Wednesday, 2 August 2023

Production of documents

Medically supervised injecting facilities

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (15:23): I move:

That this house:

(1) notes the:

(a) refusal of the Andrews Labor government to release any report conducted by former police commissioner Mr Ken Lay into a second injecting room in Melbourne’s CBD;

(b) conflicting commentary given by the Premier and Treasurer about the progress of Mr Lay’s reports;

(c) significant impact to local residents and businesses and the Andrews Labor government’s disregard for community safety and public amenity by not ruling out a second injecting room;

(d) significant concern from CBD businesses and residents about a rumoured second injecting room on Bourke Street; and

(2) requires the Leader of the Government, in accordance with standing order 10.01, to table in the Council, within three weeks of the house agreeing to this resolution, the most recent draft of Mr Lay’s report handed to the government.

I rise to speak on this production of documents motion on the Ken Lay report. As I have said before, I do not come to this debate as an opponent of medically supervised drug injecting rooms in principle, but I do have to acknowledge that the government has a track record of failure in its execution, forever tarring any merit of these facilities. Specifically, the government has failed on two points. These are a failure to do any meaningful consultation with local businesses and residents and a failure to release the full Ken Lay report. Since June the Minister for Health and the government have been sitting on this report, and I am calling for Labor to release this report without further delay.

To put, I guess, the issue of injecting rooms in context – and I will mention this later; I will go into this in further detail later – it is worthwhile examining similar policies in other jurisdictions. In the case of New South Wales there has been an injecting room operating at Kings Cross for over 20 years, and unlike Victoria there is no debate over its merits or its location, so we know it is possible for these facilities to actually be done right.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time the government has failed to listen to the community. We only need to look at the North Richmond facility and look at the pleas of North Richmond residents, who have been ignored. Like me, many of those residents are not, in principle, against an injecting room, but they do not believe it should be 50 steps from a primary school, and neither do the parents of that primary school, Richmond West Primary School, many of whom I have spoken to. They are rightly concerned to see injecting needles scattered all over their school grounds and surrounds. It has also had a massive effect on many of the Victoria Street traders, many of whom are concerned about their safety. Unfortunately, the only businesses that seem to be doing well out of the injecting room are glaziers, because about every third shop on Victoria Street constantly has a broken window.

I have also spoken to, as is my job as a member of Parliament, advocates of the injecting room, who tell me that the bungled location of North Richmond has ruined the reputation of these facilities, and it is not hard to see why. Unfortunately, it appears that Labor has not learned its lesson from the North Richmond facility and is doubling down on its poor choices for the location of this facility. The proposed or rumoured location of the Salvation Army site on Bourke Street is just 200 metres from Parliament House, and its surrounds include many restaurants and family-focused institutions like the Princess Theatre. It is not the kind of place we would want to see an injecting room. It could mean we could see drug deals on the steps of Parliament, with police powerless to prevent them. That is exactly what we have seen with the North Richmond injecting room, with local police saying that they were instructed not to patrol the area around the facility and not to enforce the law against illegal activities such as drug deals. This has created a honey pot for drug dealers, with users travelling from distant suburbs to take advantage of this lax enforcement. As one user told the Age, ‘It’s a free-for-all’.

Every year over 10,000 students come to this place to tour Parliament House, hoping to learn about Victorian democracy. The proposed location is so close to Parliament station and the tram stop at the top of Bourke Street, which are used by many families who would have to witness such events. We do not want kids who are getting off the tram to go to Harry Potter to witness their first overdose, needle or act of violence instead. What I want to know from the government is: will police receive the same instruction as they did for North Richmond and be prevented from stopping drug deals in our historic Bourke Street precinct or even on the steps of Parliament – perhaps in the background of a wedding photo on a weekend? True to form, the Andrews government is ignoring a chorus of voices that are expressing concern. What I am talking about is the fact that many police and the Police Association Victoria have gone on the record to say that their officers have been instructed not to prevent drug deals in an exclusion zone around the North Richmond facility. What I am asking is a simple question: will that be the same for the proposed CBD injecting room? Will police be powerless to prevent drug deals on the steps of Parliament, outside the Princess Theatre or at the top of Bourke Street? It is a very simple question which might be answered with the release of the Ken Lay report.

True to form, as with what happened in North Richmond, the Andrews government is ignoring the chorus of voices that have expressed concern with the proposed location. This includes local traders, institutions such as Grossi Florentino, Becco, Di Stasio and, my favourite, Pellegrini’s. Just as the CBD traders are beginning to come back from the pandemic and one of the longest lockdowns in the world, the Andrews government wants to kick them back down again. One of the traders, Guy Grossi, said the following:

This is going to be completely counterproductive to all that effort that’s gone into the rebuild of this city.

