Page 1735 - Week 06 - Thursday, 19 May 1994
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Mr Berry: This is gutless.
Mrs Carnell: No; it is sensible.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I ask members not to interject while the chairman presents this report. You will have the opportunity to comment later on in the debate.
MR MOORE: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. The second false impression that was given, particularly by Mr Berry, but by others as well, was that Australian Standard 1668.2 was a comfort standard, not a health standard. That patently is false. In pursuing that issue, the committee was provided with an exhibit, exhibit 21, by Mr Ted West, who was the chair of the committee that established Australian Standard 1668.2, "Mechanical ventilation of acceptable indoor air quality". Mr West said that it was established at the outset that, unlike some of the council codes - he referred to them as being the precursors of this - this standard would not address comfort but would confine itself to health. He went on to say that this is not always a clear boundary but it has been a practical guideline. So, Mr Deputy Speaker, the Australian standard that we are dealing with is a health standard. That is the first and most important thing.
It is also important to understand that Australian standards are not things that are set in concrete. Australian standards are things that are developed but continue to change in the light of new information. So Australian Standard 1668.2, which deals with this issue, will come up for reconsideration again in a couple of years' time, and one of the major influences on that standard will be the evidence presented on this issue by the National Health and Medical Research Council. In fact, Mr Deputy Speaker, the National Health and Medical Research Council is already preparing work on this issue. I was fortunate enough to be able to speak to the chair of that committee and that partly influenced me in taking the stance I have taken.
Mr Berry: No. I think somebody else got at you.
MR MOORE: Mr Deputy Speaker, I hear constant interjection from Mr Berry.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: You will not hear it if it continues for much longer, Mr Moore. Please go on.
MR MOORE: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I shall try not to needle him too much, but he gets funny when he does not have his own way. The trouble with the original legislation, Mr Deputy Speaker, is that it was a simpleton's simplistic solution.
Mr Berry: But courageous.
MR MOORE: The other factor that influenced me greatly, Mr Deputy Speaker, and perhaps Mr Berry will have trouble understanding this - I will try to explain it carefully and slowly - is that there is a dose related effect. The epidemiological evidence presented to us on this issue makes that very clear. The vast majority of epidemiological evidence f
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