Page 2701 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 1991
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As I indicated, I found some aspects of Mr Stevenson's report hard to follow and a little bit lacking in substance from a scientific point of view. But I go back to the question that he poses in that report: When experts disagree, how do you decide? To people who are not qualified to enter that field and fully sort the information into chaff and grain, the answer must be that there should be some process of assessment of that information at a level of peak scientific or research organisations.
In the Australian context that means, in my view, the NHMRC. I am prepared to accept the advice of that organisation. It is very clear; its views are not dislodged, in my view, by the recommendations of the standing committee. I do not wish in any way to denigrate the work of the standing committee. It has obviously done a very good job in spending so much time sifting through so much evidence, but I believe that it needs more than the consideration of a couple of sources to dislodge many years of work in this area.
Mr Deputy Speaker, the policy of the Liberal Party is also quite clear. It was recently determined by the Liberal Party convention. It is that fluoride should be added to the water supply at levels recommended by the National Health and Medical Research Council. That was considered at a policy convention in June this year. It was carried after considerable debate and I believe that it binds my hands, even if there was some disagreement on my part with that policy, which there is not. Mr Deputy Speaker, I am not sure what will happen to this motion, and particularly the proposed amendment. But I believe that it is incumbent on us to put behind us the damaging effect that this debate has had on the Assembly and its work over the past two years. I therefore intend to support these Bills.
DR KINLOCH (9.02): First of all, I want to take issue with Mr Humphries in saying that it is regrettable that we are returning to this discussion on fluoride; it is quite to the contrary. I believe that when an historian looks at the history of the ACT Legislative Assembly he or she will look at this whole episode as a great learning experience. He or she may also look at the media seizing on something in a trivial way and then trivialising it.
By contrast, let us consider what we did. We found ourselves in a situation in which, I think it would be fair to say, we may have acted overhastily; but we then emerged very properly, I felt, from that. We set up an inquiry which, again very properly, took about 16 months to report. So, overall, I believe that this Assembly can stand up proudly and say that we have done well by this issue on behalf of the people of Canberra. We had problems with it at first, and we tried to act as best we could. Those problems were perceived; we then tried to correct them, and I believe that we are correcting them. Here we are
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