He has described the effect this would have on the city by saying:

The violence and the crime rate in the city is already a problem …

Visitation is already low. So the last thing we need to do is detract from people coming and using the City of Melbourne.

Bourke Street traders have collectively echoed their concern to the Andrews government, saying:

While the welfare of drug users is one consideration to be made, this should not be to the detriment of the safety and wellbeing of workers, commuters, residents, customers and visitors …

Injecting rooms are not without significant impact to the safety and amenity of the surrounding communities, and this is well documented. The ramifications would be felt across our city and would damage our reputation nationally and internationally …

beyond what damage there is already after the cancellation of the Commonwealth Games. Another voice that has been raising concerns is police association secretary Wayne Gatt, who said:

The top of Bourke Street and the CBD in general is the wrong place to put an injecting room …

The traders you see here, have built this part of the city to what it is. We can’t allow it to be torn down by an ill-considered proposal.

From a policing perspective, the CBD is a particularly complex area. Having a significant additional policing responsibility placed in a highly populated community, family and tourist hub, will place a strain on our police that far exceeds the available resources.

We’ve seen how problematic the Richmond facility has been to the area and its residents. Let’s not repeat that mistake in a higher density, more complex and frankly beloved part of our city. If this was to go ahead, the city will never get back what will be lost.

When asked about whether he supports a CBD injecting room, the police union boss said:

It’s an emphatic no …

It’s not what the City of Melbourne does need at the moment …

This is how you kill …

the CBD. Pellegrini’s co-owner David Malaspina has reinforced this idea, stating that an injecting room is:

… going to bring all the drug dealers here. It’s going to create a honeypot.

It is an appalling idea. My friend Roshena Campbell, who is a Melbourne City councillor, said:

Having spoken to traders and residents … I know that they are deeply troubled with this suggestion …

It would just be the death knell for so many of those businesses that have struggled to hold on for so long after very difficult trading conditions over the past couple of years.

…

There isn’t a trader or resident that I could look in the eye and say ‘You deserve this on your doorstep’ …

Even mayor Sally Capp said the Salvation Army site is in the wrong location and the rumours have been highly damaging to traders in the CBD:

We have not had any updates from state government on their plans for this facility …

I … spend a lot of time up at the Salvos and … it’s not an integrated health facility.

CBD resident Rafael Camillo, who is also the president of the official CBD residents group Residents 3000, said:

We already have enough problems in the city.

We don’t even have proper police [and] resource for these people. We’ve tried to revitalise this city … bring back this city and bring back tourism, and they want to do this?

I understand CBD residents have been desperately trying to speak with the government and a number of local government MPs, with no success. I will not take this approach. I will always listen to CBD residents and traders in my electorate, because that is my job. That is my job as an elected parliamentarian: to listen to the community, to go out and listen to the community and hear out their concerns, which the government has not been doing.

Unfortunately we have seen a dubious campaign by opportunists claiming to speak on behalf of CBD residents, who are in my view unrepresentative of locals that live in the CBD. A news story in the Age newspaper in May titled ‘“People are dying”: CBD residents call for rush on the second injecting room’ quotes residents calling themselves yimbys, a term I have associated myself with to mean ‘Yes in my backyard’ in respect to housing and new housing development, but I do not think it was thought of that that term might be used to say ‘Yes in my backyard’ to a new injecting room. One of those residents leading the comments in the article is Jill Mellon-Robertson, who just happens to be a former Reason Party candidate. At the event that day, which was attended by former MP Fiona Patten, who appears to be very involved in the Keep Our City Alive campaign, it was a meeting filled with supporters, and the article mentioned attracting TV attention to that meeting. Official CBD residents groups, I am told, were not informed of the meeting at all and had no say in the discussion. Many of the people organising and attending that meeting work at Cohealth, which may be the provider of choice for the second injecting room in the CBD. This does an enormous disservice to Cohealth, which in allowing its staff to engage in this campaign, I think, has damaged their reputation – by those staff not declaring an obvious conflict.

An associate of Michelson Alexander, a PR firm, was present at the meeting and appeared to be coordinating media for this campaign, and of course that firm does PR for Cohealth and the North Richmond injecting centre. They were also present at a meeting of this group on the steps of Parliament. Steve Michelson is well known to many in this chamber as a long-term Labor man, so I think the conflicts continue. He was actually quoted in the Herald Sun article on 9 July as ‘a CBD business owner’ who said the campaign was:

… a call to action that in some ways is site agnostic.

Just ‘a CBD business owner’ – not someone who may have a financial interest in the injecting room or Cohealth. I also note Michelson Alexander drew criticism from the people of North Richmond for making a political donation of $2000 to the Labor Party, which to anyone’s mind appears to be a conflict of interest given they run PR for the injecting room in North Richmond and Cohealth. As my colleague Emma Kealy said:

The company providing media comment on behalf of North Richmond Community Health should not be seen as politically aligned with any party as the injecting room is such a divisive community issue.

