Page 2843 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 14 August 1991
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MR JENSEN: It relates to the amount of fluoride to be put into the water. That is what I am talking about. So, Mr Deputy Speaker, it is very relevant. One has to ask the question: Why was that problem that has resulted in this amendment coming forward not identified in the response from the Minister? There has been some six months for that problem to be identified. So, Mr Deputy Speaker, as I said, a person less cynical than I may ask the question. I will leave others out there to raise the issue.
Mr Wood: I think you mean "more cynical", don't you?
MR JENSEN: More cynical than I am.
MR BERRY (Minister for Health and Minister for Sport) (5.46): I am prompted to rise and discuss this matter again, mostly on the basis of the typical smear that one has become used to from the member who last spoke. It has been explained - I think, by now, ad nauseam - that the Residents Rally was approached in relation to this matter, I think yesterday. They said that they were going to support the 0.5 recommendation and they did so. ACTEW, of course, provided information in relation to knowledge that they had that this was going to go ahead and as a result of a discussion with somebody from my office, because I wanted to make sure that "things was done right"; but that does not seem to be an issue that has been in the minds of the people who have worked this matter up before they came into this Assembly.
So, it may well make some members opposite a little nervous because they have been playing a little game. They have had the opportunity to do it a number of ways. They have chosen the course that will result in the legislation being changed in accordance with the amendments moved. Of course, the Government will live with that. It has been a silly debate and I think it will reflect badly on the people who have been involved in it.
MR MOORE (5.48): The difficulty with the debate on this particular amendment, I think, could well have been avoided very simply. If a minority government recognised that a majority report of a committee of the Assembly - in this case a majority report that clearly had little dissent on this particular issue - reflects the will of the Assembly, and acted accordingly, then what Mr Berry describes as a silly debate could well have been avoided. The problem was not with the members of the Assembly as a whole, but with the Government bringing down a Bill that did not reflect the will of the Assembly as expressed through that committee report. Perhaps there is a lesson in that for minority governments.
Proposed new clause agreed to.
Title agreed to.
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