Page 1620 - Week 08 - Thursday, 28 September 1989
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Mr Moore: And you did not do anything about it.
MR COLLAERY: And you did not do anything about it.
Mr Moore: And you came unprepared.
MR COLLAERY: And you came unprepared.
Mr Whalan: Who is the puppet?
Mrs Grassby: Have you got your hand up his back?
MR COLLAERY: I have not got a belt on today. I thought I might want to use it, Mr Speaker - on myself, of course. The Minister for Urban Affairs - - -
Mrs Grassby: I do not have affairs. Please, I want it said right now in the house that I do not have affairs, urban or any other kind.
MR COLLAERY: The Minister for Urban Water Supplies - - -
Mrs Grassby: Services.
MR COLLAERY: The Minister for Urban Water Supplies has no doubt got some heavy time ahead of her negotiating with the Queanbeyan Council, which is equally divided on the subject of fluoride. What the Residents Rally has done in support of motions in this house is to open a national debate on this issue. Here we have a democratic Assembly approaching an issue; it has the gumption to take it head-on; it has banned fluoride; we have got the debate going; and the Rally will accept the outcome of the eventual debate. Now we have got relatively purer water during the maintenance of that debate.
We do know that the ACT Health Commission has, in the past, examined claims for compensation for fluorosis, for injuries to residents. We expect that when the debate is properly presented by the Minister for Health he will detail any instances when the ACT Health Commission has ever settled a claim by an ACT resident for fluorosis. I wonder whether the Minister for Health is prepared to give us some advice today on that topic. There are implications in this decision. One implication is that with the substance out of the water the debate is, as Dr Kinloch said, returned to the level playing field. That is a reasoned, democratic basis for debate.
Mr Whalan: Muddying the waters.
MR COLLAERY: It is regrettable that the Deputy Chief Minister, the Reverend Paul Whalan, uses fluoride now as his new topic to form a new righteous crusade in the Canberra community. Naturally, one would expect the member for Canberra, Ros Kelly, to come out in support of Mr Whalan's views on fluoride.
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