Many CBD residents have pointed out to me that that meeting occurred with people that largely lived outside the CBD or were associated with Cohealth or associated with the Reason Party, so I would urge media in the future to engage with official CBD residents groups like Residents 3000 or EastEnders before falling hook, line and sinker for what appears to be a heavily coordinated political campaign.

While the Andrews government continues to bungle harm minimisation policy at every turn, we do have to look for a successful model. As I touched on, the Kings Cross centre in Sydney has operated for over 20 years. In 1997 the Royal Commission into the New South Wales Police Service recommended the establishment of a safe injecting site within the precinct. The initial proposal was that it be set up in a residential area but that elicited a strong response, as we have seen with Richmond and now the CBD. It was actually the Sisters of Charity that did the research and operationalised the centre. In the year 2000, upon invitation from the New South Wales government, a medically supervised injecting centre began its operation under the guise of the Uniting Church.

The key condition that the New South Wales government set for granting the licence was ‘successful community acceptance’. Those are words that the Andrews government ignores at its peril. All it took to achieve this was a simple change of location to a commercial part of Darlinghurst Road next to a train station, which was a preferred location so as to not create an ant trail of harm and abuse. That is what the research says. The Sydney service placed a strong emphasis on community consultation and approval, which it still enjoys to this day. It was established as part of a small and discrete facility, removing the associated stigma and keeping the social fabric of the neighbourhood and keeping it strong.

I am not against a supervised injecting room, but I believe Labor’s model is broken. What I am against is a government that treats community feedback as a hostile attack rather than an opportunity to improve, an opportunity to listen and an opportunity to find compromise. As my colleague in the other place the Shadow Minister for Mental Health has said and pointed out time and time again, Labor’s broken model does no more than pose a critical danger to the safety of children, families, traders, tourists and the wider community. We do need to ensure we do everything we can to make Melbourne the most vibrant and safe city it can be.

I ask the house to support this motion, which notes the refusal of the Andrews government to release the full Ken Lay report, notes the significant impact and disregard for safety an injecting room in the location would have and requires the government to release the Ken Lay report within three weeks. We know that the government has advised Ken Lay to rewrite this report, so its independence appears to be already in tatters. In early March Treasurer Tim Pallas admitted that the government had actually received the report and that it was sent back to be updated. He said:

Absolutely – Mr Lay provided us with a report and the government is considering that report together with seeking to update that report.

But more than 5 hours later Mr Pallas had to issue a statement – probably under threat from the Premier’s private office, so he was dragged back to cover his tracks – saying he misspoke when he said the government had obtained the final report:

I referred to interim briefings the government has received – which have been publicly referenced previously. These formed the basis for an extension of Mr Lay’s work.

So they told him to go back to the drawing board. That is not our opinion. He said he apologised ‘for the error and any confusion’. The Premier and the Treasurer do not exactly appear on the same page on this issue at all. Indeed the Treasurer was sent back with a statement to cover his tracks. All I ask for is transparency. This is a production of documents motion. We want transparency around this. I hope that this motion just being on the table might actually force the government to release the Ken Lay report. We saw with another motion that I put to this house –

David Davis interjected.

Evan MULHOLLAND: We saw it, Mr Davis, with another motion I put to this place on the Glenroy RSL and on RSL buybacks, where strangely just the night before it was due to be debated the government reversed its decision, and the government came out and said, ‘We won’t be chasing down RSLs for pokies entitlements they can’t even use.’

So I hope that this motion will force some action by the government. I say to all members of this Parliament, even those that might be supportive of a CBD injecting room: surely this motion should be supported to get to the bottom of this important report. The Andrews government does need to consult, I stress, and listen to the community. It is imperative that they do that, not just to maintain and improve the amenity of the CBD but to ensure long-term community acceptance of the injecting room and the drug harm minimisation policy more broadly.

Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:42): I rise to make a contribution on this motion standing in Ms Crozier’s name, motion 31, in regard to the medically supervised injecting centres and of course the Ken Lay report et cetera. I think I have spoken on this issue before in this chamber in regard to medically supervised injecting rooms. As somebody who grew up in Sydney and had been around the centres in Kings Cross and the like for many, many years I know this is not controversial in Sydney. It bewilders me that here in Melbourne we still have controversy, which comes from those opposite, when we know that the point of medically supervised injecting rooms is to save lives; it is about harm minimisation. It saddens me again that those opposite see it as an opportunity to just whip up confected outrage and hysteria over something that really is about saving lives and preventing deaths and actually about helping people.

