Page 1785 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 18 October 1989
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On 30 June next year, if the evidence indicates that fluoride should be removed, I would imagine this Assembly would recommend that that be the case and that Mr Prowse's Bill be reactivated. If the evidence indicates that fluoride should stay, in whatever dosage, then the necessary alterations can be made to Mr Prowse's Bill to ensure that that occurs. But when this Assembly has sent such legislation as my move-on Bill and smaller items such as consideration of big bins to committees, I think the criticism that has come through loudly and clearly is that issues such as this should be looked at as a level playing field, which is the status quo.
Accordingly, I look forward to seeing what comes before this committee. I think all members of the Assembly will be further enlightened as a result of various studies that are currently occurring that will come down and various pieces of evidence that will be put forward to the committee by organisations and individuals. I commend this Bill.
MR STEVENSON (11.30): This debate is not about tooth decay: it is about truth decay. What we have is a situation where the Assembly voted to return the situation to a level playing field. The Assembly voted to give the people of Canberra the right that they should have had all along. The suggestion that this should have been put to this Assembly in the form of a Bill in the first place is not particularly valid. It was turned on in the night; it should have been turned off in the day in the same manner. The level playing field should have been brought about immediately.
The Liberal Party members made it happen. Mr Stefaniak says that he had difficulty in looking at the situation, but I suggest that, as someone trained in the legal area, he should consider himself an expert, because the definition of "expert", and let us look at it, is "a person who has much skill or who knows a great deal about some special things; an authority; a specialist". Is he not a specialist in people's rights? Does he not understand the basic laws of our society that would prevent people's bodies being interfered with without their consent? That is what fluoridation is; that is what is happening.
Let us look at the narrow definition of "democracy". Some people feel we have democracy in this country, yet they debate - and this is a political debate; this is not a medical debate - whether or not the people of Canberra, every man, woman, child, every animal and plant, should be medicated, on the dubious suggestion that young children, perhaps up to the age of 12, will benefit.
Mr Duby made the logical legal point - and I challenge any lawyer in this Assembly to refute it legally - that the suggestion that we need an inquiry means that there is doubt. What is the doubt? There is doubt about the
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