4350water – one year on …

The 4350water blog commenced a year ago.

Read the first blog comment - here.

An amazing battle ensued as Mayor Thorley and Toowoomba City Council tried to convince people to support the Water Futures project.

They failed.

Why?

Two reasons (among many others):

1. The release of the Council’s National Water Commission funding application – following a Freedom of Information request. This document showed the Water Futures recycled sewage project as fundamentally flawed. Toowoomba City Council was then on the back foot, trying to justify the shortcomings of its proposal.

2. The blogs – the only way for Toowoomba City Council to succeed with its misinformation campaign (e.g. there are no other options, it’s done everywhere in the world, nothing gets through the membranes, the gas water is poisonous) was to control the flow of information to the public. The blogs gave the public an alternative source of information and allowed the public to see that there were two sides to the debate.

Toowoomba City Council tried many gimmicks – Singapore NEWater taste tests, free movie tickets, pizza, balloons etc. Some supporters even forced their children to drink NEWater (or was it really tap water?) for the cameras. However, no matter how many “kitchen table” talks they gave, it became apparent that the numbers attending these sessions were far outweighed by those attending the opposition rallies.

Quite simple, people don’t like being misled.

And the referendum result showed this …