I have remarked before that in a previous life I worked in Granville, where there was not a medically supervised injecting room but a methadone treatment centre. I have seen people overdose and fall down on the pavement and have seen healthcare workers coming out and rendering assistance and aid to those people. I know for sure that if that had not happened those people would have died. I understand only too well the benefits of having these centres.

Listening to Mr Mulholland’s contribution, we have had all the usual tropes thrown at us today: we have connected violence and crime with drug use; we have maligned drug users as criminals; we have failed to adequately understand that drug users often have comorbidities, suffering from mental health conditions and the like. They are people who are suffering with some kind of affliction, and they deserve our empathy, sympathy, understanding and support. But those opposite choose to make this issue a political football so that they can talk to themselves and malign people who actually need our support.

As I said before, this is about harm minimisation. It is about saving lives. It is very easy to say no to things. We can say no to anything. It is very easy to say no. But again, I have heard nothing really of substance from those opposite on this issue. If we do not have this, what do we do? Do we do nothing? That would seem to be perhaps what they want to do. They are not really concerned about people who are struggling with some kind of affliction, whether it is dependency issues, mental health or whatever it is. They are not really concerned with that because, again, they misunderstand and always mischaracterise what people are actually wanting out of a medically supervised injecting room, and that is that they need help. It is about rendering medical assistance to people who need it. Again, this constant stream of negativity and mischaracterisation and misunderstanding of what the issue is actually about is very disappointing. Usually on the government benches over here, when we get documents motions, we support them – we always support them – but we are not supporting this motion. We stand against this motion in this chamber because it is just inappropriate and hysterical.

I think the government has been very clear. I will just talk about the report for a moment. The government is closely considering Ken Lay’s report in regard to the second injecting room, and we will release the government response in due course. We will not be lectured to by those opposite saying, ‘Well, you’ve got three weeks to do it.’ No, we are not going to do that, because we are considering the evidence. We are considering the report closely. We want to make sure we consider the report, because we rely on evidence and information from experts, not from politicians and those opposite who are going to be on those benches for a very long time. I mean, honestly, people want to see medical services being offered in the places where they are needed the most.

Experts tell us about the first medically supervised injecting room. I will just talk about the Richmond centre for a moment. Since we opened the Richmond centre in June 2018, that facility has safely managed more than 6750 overdoses and saved 63 lives. Those people are a brother, a sister, a mother, a father, a cousin or an uncle to other family members. They have families. To pitch drug users as people that are subhuman is appalling, and that is what those opposite seek to do – to dehumanise people, to say that they are less than anyone else. They are all of us. They can be any of us at any time. People who get impacted by mental ill health may use drugs for a period of time to help manage that issue. They might have a lifelong period of using drugs because they might have lifelong comorbidities. But, again, those opposite pitch those people as less than human – as not one of us but someone other than us. Saving 63 lives means that those families have their family member back. They are not mourning the loss of someone who has died as a consequence of their drug use.

It has taken pressure off local hospitals. It has reduced ambulance call-outs. It has led to a reduction in the spread of bloodborne viruses within the City of Yarra. Again, you can see that by the placement of that facility, even that local government area has benefited through the reduction of bloodborne viruses. There have been more than 3200 referrals to health and social services, including general practitioners, oral health, housing, drug treatment and bloodborne virus testing treatment. This is about people getting access to health services. That is a good thing. That is an absolutely excellent thing because we want people to get the help that they need when they need it and in the community where they need it. The question is: why did we put a medically supervised injecting centre in Richmond – the first one? Because it was needed there. That is what the experts told us. That is what the expert advice was to us, so we listened to those experts and we did that.

We have also seen a declining trend in opioid overdose prescriptions at St Vincent’s, the nearest public hospital emergency department, and we have not seen that trend in other comparable Melbourne hospitals. Again, that is a good thing. When we talk about the CBD injecting room, in 2020, when the Andrews Labor government accepted the Hamilton review recommendations in full, this included the expansion of the medically supervised injecting centre trial into the City of Melbourne to ensure that more Victorians could access these life-saving services.

Ken Lay was the one who did that report and the report has been given to government, and as I said before, we are considering that report. We need to make sure that in considering that report we take into consideration all of the issues mentioned, and we will release it in due course. But it is sad and disappointing that we again are finding ourselves in this chamber debating this issue through another motion from those opposite seeking to malign and dehumanise drug users as people other than or less than the rest of us. No decision has been made yet in regard to the final location for the City of Melbourne supervised injecting centre. As I said before, we are closely considering Ken Lay’s report, and we will release the report and a government response in due course.

We are committed to doing the right thing. We have always been committed to doing the right thing, even when it is really difficult. You know, that is something that our government does not shy away from. Sometimes being in government is really hard; it is really challenging. We have got to make tough decisions, but we back ourselves in because we listen to the experts. So we will carefully consider Ken Lay’s report, and we are not going to rush this. As I said, it will be carefully considered, and we will release a government response to it.

