Page 4331 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 7 December 1993
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Let us take the issue of the chickens, which was explained to Mr Humphries this afternoon by our health officer. If a chicken is thawed in the washbasin and stored on the sink in preparation for cooking and sale to the public some hours later, there is a real danger of food poisoning for the person who buys the food. If in those circumstances the officer says, "You cannot do that; that is unhealthy", and the manager disagrees and says, "You can go away; we always do it that way", what does the officer do? Does he have to come back later on when they are selling the food which has deteriorated and catch them actually doing it, before he can pinch them? No, in my view. They must act to defend the public health. That is the stupidity of what the Liberals have proposed, and it seems that they are supported by Mr Moore. If public health officers cannot act to secure the health of the community in these sorts of circumstances, in a very reasonable way - reasonable grounds have to be proven; it is not as if - - -
Mr Moore: After the fact.
MR BERRY: Mr Moore's understanding of the matter seems to be very thin. There would be a defence, by anybody who had a claim in respect of these matters, that the officer had acted without reasonable grounds. That is a fairly common defence. But do we wait until after the health officer has taken the risk about poisoned food and degraded foods being served to the community, or do we have a situation where the officer is allowed to move on reasonable grounds to prevent people from being poisoned? That is the difference. What the Liberals are proposing is that the proprietor ought to be able to try it on, and the health officer ought not to be able to prevent him from doing so. That is the very clear message that we are getting from the Liberals and from Mr Moore. I am absolutely surprised that they are trying to draw some connection between this and the move-on powers. There is no connection.
Mrs Carnell: It is exactly the same.
MR BERRY: No. There is no connection. Having examined the situation and having determined on reasonable grounds that the food is in the process of being prepared for sale to the community for public consumption, in my view that health officer is bound to act. He ought to be, because he is going to prevent somebody from being poisoned. You are saying that he ought not to be able to act; he ought to have to come back and see the proprietor handing it over to the second person to be poisoned.
Mrs Carnell: The second to be poisoned?
MR BERRY: The second person that has been poisoned. He might have missed the first one because he did not happen to be there on time. This is the stupidity of what is proposed by the Leader of the Opposition. Madam Speaker, this amendment will remove confidence in our ability to provide protection for the community. What the Liberals are about is trying to spoil Labor's splendid record on bringing forward these protection measures for the food that the community eats. They have not been able to do it, ever. They have not been within a bull's roar of it. They could not even contemplate taking this sort of action. Labor has done it. These are just spoiling tactics. What they are going to do is remove the confidence of the community in this particular legislation. I say again, Madam Speaker, that for an officer to act he has to have reasonable grounds. That is a reasonable defence also for somebody who might be aggrieved by the decision. If the officer moves on reasonable grounds he ought to be able to protect the community.
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