Tank water too?

At a recent meeting of the Karikari Peninsula Residents’ and Ratepayers’ Association, a newspaper article was tabled that really made everyone sit up and pay attention. The article was sourced from the Kaipara Lifestyler, and was headlined ‘Regulate tank water say councils’.

The article implied that the four Northland councils have jointly submitted to central government that tank water systems should be regulated and inspected; this would be at an unknown cost, but most likely at the homeowner’s expense.

Rainwater is currently not covered under the proposed Three Waters review, but an opinion by a

own Justice Casey imposed an injunction in 1985 against the All Blacks making their usual tour of South Africa.

In that case, Justice Casey claimed to be making a judgment based on what was good for New Zealand rugby. In this recent Australian case, Judge Mordecai Blomberg claims that climate change (apparently assumed to be man-made) will prove devastatingly dangerous to Australia’s future. He claims to be making this judgment based on what’s good for Australian children, although, interestingly enough, declining to impose an injunction against a planned coal mine extension, which was the purpose of the case brought by an unidentified professional plumber expressed in the above article labelled the proposal as “lunacy” and “astronomically expensive.”

Kaipara alone, he estimates, would require four to five fulltime staff if it were to be properly policed.

Given that 50 per cent of the FNDC’s households are on tank supply, those remarks could apply to us. Certainly from a health point of view there is a case to be made, and the statistics regarding illnesses contracted from drinking contaminated water are concerning, but at a minimum the council needs to let its ratepayers know exactly what they have proposed. For example, yearly tank

group of citizens.

No doubt, however, huge pressure will be applied to the government minister responsible for approving the coal mine extension in the wake of this judgement. Like almost all her ilk these days, she will very likely cave to that pressure.

This all flies in the face of the incontrovertible evidence that the minuscule atmospheric warming and the CO2 in the atmosphere have brought only good to the planet and its inhabitants. We’ve seen growth in the populations and the wellbeing of all living plants and animals, including us.

We’ve seen growth in the ‘greening’ of the planet by about 30 per cent over recent decades. That means a inspections and/or compulsory water tests, and a documentation system?

I put this to a recent Te Hiku Community Board meeting but was unable to get a definitive answer, however this is all starting to look very expensive, and I feel the ratepayers deserve the facts.

Brian Page

Chairman Karikari Peninsula Residents’ and

Ratepayers’ Association ED: Mayor John Carter said he was unaware of the issue of water tank inspections being raised, but nothing would surprise him. It had not been discussed by the Northland mayoral forum.

heck of a lot more plants releasing oxygen and providing food.

Coal-fired power plants have provided the cheap electricity that has continuously raised standards of living in poorer countries for decades and decades.

It is a form of insanity, perhaps mass hysteria, which demands an end to this.

Leo Leitch Benneydale Fluoridate or be fined

This week the House will debate the second reading of the Health (Fluoridation of Drinking Water) Amendment Bill, which, if enacted, has the potential to mandate fluoridation nationwide.

Implementation will be solely at the discretion of the Director-General of Health, and if a local (authority) refuses to comply it will initially be fined $200,000, and $10,000 per day thereafter.

This must be one of the most draconian, undemocratic, potentially monumentally costly, grossly illinformed and totally unnecessary pieces of legislation mooted for a long while.

What is also disgraceful is that the prime minister’s chief science adviser has just released an update of an earlier report on fluoridation that glosses over or ignores more recently published fluoride science.

There is no attempt at risk management, which is a function and critical obligation of governments through which they are expected to protect citizens.

A major risk with fluoridation is accumulating evidence that ingesting fluoride has a measurable effect on the neurodevelopment of early childhood cognitive ability. In May last year four experts declared evidence on the neurotoxic effect of fluoride on the developing brain, including fluoride from community water supplies, to a US District Court (Food & Water Watch et al vs US EPA et al).

Those declaring expert evidence were Philippe Grandjean, MD, DMSc (Harvard School of Public Health); Howard Hu, MD, MPH, ScD (School of Public Health – University of Washington); Bruce Lanphear, MD,

MPH (Faculty of health sciences at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver); and Kathleen Thiessen, PhD (Risk assessment scientist at Oak Ridge Center for Risk Analysis, Tennessee).

The general consensus among these experts is that the weight of epidemiological evidence leaves no reasonable doubt that developmental neurotoxicity is a serious human health risk associated with elevated fluoride exposure, including those occurring at the levels added to drinking water in fluoridated areas.

The Ministry of Health is blind to developmental fluoride neurotoxicity, and has stated in an OIA response, “The ministry does not hold the information requested.”

There are three cognitive biases that clearly apply to ministry decision-making on fluoridation. They are the tendency towards overreliance on pre-existing information, avoidance of information that challenges a belief, and searching for ways that support existing beliefs.

If an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public domain, such as affecting general health, the action should not be taken in the absence of scientific near-certainty about its safety.

The Ministry of Health cannot provide that scientific near-certainty with respect to fluoridation.

The Associate Minister of Health,

WHAT DO YOU THINK? Email editor@northlandage. co.nz to have your say. Responses may be published.

Ayesha Verrall(who is responsible for the bill), must withdraw it pending a full public inquiry with evidence taken on oath.

Ross Forbes

Kerikeri

Jumping the gun?

Associate Environment Minister James Shaw says he will ask councils to taihoa on designated significant natural areas until a national policy statement is approved. Yet Cr

Felicity Foy, on Te Karere, told everyone that legislation would be passed next month. Is this actually true Cr Foy? Please provide the evidence of where it states legislation will be passed in July 2021, who said it, and when.

Mr Shaw says the work on the national policy statement was started by Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta, who was clear that councils were supposed to work with iwi, but some councils seem to be getting ahead of the process.

“We are going to be having a word with councils over the course of the coming weeks to say maybe taihoa on this until people actually know what’s in it, because otherwise you do run into trouble like they have up there (in Northland),” he says.

This statement by James Shaw appears to be totally different to the one being made by Far North mayor John Carter, elected members and staff.

Mr Carter needs to provide factual evidence of the dates he or his council met with all Mā ori land owners, ahu whenua trusts, and consulted on these SNA proposals, and while he’s at it provide the dates that consultation took place with each farmer who was proposed to have SNAs placed on their land.

Mr Carter needs to provide actual facts on how much of ratepayers’ funds have been expended in planning, staff time in preparing and printing of the letters and mail out, the costs to date in staff time dealing with land owners’ inquiries, attending public meetings and the writing of media releases in regards to these proposed SNAs, after all it is ratepayers’ funds that appear to have been wasted on this “jumping of the gun” exercise/stupidity.

This latest debacle over

Significant Natural Areas clearly highlights how dysfunctional this council is, while also highlighting the lack of day to day leadership, in my opinion. Nothing has changed under Carter’s leadership of the FNDC; in fact things have simply gotten worse, in my opinion.

It is well overdue that the Minister of Local Government took action and removed this present council, along with all senior staff, immediately.

Des Mahoney

RD1 Kaitaia The forgotten North

Lame excuses for cutting the

Whangā rei to Marsden Point highway off the Government’s agenda is an example of the Labour Government’s disinterest in one of

New Zealand’s most depressed regions. It’s another kick in the guts for Northland, which has been promised bridges, highways, and a rail link to Marsden Point for decades by MPs from both National and Labour, and in reality has got little.

The time taken to scope and design major infrastructure projects means construction costs are always going to exceed original projections, but that’s no excuse to put off doing them. The projects are either needed or they’re not, and cost should not be the decider.

The Government has in excess of $40 billion sitting in an account at the Reserve Bank that it has already borrowed at incredibly low interest. It could use a tiny proportion of that, or it could use the capacity of the Reserve Bank to create the funding needed for infrastructure projects without facing any interest charges whatsoever if it chose to do so.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars have already been spent on planning and meeting with landowners over the purchase of land for the project, and all that will now be put on hold.

The landowners concerned, having had to make plans to accommodate the new highway, have had those plans thrown into disarray. The rail link to Marsden Point will not reduce the hundreds of trucks carrying logs to the port that thunder down the main highway every week, so suggestions that reducing fossil fuel use is one of the drivers behind the decision to stop the project are nonsense.

Labour’s Northland MPs, elected less than 12 months ago, promised at campaign meetings that they would stand up for Northland and make sure we got our fair share of allocated resources. Those promises have turned out to be hollow. Northland residents should send them an avalanche of messages telling them they won’t be voting for them in 2023 unless the decision is reversed.

Chris Leitch Leader, Social Credit Final chapter

The Bible is the dead straight, accurate truth of man’s 7000-year existence on this planet, start to finish, and we are at the end of the book.

Really important for everyone with a discerning mind to read the beautiful stuff our powerhouse and creator says to us. Unfortunately man has spent that 7000 years trying to decide if He exists, and the unfathomable — what are we made of? I have come to realise that, by

His own hand, He just wants hugs, cuddles and our undivided daily attention, and He will take you to a euphoria that man has yet to experience. And hey, He is really huggable, as the life He gave us. His mana is as close as the living wind, our breath. He lives at the centre of our heart, and knows the minds of our enemies. He is the tino rangatiratanga, powerhouse. Hikirangi tatou kainga ki te taha Matua Kaharawa.

Maximus RD3 Kaitaia