Page 2841 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 14 August 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Dr Kinloch, would you keep to the question. You are starting to stray, as a lot of people have done in this debate.
DR KINLOCH: Okay. I want to say that I am very pleased indeed that the legalities are cleared up. Thank you, Mr Berry, for raising those problems and I am glad that we are about to vote to clear them up.
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (5.40): Mr Deputy Speaker, I want to use the occasion of debate on this amendment to clear up a point that Dr Kinloch may have raised, although I accept that it was, I think, presented in a non-antagonistic manner. I want to make it clear that my vote for the use of one part per million of fluoride in the water was not a case of forced submission to some brutal party policy. It is simply not the case.
I am quite comfortable with what is happening. Members will know that my signature was on the report recommending 0.5 parts per million. Members of that committee will know of the decision making process where it was first established at one part per million and subsequently changed to 0.5 parts per million. Obviously, it is quite clear that I am comfortable with a level of fluoride in the water within the range of 0.5 parts per million to one part per million.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Let me just stop you there, Mr Wood. That is more like a personal explanation. I appreciate that and I appreciate what Dr Kinloch said.
MR WOOD: Yes. I will follow your injunction and sit down, as Dr Kinloch did, after concluding by saying that my memory tells me that the water that is distributed through the taps in our community ranges from about 0.75 parts per million to 1.2 parts per million. So, there is already a very large range in the water that we drink. I think that people will understand that there is no clear set figure that turns up in our taps. I am quite comfortable with the way I voted today and the way I voted in that committee.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: I call Mr Jensen. Mr Jensen, keep to the point.
MR JENSEN (5.42): Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker; I am sure I will. My question is very simple and it is one to the Minister.
Mr Stevenson: Without notice?
MR JENSEN: I hope that the Minister will be given an opportunity to answer this question. It is simple. Seeing that this report was tabled in the Assembly in January 1991 - - -
Mrs Nolan: It was February.
MR JENSEN: February, was it? Well, Mr Wood signed it on - - -
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .