Water
Photo: 123rf
Whangārei District Council has lost its offer by a legal injunction that would allow it to stop adding fluoride to the city’s water supply.
The Supreme Court’s decision was criticized by the Council that Judge Karen Grau said she was trying to protect herself from the consequences of not following the law.
Judge Grade said it was not appropriate for the court to “grant orders that facilitate illegal conduct.”
She said the board did not help her own case requesting the injunction at the last minute and, accepting financing for fluoride equipment, said she did not want to use.
The Whangārei District Council was one of 14 local authorities across the country ordered to fluoride its water supply, after a change of law that changed responsibility for such decisions of local councils to the Director General of Health.
Nevertheless, the counselors voted last November so as not to proceed with fluoride.
Since then, government pressure and potential costs have been set up, leading the counselors to vote on March 17, under protest, to revoke their previous decision.
However, they also voted to interrupt fluoridization immediately if they earned their injunction on March 18.
If the Council had won, it would have stopped the Ministry of Health taking any enforcement action against the Council until its main legal challenge could be heard.
The main challenge involves asking the Supreme Court to declare whether fluoride is safe at the required levels of 0.7-1.0 mg/liter, and to govern whether the managing director’s fluoride order was lawful.
No date has yet been set for this challenge.
As the court did not immediately known on March 18, the Council began fluoridization on March 19 – the last possible start date due to the long tests needed to be sure to comply with the 28 March of the Ministry of Health.
Judge Grade’s decision means that fluoritation will continue now, at least until the result of the board’s biggest legal challenge is known.
In a 24 -page decision, Judge Grade said the main reason for rejecting the request of the board of an injunction, or “intermediate relief,” was that this would allow illegal conduct.
“In other words, the council is asking the court to order the Ministry of Health to take any enforcement action against the council under the health law when (how the intermediate relief is granted) begins to act illegally from March 28, 2025, nor seek to enforce their financing agreements to the Council.”
She also noted that the board’s March 17 resolution included the team’s management to cease fluoride if an injunction were granted.
This represented instructing the team to act on violation of the law.
The judge grade noted that the change in the fluoride law – and the heavy penalties that came to it – were implemented by Parliament “to prevent the councils from refusing to fluoridade in the face of the vocal opposition of parts of the community.”
She said the council’s conduct, including her 11th hour and “public disrespect for the law,” undermined her case by an injunction.
It also counted against the council was the fact that it had already accepted financing for fluoride equipment.
The board’s lawyers, supported by experts from Canada and Denmark, argued that fluoritation at the required level posed a serious risk to the public, especially pregnant women and babies.
It was also a violation of the board’s legal obligation to provide secure drinking water.
This was contested by the Ministry of Health experts, who said the evidence in general were that fluoride was safe at the levels used in drinking water.
Judge Grade recognized the council experts, but said it was not satisfied with the established evidence “such immediate risks that justify provisional orders, particularly when significant parts of New Zealand (more than half) have had fluoride water for several decades.”
She also expressed doubts about the chances of the council’s success in her challenge against the safety and legality of fluoridation.
The question of those who pay the costs arising from the failed injunction will be decided after the main challenge was heard.
SUBSCRIBE TO NGā Pytopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter Curated by our editors and deliver it directly to your inbox every day of the week.
