Page 1537 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 27 September 1989
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view and to enable the differences of view which quite obviously exist in the community to be fully aired. I cannot conceive of any other responsible course of action.
We have heard, for instance, from the Minister, Mr Berry, about the National Health and Medical Research Council's views on this matter. We have heard opposite that body denigrated although I had always been led to believe that it was a body in good standing, indeed a body whose advice on medical and health issues was well worth listening to and, Mr Deputy Speaker, on issues like health and medicine, where I would claim no expertise whatsoever on my own behalf, I feel it is my duty to listen to bodies who are held in good standing in the community and who have advised governments and other health authorities over very many years on any number of health issues. I will not overlook their advice.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I have also had the benefit in the weeks preceding this sitting of having met with some people who are opposed to the addition of fluoride in the water supply and I have to say that I do not find their arguments terribly convincing. In fact, in some cases, I would go so far as to say those people are cranks. I cannot see any other way of describing them. They have blamed fluoride for every disease under the sun - for diseases like RSI, diseases of the spine, not to mention problems with teeth, with blood pressure and what have you.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I did not find their arguments terribly convincing or terribly consistent. That is a problem that I believe most of the community will also have on the issue of fluoride. As I have said on many occasions before, I believe the only responsible course of action that this Assembly can take is to allow members of the community to have expression of their views on this issue, to allow them to listen to the debate on the matter, to allow them the benefit of expert advice, such as that from the National Health and Medical Research Council and also to allow them to listen to what other contrary view people with genuinely held views might wish to put.
I really believe that that is the only sensible course of action. I was alarmed to hear from Dr Kinloch that he does not believe the public is able to cope with the detail of such an argument. It is my belief that the public is more than able to cope with the detail of such an argument, and I further have confidence that members of the public are able to discern when they are being lobbied by an interest group and when they are being given useful and good information. I have confidence that the community, if given an opportunity, would be able to weigh up the pros and cons of this matter and come to a sensible conclusion, on their own behalf, without having this Assembly take the decision for them in the absence of any detailed debate.
So, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am afraid I do not share the lack of faith of my colleague opposite in the ability of our
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