I know there will be other speakers on this. I am not going to go through everything. There will be plenty of opportunities to talk about it. The only thing missed from the greatest hits of the coalition opposite was we did not hear anything about wokeism today or cancel culture. That was a disappointing omission from those opposite on this debate. But nevertheless we have had just about everything else over there. We have had crime. Did we have gangs? I do not think we had gangs; maybe that one was not mentioned in this. But they have been talking about all the usual tropes that get rolled out when we listen to a motion like this.

Again, this is about harm minimisation. As I have said, something that has stuck with me is that I have seen someone overdose on a pavement. It is a horrible thing to watch. This person had young children with them. You just do not want to see that. You do not want to see the trauma that it causes to those children. This person was a young mother. Those kids deserve to have their mother with them and raising them in a family environment, and it is just sad to watch that. So I personally think all of these things are necessary. It is a health response. It is a harm minimisation response, and our government will get on and deliver it.

I encourage everyone in this chamber to not support this motion. Like I said, we usually support documents motions, but not this time. I will be voting against this. I know my Labor colleagues on the bench with me here will also be voting against it. As I said, I encourage everyone on the crossbench to also vote against this motion.

Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:52): I do not think my contribution today is going to be particularly lengthy. I have spoken about this issue on numerous occasions, broadly in the community but also in this place. Also, on the subject of the Ken Lay report, many will know that I have already called for that to be released in this term of sitting.

I am troubled coming into this debate, because in another scenario with another wording of this motion there would have been a scenario where this would, as a documents motion, have been entirely supportable by me and my colleagues in the Greens. With knowledge and awareness of the current state of this chamber, it should be known to those opposite that this is predominantly a progressive room. If you look at past statements from other parties – I do not want to speak for them, but from comments that have been made in this place on this issue – we know that there would be profound support for harm minimisation approaches and for the release of reports like that of Ken Lay. But rather than put forward a motion that would have actually garnered that support from not only the Greens but potentially others, we see a motion before us today that has wording in there, in the preamble, that instead bashes the approach currently taken by the government. It is a missed opportunity, and that I think is a real shame.

I would love to see the Ken Lay report released, because I think having data inform this conversation, rather than the moralising rhetoric that we have already seen a glimpse of from the opposition, would actually make this a lot more meaningful and useful to not only us but the community – and people in the community who really need access to the critically important life-saving health service that is supervised injecting. We saw a bit of a sneak peek already from the first speaker from the coalition of this idea of drug dealers on the steps of Parliament or the impact on the background of wedding photos ‍– I mean, get a grip. With this issue there are people whose lives are literally at risk.

It is news to no-one here, surely, that people regularly overdose from injectable drugs in the City of Melbourne. That has been the case for a very long time, and we have already heard earlier in contributions to this debate that the Hamilton review years ago spoke to the need for services broadly to be considered in the City of Melbourne. This is where the data of the report, like I have mentioned, is really, really crucial. If there were a version of this as a true documents motion that was actually approachable in good faith, then I am sure broadly in this chamber it would get support, but instead we see something that places effectively fear-based optics ahead of the lives of people whose lives are at risk, people who are regularly dying from the use of injectable drugs in our community, and that is a real shame.

I feel like I have made my point. I look forward to seeing the Ken Lay report released. It is something that I am actively going to be pursuing with the government, and that should surprise no-one here, but really I find it a true shame that the coalition have missed an opportunity to do something meaningful here and instead are just doing the same sort of thing they have always done on this issue: moralising and targeting vulnerable people in our community who are using injectable drugs, who need our support.

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (15:56): I am pleased to be able to speak on Ms Crozier’s motion seeking release of documents related to the report about the second medically supervised injecting facility here in Melbourne. It is an important topic, and as other speakers have mentioned, certainly through the debates we have had previously in the Parliament and in recent months about legislation that sought successfully – it passed the Parliament – to make permanent the medically supervised injecting facility in North Richmond, there has been a considerable and thoughtful debate in this and the other chamber about how medically supervised injecting centres save lives. That is the simple proposition that underpins the government’s approach to these issues – that these facilities provide safer places for people to inject drugs of dependence in a supervised health setting. It is an alternative to injecting at home or in public, and those are the circumstances and those are the settings where people who use injecting drugs are more likely to suffer harm and, sadly, die. The key achievement, I think, of the North Richmond facility, which we mentioned in the debate on the prior bill a couple of months ago, is that the conclusive evidence is that the facility in North Richmond is saving lives, and that must be our benchmark for determining success in public policy and success in this field, as it should be.

