Old men should not eat toffee

Old men should not eat toffee. I came to that conclusion yesterday, painfully, when eating a toffee resulted in a broken tooth. I am now up for unforeseen and expensive remedial work. Clearly, a lifetime of fluoridation is no match for age and the inevitable deterioration and ultimate destruction of the human body.

That is of course not Fluoride’s fault.  It could be said that my teeth would have been in a lot worse state without it. In fact, if Hamilton is anything to go by—and that is something most of us prefer to do, go by rather than to it—support for fluoridation is a majority view.

In a recent referendum held in conjunction with the local body election, 70% of those participating favoured fluoridation. Oddly, that is at odds with the 89% of direct submissions to the council that wanted fluoridation scrapped. Not so oddly perhaps, if you accept the view that this is a prime case of a strident minority holding sway with their submissions while the majority has its latent say when offered a referendum. It will be interesting to see the result of the national referendum on asset sales.

Anyway, a clear majority of Hamiltonians want fluoridation, and have said so.  The Waikato District Health Board also wants fluoridation. Yet, the newly elected Hamilton City Council—elected at the same time as the referendum was held—has deferred a decision on the issue. Mayor Julie Hardaker says it should be a central government issue. Really? Is Mayor Hardaker saying that as well as having to put up with having Hamilton in the first place we now have to make its decisions for it?

Yes, the referendum was non-binding, but the result was pretty convincing and claims by the council that it needs to wait on a High Court judicial review do not hold water (fluoridated or not) and have been refuted by the council’s own legal advice.

It is a decision, or a non-decision, by a council that clearly lacks teeth.

Something that could soon be the fate of the rest of Hamilton.

Hide the toffees.

The Pythons of Ashburton

Over the last ten years or so I have had much to do with local government. Initially it came by way of invitation. But then, like many council workers, I just hung around until someone noticed me. Recently someone did. I no longer work for council.

In all those years of working for local government I came no closer to working out how it works, or indeed if it works at all.  I am sure it must at some level but sadly for those who work diligently within that environment it remains rare for anyone to have a positive experience dealing with local bureaucracy.

It is also rare that a council or any other local authority will display innovation or even common sense. Entrenched would be a more common descriptor and operational philosophy, and that is hard for the community to overcome or comprehend.

I had a case years ago when I was rung by a young and earnest reporter from a weekend newspaper inviting me to respond to claims that (my) council had refused a resource consent for the building of chemical-free toilets on the basis that “making” worms swim in human excrement would have a traumatizing effect on the worms. I responded that she (the reporter) must be joking. She wasn’t. The claim was true; just not my council, thank God.

And so we arrive at the case of Ashburton and the magpies. It goes like this:

Local magpies are repeatedly attacking Ashburton posties.  It sounds laughable but this is a serious situation—there may be only two or three birds involved but they are attacking year-round, not just during, and typically, the nesting season.

They, the posties (already under the trauma of possible job losses in their sunset industry), have laid 30 complaints with the Ashburton District Council about the birds. The council’s response? Not our problem; it’s Environment Canterbury’s problem. Environment Canterbury’s response? Not our problem; the birds are flying from council land; it’s their problem. Besides (and here come the clincher), “we would only step in if the (magpies) were attacking other birds, not humans.”

My God! Attacking birds. Local bureaucracy gone mad. Duck (or is it magpie) shoving. Ministry of Silly Talks.

It is an affair less resonant of Alfred Hitchcock and more , I am afraid, of Monty Python.