Page 2228 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 6 June 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
by the Residents Rally every time they dump one of their policies. The excuse is, "It is an Alliance Government and we have to do what other people tell us. It has nothing to do with our rank and file, and we therefore do not have to abide by the platform on which we gained our seats".
Mr Jensen: Irrelevant garbage!
MR BERRY: Well, it might be irrelevant garbage to Mr Jensen, but the history of the garbage that went on in this place was that most of it emanated from the Residents Rally party, I would have to say.
Then, on the motion of Mr Speaker, this Assembly ordered the removal of the fluoride. To do this, members opposite opposed Labor's motion to refer the matter to the Social Policy Committee for consideration.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Berry, it is difficult for me to comment from the chair, but the Speaker did not make any ruling on fluoride from the chair.
MR BERRY: No, it was on the Speaker's motion.
MR SPEAKER: On the MLA's motion; that is what I am trying to indicate.
MR BERRY: My apologies, Mr Speaker. It was on Mr Prowse's motion. To do this, Labor's motion to refer the matter to Social Policy Committee was opposed. I was going through this today, and it is really amusing for somebody outside of those parties who were involved in all of this to see the antics of the people opposite. We had the Chief Minister, who did not know which way his members were going to go, and other parties firing from the hip, left, right and centre on the issue.
Mr Moore: Yours was the Chief Minister at the time.
MR BERRY: I meant this Chief Minister. They all refused to let the matter go out for consultation. Basically they refused to let anybody have a say and to make submissions in relation to fluoridation of our water. I have to say at this time that Mr Moore's position was pretty clean. Mr Moore supported the matter going off to a committee for consideration and he was somewhat out of step with some of his Residents Rally party colleagues in relation to that matter.
Anyway, they all realised that they had been a bit hasty and, because there was a hell of an outcry from the public, they supported the return of the fluoride to the water. But that was only for a brief time because some people still had to recover from the wounds they had received from the public lashing over their performance in this place.
The most interesting part about all of this is that the reference of the whole fluoride issue to a committee was
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .