Page 1834 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 18 October 1989
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MR BERRY: Whether you like the calculation or not, that is how it was made. You may not like it, but that is the way it was made. They were being dosed with fluoride for a cost of $150,000. The $3,500 quoted in this case by the Albert Shire Council suggests the lack of success that that type of application of fluoride has in relation to the application of the substance - - -
MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Mr Berry, I think you are now debating the issue and taking it further.
MR BERRY: With the deepest respect, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, I am pointing out the areas in which I have been misrepresented, and I think it most appropriate that I fill you in, in relation to all of the facts, so that all of the members here are fully aware of the misrepresentation which has occurred, at least as I allege.
The second point is that it was suggested that I was not open to ideas. I heard what Mr Prowse said about the Health Minister in Scotland. I suggest, as I have always done, that the most appropriate course for this sort of information is for it to be placed before the committee which has been established. That has been my position throughout this entire issue, so that there can be wide publicity and consultation and, of course, access by all people in the ACT to the committee.
The third count was in relation to my lack of interest in the issue of some people who are alleged to have some sort of illness effected by fluoride. As I always will be, I am interested in anybody who is ill in the Territory, particularly where that illness arises from the sorts of allegations which are made in relation to fluoride. I must say to Mr Prowse that he can certainly invite any of those people of whom he is aware and who he alleges are suffering from some sort of fluoride poisoning to present at any of the public hospitals and seek a service in relation to the illness that they claim they have, because they will certainly receive an appropriate service from the hospital system in the ACT.
MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (4.13), in reply: I do not intend to take up too much more time of the house, but there are one or two things that have emerged over the last three or four hours of debate that I think are worthy of comment before we close the debate. I would say from the outset that I do not think that those last three or four hours of debate have added one iota of valuable comment.
The anti-fluoride case has again been passionately put, and in great detail, but we have already been through that, and no doubt the committee will go through it again over a long period. Despite the heat of the claim that the public view should prevail - and that comes from the anti-fluoride people - it is quite obvious that that is not what they mean. They do not want the public view to prevail; they want their view to prevail and, quite clearly, without any public debate.
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