Councillor gags over bottled recycled water promotion ...

From ABC News (annotated):

25 May 2006

Councillor gags over bottled recycled water promotion

A critic of the Toowoomba water futures project in south-east Queensland says a plan to give away bottles of recycled sewage water to residents in the lead-up to the poll is a poor stunt.

Councillor Lyle Shelton says bottles of recycled effluent water from Singapore are being shipped in in a bid to secure votes at the July 29 poll.

He says residents should not be fooled by the promotion.

"Singapore is drinking one per cent recycled sewage water," he said.

"No amount of promotional bottles is going to change that fact and until other cities in the world adopt this at a rate that Toowoomba's looking at, we should take a cautious response like the Singapore people are taking a cautious response in a country that is not even a democracy."

Toowoomba Mayor Di Thorley says the bottles are not a promotional stunt.

She says they are being shipped in [at ratepayers' expense] to prove a point.

"Nobody is going to be able to quantify if people will change their mind. It is about them understanding that this water does not have an odour, is clear and is pure, remembering that this is 100 per cent recycled water," she said.

Source - ABC News - Councillor gags over bottled recycled water promotion.

Wasn't Mayor Thorley making no further comments during the referendum?

Wasn't she going to leave it to the "Kev and Al" show?

Seems she's unable to keep even that commitment.

Also seems the Mayor thinks that she will have to change people's minds. What happened to the 70% who supported her? That's enough to get the yes vote across the line. Is Council's polling telling them something different?

And she used the "pure" word - that's going to get you into trouble during the referendum period, Mayor Thorley.

It's interesting to watch the recycled sewage sippers - no-one really gulping it down. Not a lot of trust there. It is a stunt and it won't win people's trust. You simply can't undo the harm done over the past 10 months with a few sips of recycled Singapore sewage ...