The council embarked on a vigorous

The council embarked on a vigorous public relations campaign in support of recycled water and shied away from public engagement (Marketing-manager20 06, personal communication). The campaign', as it was known internally, was designed to convince the public of the benefit of recycled water, rather than air concerns of the public. The dominant narrative was that recycled water could be safely used for drinking. The rhetoric of the council was that this was a war against irrational forces within the public who opposed the use of recycled water for drinking. Experts with engineering and academic backgrounds were utilized from technical areas to strengthen the case for recycled water. They were not readily made available to the public to answer concerns about contamination from recycled water. The public was effectively quarantined from open dialogue with Council's experts. The Council shied away from the use of experts in public participation method (Marketing-manager2006, personal communication).In response to this approach, a public interest group developed to support the 'no' vote. Council response was to spend more on marketing the 'yes' vote. The final outcome of the referendum was a defeat of the 'yes' vote.