Thank you Jolisa for your eloquently written setting the scene, and detail of your feelings, your brave efforts.

It is not just Councils that set up the parameters of Hearings to 100% enable the result they want.
Here in Kapiti, we had the Western Link Road [actually linking the string of communities along the Coast, so that drivers from each did not have to travel up to 6+Km to SH1 to go north or south] fully consented and ready to go.
But Stephen Joyce on reaching the Power of Cabinet, decided on RONS, and organised the Kapiti Expressway.

With many others, lawyers, environmentalists, scientists,I submitted to the EPA, against NZTA who were the mouthpiece of Joyce/Nat Govt.
All submitters opposed to the Expressway were warned that comparison with the Link Road was not,would not be, relevant.
I also submitted about Carbon cost [peat+++ re Methane and Concrete re CO2]
But the EPA in their final decision statement mentioned only the CO2 cost of cars/trucks, saying that there would be less on a free-flowing Expressway than on the SH1 with its traffic lights.
And the monstrous Expressway with C/B Ratio of 0.4 is going full steam ahead.

We, the people feel, are, so powerless.

You are so correct.. and notice it is the Left who are the first to be targeted.

This has been so since long before the Russian Revolution.
Just that the technology is so much greater now..

In 1960 my partner and I wanted to visit his mother who lived in New York. He had a German passport and was concerned he might not be allowed re-entry to Britain, so I applied for a USA Visa.
I received this in short order, but on every page it was stamped with CANCELLED..

We had been active in such Left movements as Anti-apartheid. CND, The Peace Movement etc. They knew.

If you read Muriel Newman's NZCPR-Weekly blog [I'm sorry I have not given the Link], you will find the most vitriolic expressions of hate for the Left and, especially, the Greens, in the comments to the weekly questions.

These are the enemies who are surveilled .. along with the genuine terrorist suspects.

My memory of the Julian Assange case is that the accusers were two women who worked in his office, were willing sexual partners, but requested the use of a condom, and Julian did not respect this request. So assault of a sort.. but i would not call this rape.

Yes. Cigarettes were a reward, and deprivation of these to the addicted was a punishment.
I knew an ex-patient of very many years with smoking-related illness, but who was delighted to be abe to give up. No chance there.

I really like the post/link of Sacha above.

I am glad Shane Jones has gone. As a long-standing member of the LP, though on the Green side, I thoroughly disliked Shane Jones in spite some good speeches and replies in Parliament.
1. the pornagraphic films, whether or not tax-payer funded
2. a TV1 series when various MPs went to work in some field to show a "more human" side.
I was impressed by Rodney Hyde who went to a Care-Centre for Special Needs children, and truly interacted with them in class and swimming pool.. and has kept up his interest in this sector since.
Shane Jones did a fishing trip: he was late as,unapologetically, hung-over. The boat had to wait 1+ hour for him.
When arrived, re talked to the men about fishing industry policy and did no work whatsoever.
He is a climate-change denier, would fish the oceans dry using badly paid Phillipine labour so as to maximise profit for SeaLord.
Good riddance.
And since when have "blue-collar workers" been pro Labour.. only at the beginning of the Trade Union movement.

Just a few comments on this most important subject: Climate Change, and NZ effort or not to address this, and the prominence of dairying in the discussion.

I agree with Lilith that intensification of dairying especially in Canterbury is bad.
Although what we have is more than enough, farmers eye the Fonterra etc income, convert more land, often unsuitable, so land prices increase,so more money must be made.
Dairy intensification not only needs more water [and pollutes the ground water and streams] it is un-natural, so that cows need more and more antibiotics, and supplementary feeding with food which is not natural to their gut bacteria [ie palm kernal..the demand for which is leading to destruction of O2 producing, CO2 absorbing forests,loss of biodiversity with all its potential etc etc]. And then added to the negative, more "support" farming where crops are grown for cows, not us. We have finite arable land, finite wtaer.
So there should be no more dairying at all in NZ.

Re GMOs: this 1. is not needed: genetic knowledge means that choosing varieties of grasses that are drought reisistant, or better suited for cattle digestive systems so they don't burp so much is now quite quick.. and is using nature, not disregarding or corrupting it.
2. GMOs produce grasses etc that have never been found in nature, and all creatures cells do not know how to handle them.. they are synthetic, and synthetic foods, vitamins etc are toxic.
Thus synthetic canabinoids are completely different to the real McCoy. Synthetic vitamins, and minerals from gound up rocks, rather thatn those obtained through plant or animal tissues are actually harmful to us. Another example; synthetic Nicatinoids as pesticides killing all kinds of wild life including bees.

We humans are stupid to think we can do better that nature. We seem not to learn, and it is disappointing to me that the very intelligent posters to Russell excellent blogs can be supportive of any GMO "solution".

I agree [and with HenryB, Lucy Telfar Barnard and Tristan and Gordon Campbell via Sacha]> I have been a member of the LP since 1977, sometimes in despair at the policies or personel.. but have hoped it would basically be a socialist/social democratic Party. I was really impressed that there was a "who do you want as Leader" tour, attending the meeting in Wellington.
It was almost no contest in that large audience: David Cunliffe was clear, decisive, knew where he wanted to go [and I basically agreed]; David Shearer related anecdotes from his diplomatic/negotiating career. He was utterly weak on the political front..[ie wanting to defeat the National Party next election to stop bad policiies, make better ones].
But caucus ignored the considered views of the Party membership and instead voted for Shearer because he is kinder and gentler with them, I assume..
So I, and many, have hoped like hell we were wrong about Shearer, and so far we were not. National have been able to get away with bad policy and lies/mistakes.
February was the time that Shearer and the caucus had agreed would be the leadership decision time.
David Shearer's hissy fit shows he is not a political animal. So why does he want to be the Leader I wonder; a big encounter group to demonstrate his negotiating skills with? Personal ego I surmise

I wrote a long post.. too long probably.. saw a mistake on preview, and lost it trying to return to it [I'll try again tomorrow.. re Integrative Health etc.

"If you fuck with this, you're fucking with the core that's holding a community in crisis together"

Do you think Keith that you could keep the English language more accurate and less offensive, by using "mess" and "messing" instead of the f.... words above.