Community debate attracts celebrities

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Waitaki Mayor Alex Familton prepares to chair a debate between (from left) Gerry Eckhoff, Bruce McNab and Paul Hansen, and Rod Oram, Te Radar and Susan Krumdieck. Photo supplied.

Poet Brian Turner and former All Black Anton Oliver were among the crowd at the Hampden Community Energy Society's celebrity challenge debate on Saturday night.

The moot was "promoting continuous economic growth per se is a sound national strategy to secure our children's future".

The affirmative comprised Otago regional councillor Gerry Eckhoff, former Federated Farmers national board member Bruce McNab and economist Associate Prof Paul Hansen, of the University of Otago, while journalist and economics commentator Rod Oram, Assoc Prof Susan Krumdieck, of Canterbury University, and media personality Te Radar took the negative.

About 100 people attended the event which began with a "sustainable" seafood meal.

One of the organisers, Alison MacTavish, said the debate was a good mix of the serious and the lighthearted.

"I think it gave traction to the whole question of economic growth and what is the justification for it and why doesn't anyone seem to have a handle on the issue," she said.

The negative team won the debate, she said.