Of course we know that that facility in North Richmond is not just saving lives but also providing an opportunity to give a range of additional health interventions to those who are passing through its doors. We know that many of those who use that facility do have a range of significant health needs and they do experience significant barriers to accessing different and more standard forms of health settings and that therefore the medical care and support that they can receive in those settings is not only keeping them safe from overdose but providing an important setting for a range of other health supports and interventions to be provided so that they can get treatment and other sorts of support in other parts of their lives, because we know that dealing with a drug addiction is a complex task. It requires a range of solutions and a range of supports so that we can prevent harm and also then promote good and supportive health care, whether that be recovery pathways, support services to improve security of housing and the like or other sorts of actions that can support both individuals and the community which they are trying to serve. That was the fundamental reason why the Andrews Labor government in 2017 announced that it would conduct a trial of the first medically supervised injecting facility in this state’s history.

It was not an initiative that came without controversy. It was not a topic that received, clearly, universal support and acclaim from across the community. It is notable, however, that particularly in relation to the North Richmond facility – and I spoke at length about this in the second-reading debate on the bill that we debated in the last few months in this chamber – there was significant support from within the local community to have a facility that would provide a safe environment for the injecting drug use that was already occurring and had been occurring in that location not just for months, not just for years, but for decades to continue in a supported centre where there were wraparound services and where people could be looked after. The local residents knew that you could not bury your head in the sand and pretend this stuff was not happening, because it was. They saw it every day, they saw the harm that was being caused and they saw the people dying in their streets. What they wanted to see was a government that saw the same things and took action, and that is what they got in 2017, when the Andrews Labor government announced the trial. As I have said at length, the trial clearly has worked, and the Parliament has taken action following independent reviews of that facility to make it permanent.

We know therefore that we are building our body of practice in this area on a very solid evidence base. This is not something that has just been a thought bubble plucked from a headline; this is something that has been the subject of years and years of practice and evidence and practice improvement and further evidence collection to lead us to the point where we can be clear that these types of facilities, and in particular the facility in North Richmond, do save lives.

There was obviously in 2020 a review chaired by Professor Margaret Hamilton, which delivered the first review of the trial, and one of the recommendations of that review – this evidence base on which I have previously spoken – was to look at the expansion of these services into a location within the City of Melbourne. So now that we knew this worked, the expert advice was that we should seek to help more people. I do not think anyone should fault the independent advice for reaching those conclusions. Part of the reason behind this was to examine how the patterns of heroin-related deaths had been occurring in the City of Yarra and the City of Melbourne over these periods, and therefore that 2020 Hamilton review made recommendations to government. Obviously, we know that a lot happened in that year and a lot changed in the years after. That is why, when the government asked Ken Lay to make further inquiries and recommendations in relation to this matter, we knew that the environment in which that first recommendation was made had changed by the very nature of the once-in-a-generation event that took place, commencing in early 2020.

That review by Ken Lay was very thoughtful and it was very considered, and as was necessary, its consultation period was extended to May this year so we could ensure that the factors that we were going to go into – the site selection – were very well considered and considered both the safety and amenity needs of the broader community. Mr Lay worked closely with the Department of Health, Ambulance Victoria, Victoria Police, the City of Melbourne and other key stakeholders in exploring this range of issues. Knowing the work that Ken Lay has done in a number of other settings, whether that be in his time at Victoria Police or his time working on a range of other projects for the government, we know that he will have done a diligent and very thoughtful job. The government is closely considering Ken Lay’s report, and no decision has been made regarding the final location of a recommended supervised injecting service within the City of Melbourne.

I think that gets to the nub of what the motion before us today is seeking to do in terms of understanding where this process is up to and in calling for the production of certain documents. But I think it is very clear in the context of a debate about the production of documents associated with the report that we need to reflect on the underlying issues and the policy issues that are and should be fundamental to this debate, and that is that these centres save lives. We know that because they have done it in North Richmond, and we know that not only are they saving lives but they are providing a platform for more support to go to injecting drug users. We should always remember that as the focus of this debate.

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (16:06): I rise to speak to this motion that has been moved in my name, and I note the very excellent contribution by my colleague Mr Mulholland on this issue. This is a simple motion. It is calling on the government to release the Lay report. As many have heard in this place for a long time, we have called on the Lay report to be released, because it is sitting on a minister’s desk somewhere. We know that. It has been completed. It was completed months and months and months ago, and yet the government refuses to release the report. Now, I think I heard somewhere that the minister was saying that the Lay report would be released in due course, or words to that effect. Well, why would you believe anything this government says, because they keep saying things but they fail to deliver, and as I said, this report has been completed and it is sitting on a minister’s desk waiting to be released. It is not being released, and that is not in the interests of Victorians. It is not in the interests of transparency around those that will potentially be impacted by a second injecting room, which is the government’s commitment.

