Thames District Council

If elected I would try to include it as part of the LTCCP process as that is probably the most economical method for the consultation process. If I had the support of other councillors we could simply stop its use and see what support there was for its reintroduction. Do you have any suggestions?

Given the contentious issue of fluoridation, it would probably require a public consultation process to stop the use of it on the Coromandel. I am not sure of the history behind its use in Thames but in my view it should be stopped. Mass dosing of the population is wrong. Period. If people want to use it they can add it to their own water.

I am standing for re-election for the Tairua Pauanui Community Board, which has very little power, and the only way to advance community concerns or needs is to advocate, plead, cajole, beg etc the Councillors who represent us on Council to champion our cause.

You ask what steps I would take to stop fluoridation if elected. I say in return, what steps do you, the community, prefer me to take? I believe the role of Local Government elected officials is governance – to accept, facilitate, implement, and manage the preferred direction of the community at large.

Ministry of Health is one of the agency’s whose advice should be considered alongside the several other organizations, reports, and opinions available. All views should be considered in context and circumstance.

Any referenda or consultative processes can be initiated at Community Board level.

The primary focus of the Local Government Act 2002 is to recognise the diversity of New Zealand communities and to play a broad role in promoting the social, economic, environmental, and cultural well-being of their communities, taking a sustainable development approach. I do not consider fluoridation of water to fit this objective.

Personally I feel that “ health treatment”  measures should be the decision of an individual if over 18 or the care giver of any children not a service provider such as a council or government agency.

However, any move to stop the practice would require a clear majority of community support, achieved through a referendum.

As Mayor I would be prepared to do that if it was proved to me that there was both broad community support for such a referendum and a preparedness to fund it.

In Thames we are particularly exercised by heavy metals under houses affected by our mining past. On the Thames Coast, issues of possum control using 1080 are of great concern.

All of us should be concerned about the use of plastics – and, of course, we are all concerned about the possible impacts of water privatisation, by stealth or design, since water is such an innocent vehicle for all manner of chemicals, benign, neutral and less so.

I absolutely support your idea of creating a consultative process. I don’t believe that there is only one way to achieve anything, and in my experience consultation – particularly led by the community, and especially when led by diverse points of view agreeing to frame up the consultative process – eventually brings people to a place of sitting with a range of objectives and finding a way to bring them together. Having been involved in creating a couple of high level, somewhat under the radar dialogues [GE; and, Climate Change] bringing activists and scientists and “ordinary people” together for 5 days to address topics and find common humanity, I can only applaud the notion.