Page 1552 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 27 September 1989
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Mr Collaery: It was in a policy distributed before the election. We distributed it publicly before the election. We have a mandate. So what are you talking about?
MR BERRY: It might upset you to learn of this occasionally, but the fact of the matter is that we have policies too, but we still consult the public before we - - -
Mr Moore: You copied them, like the environment policy that you copied from us.
Mr Collaery: No-one reads them.
MR BERRY: You read them because you had to copy some of them. Many questions have been raised this morning and virtually none of them have been completely answered. Claim and counterclaim have done nothing to resolve the debate and very little substantiated evidence has been allowed to enter the debate. Over and over again we have heard it, yet members seem hell-bent on proceeding with this amendment in unseemly and undue haste.
Fluoride has been in the water for 25 years, yet the members opposite cannot allow a short period of time - not even the shortest period of time - for the issues to be aired. I would suggest that some do not want to hear all of the evidence and that is why they do not want it to be aired over a short period of time, because of the weight of opinion on one side or another. I am prepared to hear it all.
Mr Prowse: It has all been done in public debate for the last two years.
MR BERRY: I am prepared to hear it all, and so is the Labor Government.
Mr Prowse: You are not. That is not true.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!
MR BERRY: I am prepared to hear it all in a proper forum.
Mr Prowse: You would not listen.
MR BERRY: As I indicated to you, Mr Prowse, I was prepared to hear the debate in a proper forum, and a proper forum of relevance to this Assembly is a committee of inquiry. Of course, there has been some resistance to that. As you told me, you were worried that a lot of people would put a lot of weight behind the pro debate. I think that the opportunity should have been granted for those issues to be aired so that the community could have the opportunity to put their views on the subject. They needed to have the opportunity.
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