floor.

The Government needs to: Remove industrial fishing methods such as the appalling trawling, Danish seining and dredging, from the inshore zone.  LISTEN TO SCOTT  Tell it as it is.

$1.8 billion for export fish receipts   = 300,000 tonnes caught.   

Recreational fishers take approximately 10,000 tonnes = 10,000, thousand kilos = 10 million kilos of fish.

With NZ public participation of around 600,000 Kiwis who participate are spending approximately one thousand million dollars of which $130 million dollars is GST plus another $35 million dollars of PAYE from the 8,000 plus jobs that are generated by recreational fishing - that compares to the 20,000 jobs in the commercial sector - remember they are catching 94% of the fish taken each year.

Scott tongue in cheek states that when it is all financially sorted we the recreational fisher is paying about $20 per kilo of fish caught and then we give it away, we share with friends and neighbours. Saying there is a deep need to express ‘manaakitanga’ - the generosity of giving and sharing …

Bottom Trawling Needs to be Outlawed

Scott then tells of how the bottom trawlers drag across the seafloor surface destroying any possible semblance of an aquatic garden where fish live, and survive - turning it into a desolate area of total destruction that has never seen such devastation for possibly millions of years … mega millions of tiny little organisms and layer upon layer of sea creatures getting larger as the food chain increases up to the upper level fish.

The swath that is left, just wipes everything out into a desert of swirling silt and mud with visibility zeroed out and the surviving fish and other organisms somehow have to start all over again within a destroyed underwater sea garden. Knocking out huge numbers of ecological sensitive organisms whilst those in the trawler above have no idea whatsoever - of the holocaust they are causing down below.

Listen to Scott describe what is really happening. The Indiscriminate uncaring harvesting and when the net gets brought up on the deck - any fish not in the ‘quota’ are dumped over the side - in most cases already dead to float and rot and eventually sink.

Trevally are very NZ fishy story

Trevally, 800 tonnes of trevally are being exported year after year, after year - whole - frozen - no added value, no GST - full container loads to Saudi Arabia, France and the United Kingdom - at what price?  We here in NZ are paying around $12-00 a kilo but overseas we are giving it away at $2.70 cents and that’s a peak price. Where as trevally is one of the best fish on earth to eat as sushi. Japanese people living in NZ cannot believe their good fortune here.

Kahawai are being exported after being trawled up by the industrial Danish seiner fleets here in NZ. To be sold less than $5-00 a kilo is an insult - but is being sold for $1.70 to the Africans - the Cameroon and the Côte d’Ivoire, (the Ivory Coast).

This is not acceptable - if we cannot get more than $5-00 a kilo - leave it in the sea so that is can reproduce and double its size over a few years.

Crayfish (kura) are now in crisis  - they are disappearing and depleting … along the East Coast North of Whangarei down to East Cape covering hundreds of kilometres. 

The word depletion came up in tandem with ‘Sustainable’ as Scott sees that sustainable fisheries is not concerned about the sustainability of fish stock and the marine ecology - only that the fishing industry can sustain itself - whatever the costs.

Listen to Scot tell it as it is. Explaining the giant lie that is the ‘Quota Management System. (like clean green NZ)  He calls it sustainable depletion and is the Government’s name of the game.

This commercial fishing juggernaut in their submissions are consistently saying ‘more, more, more, more While the non commercial fishers position - are consistently prepared to say less, less, less, less and we are willing to come to the table … and talk about how they can constrain ourselves and shift our attitudes, expectations and behaviour to generate a rebuild and have abundance … Yet, there is only one side willing to come to the table! 

To get involved with Legasea

Send: Scott@legacy.co.nz an email or 021 macindoe =  622463 and have a Chat  and get in touch with reliable, professional courteous - ‘Less is more’ - regular updates.

NOTE:

We now have the NZ Government asking the Department of Primary Industries to double NZ’s export of fish by 2025 (same for Dairy exports). This is not taking into account at all the ecology and the environment that produces this abundance.

Amend the Fisheries Act

It is imperative to amend the Fisheries Act to remove the maximum sustainable yield.

The attitude of bulk harvesting and freezing and marketing in containers is pure idiocy - there is no respect of nature’s process, for the fish population or nature itself.  Everything is up for grabs. = Neoliberal Economics - winner takes all.

