DEIRDRE KENT is a co-founder of Living Economies Educational Trust and the author of Healthy Money, Healthy Planet: Developing Sustainability Through New Money Systems (Craig Potton 2005). She lives in Otaki, New Zealand, and has been active in the formation and activities of Transition Town Otaki and the Otaki Timebank. She believes that efforts towards local resilience can only go so far without the right signals and the right policy decisions at national level. “I started thinking about politics and economics during my Values Party time in the seventies and it has taken me all this time to realise why economic growth is the mantra of politicians. The environment has deteriorated since then and the gap between rich and poor has widened. I am doing this so that my grandchildren will themselves be able to have children and know they will be born into a future with hope.”