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.