Home Support

Legacy now has over 400 business and affiliate organisations here in NZ supporting them and the NZ Sport Fishing Council   because they know if there is no inshore fish to catch they will suffer …

ITM all 100 outlets are behind Legasea  - Hunting & Fishing - Yamaha & Honda & Shimano and Rod And Reel -   Burns Co

FreeFishheads.co.nz -  this is big! 20,000 people have there name down for a free feed.  Scott thanked Matt Watson for making it happen. Go on line and put your name down - this way you can feed you family after a quick road trip to a beach near you and pick up some free fish heads and frames.

Check Papatuanuku kokiri marae in Mangere who have collected 6,000 kilograms of heads, frames and offal and taken it and ‘tidied it up’ and this rangitara kai has been given to needy appreciative people - the offal buried in their gardens.

This is a very social and community oriented project that is successful

Check out www.fishcare.org - for best practice - how to handle a fish how to best utilise such fish

0800 legacy

www.legasea.co.nz

When you are truth teller and are prepared to break with convention to get your message out at great personal sacrifice - spare a thought for the continuous courage of Scott Macindoe. This was as usual a very powerful and potent interview that will never get to MSM (Main Stream Media) as you will now know they are basically only aligned with the ‘commercial sector' - as in the US and elsewhere.

http://www.ourplanet.org/greenplanetfm/scott-macindoe-are-we-about-to-see-the-end-of-recreational-fishing-in-new-zealand

To those reading this semi transcription, I apologise - Doing the interview and recording, editing and transcription is a labour of love - it’s all voluntary - so if it seems a little wordy and convoluted - please know that everything you have seen and listened to here has been done in the spirit of goodwill and the best of intentions.  Naku noa Tim

We must demand rigorous ongoing and independent testing as to the effect of aerial 1080 drops on New Zealand’s wilderness, fauna and ecosystems.

Clyde and brother Steve have won International Awards for their 1080 NZ documentary, Poisoning Paradise

The movie Poisoning Paradise is about the aerial dispersal of 1080 throughout New Zealand in order to kill rodents, mustelids and possums. This poisoning now has become a highly controversial topic with conservationists, environmentalists, and members of the public.

Clyde Graf and Steve were sons of Egon, a professional deer hunter, based in NZ’s Te Urewera National Park.

In 1996, youngest son Steve went to Canada and videoed amazing wildlife footage. Returning to NZ he teamed up with his brother Clyde, and together they began to make The Graf Boys' videos.

Since then, The Graf Boys have produced six hunting and outdoors DVD titles, and two documentaries. Their documentary, Poisoning Paradise, has won four international awards (England, Ireland, Japan, and Culture Unplugged online festival).

See their YouTube Channel The Graf Boys.

What is 1080?

Sodium fluoroacetate, known in pesticide form as 1080, is the organofluorine chemical compound with the formula FCH₂CO₂Na. This colourless salt has a taste similar to that of sodium chloride and is used as a metabolic poison.

1080 is extremely toxic to all air-breathing organisms. It blocks the body’s muscle and organ's ability to absorb energy from its food, and results in a slow and inhumane death, typically 8 -24 hours for birds, 2-4 days for large mammals. There is no known antidote for this deadly poison.

Not only is 1080 highly toxic to mammals, birds and insects- one scientist has even discovered that it is toxic to plants and so forests do not do so well after 1080 drops.

Controversy

The latter may be controversial, but in general 1080 and its effects on animals through primary and secondary poisoning, and on humans through water supplies, is not well researched, especially considering the huge amount of 1080 poison tipped from helicopters over our forests. If there are any unanswered questions about its use and the results, then more research must be undertaken, not only by DoC (Department of Conservation) but by independent scientists, preferably from overseas, to avoid any collusion.

In this interview Clyde gives important information on the New Zealand government’s financial interest in 1080. New Zealand uses 80% of all 1080 used in the world. In fact it is banned in most countries overseas.

19 different native bird species have had corpses test positive for 1080 after aerial 1080 operations, however, it is known that the small sample size, and the lack of a control group needs highlighting. There is a need for long term population monitoring. These concerns are completely absent in DoC summaries.

Bird Deaths

Birds reported killed by 1080 poisoned cereal baits include morepork, weka, tomtits and grey warbler, and fauna known to eat cereal bait include kea, kaka, little spotted kiwi, kokako, saddleback, kakariki, pukeko, insects, koura and lizards.

The number of possums in New Zealand was estimated at 47.6 million in the mid 1980’s. When possum control is taken into account, the number of possums has reduced to an estimated 30 million as of 2008/9. This is not a very large reduction when considering both the environmental and the financial cost of the large scale poisoning operations.