We have seen what has happened in the Yooralla site, which was bought for $40 million by the Andrews Labor government years ago and it is sitting there empty. Those traders around Degraves Street and the residents around Degraves Street, who my colleague Emma Kealy and I have spoken to, are really concerned about the impacts. They have had COVID, they have had the Metro Tunnel works, and an injecting room is going to impact on their ability to deliver their retail services and the amenity of where they live. They have made their positions very clear.

And of course we have got Melbourne City Council, who does not know what it is doing. One moment they are in support of an injecting room and the next minute the Lord Mayor comes out and says no, it should not be in Bourke Street – and this is the next one. We have got the flagged notion of having an injecting room down here at the Salvation Army site, and that has caused an enormous amount of concern for retailers, the restaurant industry and others – those residents in this precinct. It is not very far from the Parliament, and it has been floated as having a second injecting room. Those retailers, traders and restaurateurs have a right to understand what is in the Lay report. They actually have a right to understand what the government’s intentions are, because this has been going on for years. The government know what they want to do; they just do not want to tell Victorians, and that is typical of the Andrews Labor government. They just thrust things onto the community without the proper consultation, without proper understanding, and expect everybody to agree to it.

We saw what happened in North Richmond with the North Richmond site. We know – and the data is there to back it up – that that has been an enormous issue for that community. The amenity has declined. Apart from the millions of dollars that the government is putting into the area, that amenity has declined. It is a less safe place, and it has more antisocial behaviour than when the injecting room was not present. The government will argue, ‘Well, you know, that was a hotspot for addicts.’ Well, it is a honey pot now for dealers and addicts and others to come into the area. The Police Association Victoria and others have talked about the increase in crime and antisocial behaviour and the impacts on residents and retailers alike. I think you cannot avoid those facts – they are the facts. We do not have the proper facts from the government in terms of the outcomes, because we do not know how many people have been rehabilitated and have actually come off the addiction of heroin. No-one is telling us that; you cannot get that data. That is why this motion is important, because we want to understand what Mr Lay has had to say. But the businesses, the retailers and the residents have a right to understand what the government’s intentions are as well.

Businesses just down here have come out in strength to express their concerns, because they have not got clarity from the government. They make a very good point. The Princess Theatre has families and young people going to see shows like Mary Poppins and a range of other family-orientated productions who are going to come out of the station or get off the tram and potentially be confronted by people that need the support of rehabilitation rather than going into an injecting room and coming out. We know what happens in North Richmond. We know what happens when people come out of that injecting room or are doing drug deals and injecting in the streets. So nothing different will happen outside the injecting room here to what happens at the government’s failed program out in North Richmond, I would suggest.

I do think it is very important that we have certainty around it, and I note that there has been conflicting commentary between the Treasurer and the Premier on the progress of Mr Lay’s report. The Premier says one thing about the progress and then the Treasurer Tim Pallas completely contradicts him. It just shows the chaos, dysfunction and mayhem that is occurring in government around decisions. They are trying to cover one another, trying to cover up what the issues are, trying to manoeuvre and trying to pull the wool over Victorians’ eyes about what their intentions are. I do not think anyone is fooled. They know that the government wants to do this; they do. But they have got to consider this, and we say it is the wrong spot, in North Richmond. We have been very clear about that. Others disagree, but we have been very clear about that because of, as I said, the significant impacts to the local amenity and residents.

This is a simple motion. It is just calling on the government to release the Lay report. Get on with it, government. Release the Lay report so that every Victorian understands what is in that report and those that are being impacted by these notions of ‘Perhaps an injecting room in Flinders Street, perhaps an injecting room in Bourke Street’ can actually understand what the hell is going on.

Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (16:13): It was interesting listening to Mr Mulholland’s contribution before, given he has been a beacon of progressivism of late, particularly around yimbyism and whatnot. I was listening to him saying that he is not against supervised injecting facilities – but. So I am a bit confused on his position now, and not just on Mr Mulholland’s but the opposition’s. They are not opposed to it – but. Where is the suggestion? Where is the taking up of a position that is something positive, something that can be achieved and something that can deliver for the community? What I have heard here is that Richmond is a boon for glaziers. I am pretty sure there is a fair bit of glazier work around the rest of Melbourne, and Victoria and Australia for that matter. I do not think I have seen a high concentration of glazing businesses in Richmond. I have not done the in-depth analysis, but I am pretty sure there is a pretty even spread.

A member: Look into it. You should look into it.

Tom McINTOSH: And I will. I will be sure to go away and look at it after this.

Again I come back to, ‘This is not the place.’ These are not some sort of ye olde times where we can send people that do not quite sit comfortably with us or who are a bit of a bother to the other side of the world to a separate continent. We need to take responsibility and deal with the issues in our community, and that is what this government is doing. I mean, it gets a bit comical. There was a comment about people’s wedding photos on the steps of Parliament being ruined by drug users. I do not even know what to do with that.

