Page 2722 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 1991
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has had fluoridation since 1972. Certainly, the latest information I have available to me - and that was information I sought out only within the last week - shows that, again, there have been no adverse effects in relation to children's teeth and, by comparison, they are at a better standard, one could say, than they are here in the ACT. I am readily able to supply that information to any member who wishes it. As I said, that information has been obtained just in the last week.
There is one other comment that I want to make and that relates to the government response to the committee report and the four particular recommendations. The last recommendation was that:
The ACT Government urgently seeks NHMRC funding to establish a major independent study on the effects on dental health of a reduced level of fluoride in the ACT water supply.
Of course, given that the Government has produced a Bill which provides for the level to be one part per million, one can see that it did not agree with that recommendation. However, it is very interesting to note what the NHMRC has recently agreed to in terms of the development of proposals on a range of fluoridation issues, including:
Increase ... the support for dental public health research and evaluation in Australia.
It goes on to give much more detail, but there certainly has been a lack of data available over a long period of time in Australia. Given the amount of research, reading and detailed consideration that this particular Social Policy Committee put in, I would have thought that it would have been very much in the best interests of the Government to adopt its recommendation.
I will be supporting the amendment that will be put forward today for a level of 0.5; that is, in line with the recommendation from the Standing Committee on Social Policy. I do so, as my colleagues who will be supporting the amendment mentioned, on the basis of a very genuine concern for the Canberra community. I believe that today we are receiving much too much fluoride - in all sorts of levels and from all sorts of sources. I think that, 30 years down the track, it is well and truly time that there was a reduction. The change to 0.5 would go some way towards that. I hope that some studies will be done at the same time, but I am quite sure that there will be no adverse effects as a result of reducing the level in the water supply. I ask each and every one of you here just to stop and think about the levels of fluoride that you and your children are taking in today, because they certainly are quite significantly higher than they were some years ago.
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