Page 657 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 20 May 1992
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we would not be able to put the lime in and we would not be able to keep the acid balance correct. I am advised that that could mean that strange things would happen to our hair when we use various shampoos that are on the market.
Mr Humphries: That explains a lot about you and Mr De Domenico.
MR CONNOLLY: Perhaps that is so, Mr Humphries. The other amendment which the Government is introducing is an express provision to make it abundantly clear that the Act would bind the Crown. Members would be aware that the Government made a statement on this last year as a result of a High Court decision which clarified the law in relation to when Acts bind the Crown. Rather than a presumption against Acts binding the Crown, which was the old common law position, we have to look at each Act and evince an intention as to whether it should bind the Crown. We are putting the provision in here to clarify that matter.
So, we are thoroughly in agreement with the intention of the legislation. This simply clarifies it and makes it what the legislature wants, which is the national standard of one part per million in a legal form which will not get the engineers, potentially, into quite serious trouble with a $50,000 fine because of the inevitable tolerances that are involved in any chemical or engineering process.
MR HUMPHRIES (3.26): Madam Speaker, I understand that in the detail stage I am entitled to, in effect, ask a question of the Minister. I would like to do so now. I recall, Minister, that during the in-principle stage of debate on this Bill Mr Wood made a very valuable contribution to the debate and indicated that, when one adds one part per million at the in end of the process, at the out end of the process one can have anywhere between 0.7 parts per million and 1.3 parts per million. I am sure that, as a former chairman of the Social Policy Committee inquiry into fluoride levels and as Minister for the Environment, Mr Wood would be knowledgeable on this question. I am sure that he has not misled the Assembly. Have you?
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (3.27): I am sure that Mr Humphries was not serious about that last assertion. I think Mr Wood was making the rhetorical point that tolerances must be accepted. He has not been quite as involved in the detail of the negotiation of this with the engineers and the lawyers as Mr Berry and I have been. I think we must accept an acceptable tolerance in statements by members about acceptable tolerances. In this case, I think Mr Wood's acceptable tolerance is about 0.1 part per million. When he said "to a range of 0.3 parts per million" I think he really meant a range of 0.2 parts per million, which is, on my engineering advice, the acceptable tolerance.
MR STEVENSON (3.27): My concern is that the increase in fluoridated levels would cause an increase in the potential harm that is done to people in the ACT. Certainly, the NHMRC, the AMA and the ADA have fairly consistently maintained that fluoridation is safe and that there is no evidence showing the contrary. A wealth of evidence was presented to the ACT fluoridation inquiry that showed the contrary, a small proportion of which is included within the 177-page dissenting report that I put in, although there is a great deal more that I could not fit in.
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