In a Landcare Research document 2009 it states

“Control of possums alone may not always have net benefits for native biodiversity because, for example, of the increase in rodent numbers, and hence predation on native animals, that can occur when possum numbers are reduced (Ruscoe et al. 2008).”

This is important because once the ecosystem is no longer managing itself and is interfered with by humans, it no longer functions so effectively. “It takes one year for rat populations to come back to pre-poisoning levels. By the second year rat numbers were higher than before the operation”, Dr Ruscoe from Landcare said. Scientists warn that this paves the way to rat plagues.

Poisoning from 1080 occurs through eating the dosed baits (cereal pellets) or from the flesh of poisoned animals. Carcasses remain poisonous until they are completely decomposed, which makes 1080 particularly lethal to dogs.

Dog Deaths

The Life Style Block (LSB) website states regarding dogs and 1080:

“Dog owners should take particular care near areas where 1080 poison has been used as dogs are extremely susceptible to the poison.

There is no antidote and it causes every appearance of extreme distress in dogs, and the signs can last for hours before the dog dies. It’s very distressing!

Poisoned carcases can remain poisonous to scavenging dogs for many months if they have been preserved in very dry conditions.”

Death from 1080 poisoning typically involves nausea, vomiting, convulsions, pain and foaming of the mouth, and can take anywhere from 1-72 hrs, depending on the species and the dose. From an animal rights perspective, we should not be allowing such an extremely painful death. Possums stoats and rats are not the only animals to die this way. Other wild and domestic animals become unintended kill, and it persists through the food chain.

Animal rights organisation SAFE has concerns over 1080 use and calls it a “cruel and indiscriminate poison”.

Do we as humans really have the right to kill sentient beings in such a gruelling manner?

Drinking Water?

Clyde is now involved in a new web site http://www.watersourcenz.org/ which will become live shortly ( if it isn’t already). On the home page it asks the question, “Do you drink bottled water sourced from New Zealand forests?” The question is relevant not only about bottled water but about water coming to us from such places as the Hunua dam in Auckland, which is fed from streams that have been in 1080 drop areas. Can we trust the DOC and health board information we are given when we know that government has financial conflicts of interest?  Listen to the interview for more on this.

In 2010, Scientists Pat and Quinn Whiting-OKeefe presented to Taupo District Council on 1080. They included the following information:

“First, there is not a single scientifically credible study showing that aerial 1080 when used on the mainland is of net benefit to any species of New Zealand’s native fauna. Thus the upside for native species is entirely unproven, despite 15 years of increasingly desperate attempts by DoC to show one.

Second, there is overwhelming evidence from DoC’s own research that aerial 1080 is killing large numbers of native animals, including birds, insects and other invertebrates. Moreover most native species remain entirely unstudied. Thus there is plenty of proven downside for native species.

Third, there is not a single ecosystem level study. That is, we don’t have the slightest idea of unintended consequences and secondary negative effects of which ecological science assures us there are many.

Fourth, while it is probable that possums, if unchecked, would in time cause some shift of tree species in our forests, the degree of that shift is not great and fear of canopy collapse is wholly unwarranted.

Fifth, DoC’s 1080 research is generally of poor scientific quality, is biased in favour of DoC’s agenda, and DoC chronically and systematically misrepresents what their own scientific research actually shows.

Sixth, regarding bovine tuberculosis (TB), AHB’s own research shows that there is a clear alternative: ground-based baiting with species-specific bait stations. Plus possums as a vector for bovine TB can be controlled by trapping or ground-based baiting solely at the forest pasture margins to a depth of 3-4 km.”

Clyde points out that New Zealand is classed as being free from TB, and that only 50 possums have ever been found to have been infected with TB.

The Whiting-O’Keefe’s two retired PhD scientists from the USA were interviewed about the problems of 1080 by GreenplanetFM.com - in 2010.

Alternative Strategy

In an article in The Otago Daily Times, rheumatology professor and keen tramper Fiona McQueen gives a solution to New Zealand’s pests, after being shocked at what was seen in Fiordland.

“An alternative strategy would be to incentivise possum trapping, boosting the fur industry and relieving unemployment in areas such as the West Coast. This could be achieved without the grim reality of ‘‘by-kill'' and allow our international ‘‘clean and green'' image to regain some credibility.”

This interview with Clyde Graf was sponsored by The Awareness Party