Page 3662 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 15 October 1991
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prepared to look into the matter and find out whether there is any weight in what you have said. The only thing that I could possibly focus on is that it would be as a result of the normal disposal process.
There has been some transfer of equipment from that hospital to Woden Valley Hospital, particularly in the kitchens area, as I recall, and there may be other areas where it is being transferred as well. But, Mr Speaker, I do not think there is anything untoward going on; there is nothing that I know of. I am prepared to look into the matter if Ms Maher will give me the details on those items of equipment which have allegedly been sold off for a fraction of their price.
Water Fluoridation
MR STEVENSON: My question, which is directed to the Chief Minister, concerns her statements, I believe yesterday, concerning her intention to push to double the amount of fluoride in our water supply. Ms Follett was quoted as saying, "We take the advice of experts". The NHMRC, the experts to which she refers, in their rules for fluoridation, state:
(a) The need for increasing the concentration of fluorine in the water supply must be established.
This refers to the total intake of fluoride that people receive. The question is simply: What study has been done to evaluate the total intake of fluoride being received from all sources by people in Canberra?
MS FOLLETT: Mr Speaker, unlike Mr Stevenson and some other members of this Assembly, I certainly do not set myself up as an expert in these sorts of medical or dental matters. As I have repeatedly said, I think the responsible approach for the Government is to take the advice of experts. In the case of fluoride, the advice that we take is that of the National Health and Medical Research Council, which has just completed a further study on fluoride and which has reached its own conclusions on that. I believe that those are the conclusions to which everybody in this Assembly should pay heed, not the sorts of half-developed, entirely personal and sometimes eccentric views that we have heard from time to time when fluoride has been debated.
I think it really is the height of arrogance for any of us to attempt to make judgments on these sorts of very technical matters when, clearly, we are not qualified to do so.
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