WARRNAMBOOL’S campaigners against fluoride will help lead a national push and have warned of a High Court challenge.
“It’s a major move forward in our fight to stop the forced fluoridation of water supplies,” former city CEO and campaign spokesman Vern Robson said yesterday.
The decision to extend the fight beyond Victoria and form a national front was made at a meeting in Geelong on Saturday attended by anti-fluoridation campaigners from Warrnambool, Hamilton, Geelong, Ballarat and Daylesford.
They also unanimously decided to approach the Federal Government demanding it put fluoridation to a referendum.
“Our campaign is gaining a huge head of steam,” Mr Robson said.
“We are vehement that democracy must be given the opportunity to prevail.
“This issue is for all of Australia. We started off fighting for Warrnambool people, now we are going national.”
The contract for fluoridation equipment for Warrnambool is expected to be announced in the next fortnight.
Mr Robson said it would be “common sense” for the Government to back off its plan to fluoridate Warrnambool, Allansford and Koroit.
“A fight is brewing. Governments that ignore the will of the people do so at their own peril.
“We are confident this will be a High Court issue. It would be very foolish for a government to proceed on this only perhaps to have a High Court directive for them to remove the equipment after considerable expenditure of public money.”
The campaigners decided on Saturday to call themselves the Victorian Fluoride Action Group. They will meet again in Warrnambool in mid-April and expect to announce their strategy for ramping up the campaign.
Other decisions on Saturday included commitments to:
continue to provide the State Government with technical medical papers from around the world highlighting the risks of ingesting fluoride;
extend `education’ programs to counter Department of Human Services `propaganda’; and
investigate legal and political options following legal research on medical and fluoride-related issues.