The current parliamentary term has seen a reduction in the number of 'rainbow'/LGBTI Members of Parliament. How do we reverse this trend? Kevin Hague's resignation as Green Party health spokesperson to lead the Royal Forest and Bird Society, an environmentalist group, is one of a number of other premature exits from the political stage that have deprived New Zealand's Parliament of much-needed intellectual vigour and performance. One thinks of the loss of Simon Power and Katherine Rich from the National caucus, Steve Maharey and the Labour Party and the Greens and Sue Bradford. If he'd remained, I predict Kevin would have made Associate Health Minister in the next Labour/Green coalition government. That said, given his AIDS Foundation and West Coast District Health Board administrative experience, as well as parliamentary connections, he will be an asset to Forest and Bird. However, that leads to questions about succession planning and strategies for increased 'rainbow' parliamentary representation. Over the last decade, Tim Barnett and Georgina Beyer have resigned from Parliament, Chris Carter fell out with former Labour leader Phil Goff, Maryan Street and Tony Milne didn't make it back due to Labour's hopeless 2014 election campaign, and Charles Chauvel left the Labour list for a position at the United Nations. That leaves three rainbow MPs in the Labour and Green parliamentary caucuses- Louisa Wall (Manurewa) and Grant Robertson (Wellington Central) in Labour, and Jan Logie (Greens, List)- as well as celibate 'gay' National MP Chris Finlayson. Claudette Hautiti didn't last long on National's party list. In fact, National hasn't selected a lesbian or gay man for a winnable constituency seat, or appointed one sufficiently high up the party list to return to Parliament since the days of Marilyn Waring (Waipa) in the seventies and eighties. This is inexcusable, particularly considering that its fellow centre-rightists in the British Conservative Party now do have a substantial contingent of lesbian and gay Tory MPs in the House of Commons. One hopes National strategists and Conservative counterparts sit down and discuss this lack of representation amongst Members of Parliament in the current term. However, that doesn't absolve either Labour or Greens of their respective responsibilities to harvest suitable high-profile LGBT candidates for inclusion on their party lists or within winnable constituency seats. Insofar as the New Zealand LGBTI legislative reform agenda goes, this is on the docket- the addition of gender identity as a direct ground under the Human Rights Act, comprehensive anti-bullying school programmes, government funding of reassignment surgery and a ban on infant intersex surgery. With a suitably motivated caucus, that could be accomplished in two parliamentary terms. I am not making any presumptions about whether it would necessarily be a centre-right or centre-left government that would make the requisite changes. At present, the Canadian federal government appears to be finally due to add gender identity to the Canadian Human Rights Act. Given that the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada either have, or will soon have, concrete specifications that gender identity is included within anti-discrimination law, that leaves New Zealand out on a statutory limb. It's high time that this anomaly was remedied. There is no reason to believe that a Steven Joyce-led National Party would be as bound to inertia as the current Key administration is. One suspects Andrew Little certainly wouldn't be, especially in coalition with the Greens. Whether or not New Zealand First wants to prop up a dying Key administration for a final term of office is up to them, of course. Beyond that, we arrive at the 'stakeholder' phase of LGBTI legislative reform. Now that we are in sight of the end of legislative reform, we need to focus attention on professional practice and stakeholder statements about the place of LGBT communities in current issues of public concern. There's some overlap with the end of legislative reform, visible in the context of the housing crisis. New Zealand LGBTI communities need to develop capacity in this context. Our current particular concerns are focused on spousal and parenting rights and responsibilities, educational policy, HIV/AIDS, women's cancer issues, hormone treatment and reassignment surgery, and employment discrimination in the context of the transgender community. It tends to mean that we don't have specialised research prowess outside those areas. There is no national network of LGBTI housing and accomodation rights professionals, nor are the needs of homeless or transient LGBTI individuals addressed in methodical, systematic evidence-based research projects. However, shelter is a basic human need. We need to learn from overseas LGBTI communities about how to establish research projects in these disciplines and insure that the outcome is recognition of LGBTI stakeholder roles in public policy and service provision that meets our concrete needs. Craig Young - 21st September 2016