Page 1801 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 18 October 1989
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approximately 1,000 parts per million in a tube of toothpaste.
So we are told on the one hand that it is unsafe or we start to run into problems if fluoride is introduced into the water above five parts per million, yet it is in our toothpaste at 1,000 parts per million. Most of us are aware that it is quite difficult to buy a tube of toothpaste without fluoride. All the toothpaste that is readily available has fluoride in it, and it is being delivered at 1,000 parts per million. By the time you have rinsed your mouth out with water and so forth, no doubt that is reduced significantly, perhaps even down to 100 parts per million, maybe down to 10 parts per million, but the point is it would appear that fluoride is being delivered to mouths through toothpaste. That is one possibility.
I hope that the Social Policy Committee, when it looks at this, will look very carefully at that delivery of fluoride in a voluntary way to our children, about whom we are particularly concerned. We have not said, as the Labor Party has said, that this is only about looking after our children and we are only concerned about looking after our children.
Mr Berry: We did not say that.
MR MOORE: The Chief Minister did, after coming to this debate with barely a shred of evidence. If fluoride is being delivered in our toothpaste at 1,000 parts per million and if it is dangerous above five or 10 parts per million, the Social Policy Committee will need to look carefully at the combination of fluoride toothpaste and fluoride in the water.
With that in mind, I recommend - because I have looked at the way the numbers are going today and I suspect that Labor and Liberal will carry this through - that they, and the Chief Minister in particular, take note of what the National Health and Medical Research Council says about levels and make an administrative decision, if fluoride is to stay in the water, to halve the amount of fluoride that is being delivered.
Mr Stevenson: It is not in; it is out.
MR MOORE: If this motion is carried. Let us pay particular attention to some of the other factors. The Conservation Council has written to me, and I presume to others in the Assembly, suggesting that one of the areas that has not been considered is the environment; that fluoride in our water goes through to the rest of the environment and it affects animals and plant life around us. Remember that the percentage of water that is actually consumed by humans is a minimal part of that water supply.
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