Page 1614 - Week 08 - Thursday, 28 September 1989
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ground. I really cannot see the purpose of this. I think there is as much chance of the Social Policy Committee members changing their mind as perhaps a committee of the National Party in Queensland voting for daylight saving. It is not on.
Mr Moore: But you wanted to go there yesterday.
MR WOOD: But yesterday we did not have predetermined opinions, Mr Moore. Do you not see that? The Social Policy Committee can spend a great amount of time on this - it will have to. You know what this issue is. It will bring an avalanche of submissions. We will be inundated. They will come from all sides, and we will need to take account of them. We will need to talk to people. It is going to take a great amount of time to get the investigation that Dr Kinloch wants. As chairman of that committee, I will see that we get that scientific evidence and we will all become, I can assure you, very competent scientists before this is done. It is going to take time.
A member: That is why there is no time on the motion.
MR WOOD: Well, do you think that, at the end of that, people are going to change their minds? I do not have that confidence, and I value my time. I think consultation should have happened long before this came to the Assembly. I heard someone this morning on a radio program saying it has been there a month and people knew about it. Well, with respect, Mr Speaker, that was, to use one of your words this morning, nonsense. It has been on the agenda for a month, it has hardly been heard of, and it has been thrown into this Assembly very, very quickly and deliberately. The Social Policy Committee, if this Assembly requires, will consider this matter, but I am very pessimistic about the outcome.
MRS GRASSBY (Minister for Housing and Urban Services) (12.13): I would just like the house to understand that fluoride comes under my portfolio. It comes under ACTEW, and I am responsible for its going into the water. I am wondering whether the house understands that at the moment the machinery is turned off. To put fluoride into the water, the machinery will be in disarray and, the longer it is left, the longer it will be in disarray. So when the decision is made - I understand from my colleague Mr Wood that he will be very sure that the committee gets every opinion there is, and this could take a long time before we know - at that stage we could find that it will cost the taxpayer a fortune to pay for new machinery to put more fluoride back into the water. I would like the house to understand that this cost will be borne by the opposition who voted on this, not by those of us who voted against it.
The matter could have been sent to a committee in the first place. A decision could have been made, and it could have been made quite quickly. That is what the committee could have advised on, and it would have been done the right way.
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