Page 1777 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 18 October 1989
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issue, as I understand there is in other parties in this place. As a result, rather than coming into this Assembly and assuming that we are united in a particular point of view without having seen much evidence on the subject, we decided to come into this place and vote as our consciences or our current thinking on this subject saw fit. That was the first time, to my knowledge, this had happened in the Assembly. It may also, as far as my party is concerned at least, be the last.
Quite clearly, the response of the general public, the media and some other parties in this place to that point of view was very damaging to us. We believe that we reflected very well, better than any other party in this Assembly, the current state of thinking of the Canberra community on fluoride because we were evenly split - two-all - and that, we have to say, is a reflection of the current view of the Canberra community. We were not content to force members of our party who had differing views into a particular mould.
Mr Prowse: What are you doing now?
MR HUMPHRIES: Well, Mr Prowse, what we are doing now is restoring the status quo until this debate has been concluded. I know that a couple of centuries ago Edmund Burke expressed the view that a member of parliament, once elected, was responsible only to his own conscience, and strongly refuted the view that the members were in any way responsible to their electorates. That view has not entirely been superseded, members might care to know. There are some members of parliament in many places who still hold that view. It is not a fashionable view and it is certainly not a view that members generally express on platforms when they are talking to their electors.
Mr Duby: Or their preselection committees.
MR HUMPHRIES: Or preselection committees. It is still a view which I think members, to some extent, do and should hold to. My party will continue to look to its conscience first and foremost. When Mr Prowse says that we are frying on the subject of fluoride, he may have a point, but I also think it is worth noting that the Liberal Party's decision to restore fluoride to the water supply of Canberra has come at some cost to itself.
It is quite clear from what has already been said in the Assembly today that the relationship of my party with some members of this Assembly will be severely strained because we support this Bill and we put up this Bill. We accept that. I maintain we do so because we believe, on principle, that this Bill ought to be passed. I regret that this should happen, but I would always say that it is my hope that my party takes a position based on principle rather than on what friends it might make by passing or rejecting particular legislation.
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