Mackay Council stops adding fluoride to drinking water

Townsville will be the only major Queensland regional centre outside the south-east to fluoridate its water, after Mackay voted narrowly in September to stop adding fluoride to its drinking water, following the same decision by Gladstone in July.

The issue was a divisive one for the Mackay Regional Council with six councillors voting to end fluoridation and five voting to continue. Mayor Greg Williamson said it was the right move after months of surveys and public forums.

“Everybody made a decision based on their research and the people that they’ve spoken to along the way,” he said. “For me the decision was that everybody I’ve spoken to, all the groups, I’ve spoken to, wanted it removed from the water supply.

The decision by Mackay and Gladstone means fluoridation will continue in only 24 of the state’s 77 councils, most of them in the south east.

There is an increasing number of councils which had acted on the decision by the previous LNP government to make fluoride optional, after Labor made it compulsory in 2007.

Original story ABC News by Chris O’Brien and Krystal Gordon