Page 1494 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 27 September 1989
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story in full, not just the bits that either side wants them to hear.
My great concern is not for the well educated, the affluent and the health-aware parent because they are the sorts of parents who would be able to provide their children with fluoride other than by the water supply and who could afford this decay preventing substance. But I am concerned for the ordinary person in the street who is confronted with bills at every turn, who is looking for ways to short-circuit the rising cost of living and who will, as a result of this Bill, find barriers to the benefits of fluoride and the benefits that might flow on to his or her family.
If it can be clearly shown - and it has to be clearly shown to the whole of the population, not just to a select few - by expert and soundly based scientific analysis that fluoride is of no worth to the fight for dental health then it should be removed. But in the Government's view the debate has been no more than shallow and emotive and it would therefore be an advantage to the people of the ACT if they were given access to the debate. I think this is something that they are entitled to and something that we are duty-bound to provide for them - a full debate on the issue before any decisions to interrupt the status quo are taken.
This Assembly will be widely criticised, in my view, if it takes the step proposed by Mr Prowse without proper recognition of the advice of the National Health and Medical Research Council, which is indisputably the peak research body in this country. It is essential that in the interim this Assembly refers this matter for consideration and report by the Social Policy Committee. I do not think that any person in this place can properly argue that there is no role for public consultation on this issue and the right of interested bodies to express their views in a public forum before this very important decision is made to upset the status quo of the provision of fluoride in the water supply which has been in place for many, many years.
MR HUMPHRIES (11.08): Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise to articulate in this debate not the view of the Liberal Party as such but my own personal view on this Bill. Before it was introduced I had very little information on, or understanding of, the issues surrounding fluoride and, as a result, I have done a lot of reading and listening to proponents and opponents of fluoride over the last few weeks. Indeed, my colleagues have also been doing that. I have come to a view on the basis of that evidence, but I acknowledge that there are other members of my parliamentary party, some of whom have been longer acquainted with the arguments in this area, who do take other views, having seen that evidence. The differences between us, I think, are based not so much on philosophical differences but on the fact that there is an abundance of evidence on both sides of the argument and that it is not easy to at the one time discern clearly which of the two
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