Page 3243 - Week 10 - Thursday, 16 September 1993
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FLUORIDATED TOOTHPASTE
MR BERRY (Minister for Health, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport): Madam Speaker, Yesterday Mr Stevenson asked me a question in relation to fluoridation. I table a statement in reply to that question.
ADJOURNMENT
Motion (by Mr Berry) proposed:
That the Assembly do now adjourn.
Middle East Peace Accord
MR HUMPHRIES (5.35): Madam Speaker, I want to make a brief reference to an extremely significant event that took place this week. I was hoping to do this on Tuesday, but today is as good a day as any, I suppose. Members will all be aware that in Washington this week an historic peace accord was signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
I think we have all grown up as witnesses to a period of history which has been characterised by a very significant conflict focusing on the Middle East. It is a conflict which has very ancient origins and which has caused great suffering for many millions of people around the world - not just those people who have been, for example, displaced from their homeland or who have been the victims of violence in the Middle East, but all those other people around the world who have been in some way or other affected by the violence which has emanated from the Middle East.
I think I could say that all of us would have felt a great deal of joy to see on Tuesday of this week television pictures of the historic peace accord being signed in Washington between Israel and the PLO and pictures of Yasser Arafat and the Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, shaking hands after the signing of that peace accord to indicate a new future for those two peoples. It would have been extremely hard just a few years ago, even a few months ago, to have imagined that taking place.
The process which was begun to find peace is not yet over, but I think it holds great hope for our community and for our world. If we are able to approach seemingly insurmountable gaps between groups of individuals on the basis on which these people have approached the task before them, I believe that no obstacle will be too great for our community in Australia or for people anywhere around the world.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Assembly adjourned at 5.38 pm until Tuesday, 12 October 1993, at 2.30 pm
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