Harriet Shing interjected.

Tom McINTOSH: Yes. I mean, this is the other conversation. It is about all of us, not the ‘other’. But anyway, to continue going through these comments: ‘Ruining our reputation’. If our reputation is for being a caring, considerate, engaging state that looks after its most vulnerable and disadvantaged, and if this is ruining our reputation, well, it is a reputation that I am quite happy to have as part of a government that has a reputation for doing the work that we are doing. Mr Mulholland also talked about how it is his job to represent the community – as it is all of ours. You know, I stand here on the other side taking that very same position. It is my job to represent our community. I represent what I think gets the better and best outcomes for our community and delivers the health outcomes. But anyway, I will come back to that later.

Particularly in the last couple of months I have spent a lot of time meeting with various first responders and paramedics. We have got Steve McGhie in the other chamber, the member for Melton, who is a paramedic. If you listen to the conversations about the very difficult and often traumatic experiences of our first responders, they are finding people in alleyways, finding people in places where they are exposed to the public and having to spend so much time and resources on dealing with situations that are preventable. They are preventable through the numbers that we see – 6750 overdoses, 63 saved lives. Put all that out on the streets and let us see how it impacts on our paramedics, let us see how it impacts on our communities and let us see the outcome of that. That is why I, with the government, absolutely stand here and support the work that is being done. We do not want people dying in the streets. These are real people.

My aunty died of a heroin overdose. She was a heroin addict for 20 years. My cousin was in and out of foster care for much of her life before a family looked after her long term – after being in and out of respite care. My cousin has gone on to do incredible, incredible things. She has worked in aged care, and she is now studying to be a nurse. We need nurses. She is a beautiful young woman now in her early 30s. She has got four boys under six, and she takes it all in her stride and makes an incredible contribution to our state and to our community. It could have been very easy to take the view, ‘Here’s a woman with a heroin addiction.’ My aunty was a very complicated woman. She was a wild woman. She ran in pretty wild circles. If you look at where that behaviour came from, there was trauma early in her life and there was no support, and you can see the way it played out. But the supports that were in place effectively saved my cousin, and now we have a beautiful woman with a beautiful family, contributing to our community. That investment in our people is absolutely worth it.

I went on for a while to become a foster carer with my partner, and so many of the kids were amazing. One kid in particular had family in these Richmond and Footscray crime gangs, and he was being drawn back into that world. I will not go too much more into that, but I just want to highlight the knock-on effects of ignoring or demonising a problem rather than supporting and lifting people up.

Now, these are complicated issues. It is not all going to go away overnight, and that is why you commit to this stuff generationally. It is why we have had the Royal Commission into Family Violence. It is why we have had the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System. It is why we are investing in drug and alcohol support. It becomes a bigger fundamental belief in not throwing people to the side or leaving people behind. We need to remove the trauma. We have got to treat the trauma. We have to stop the cycle. I grew up in Ballarat in the 1990s amongst generational trauma, and the results of that were serious drug and alcohol use. I lost half a dozen mates and many more in expanded circles, which is why I just come back to the point that I am so passionate about this not being used as a political football, about it not being about ‘the other’, about serious solutions being put forward and about not using it as a pointscoring opportunity. I know that is not always people’s intention, and I know there are legitimate concerns. As I said before and as Mr Batchelor said in his contribution, it is very, very complicated, but that is why we all need to support the services that are there to ensure that these behaviours, these addictions and these traumas are not entrenched and do not repeat in the next generation.

The other thing with the centre is what it is doing in terms of capturing and referring users to the services that they need, whether that is GPs, whether it is for their oral health or whether it is drug and alcohol support. It is really important, and I think we see it a lot within our community spaces now, where we are making those decisions and we are planning ahead to ensure that we are able to bring people together, whether it is around schools or community health centres. We are capturing people and giving them opportunities to engage with our various health and service networks so that they can get that help when and where it is needed, because depending on where people are at in their journey, it is not easy to reach out and ask for help. So by putting that support there and not having them have to repeat their story over and over again we are making it simpler for not only the individuals and their families but the workers.

For the workers to be able to build those relationships with the individuals and get the outcomes with them – I mean, it just makes absolute sense. It is more efficient for the workers and it is better for individual, and that is why I am just coming back to that point of ensuring that we are meeting people where they are at. It is like any method of communication. We are all politicians: we are communicating with the public. You meet people where they are at, and it is no different from the drug and alcohol perspective. We need to meet people where they are at, speak in their language, make them feel comfortable, support them and enable them to transition to a better life, as so many, many people have, and come from a dark place to a life of love and happiness.

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:24): I rise to speak on this motion as well and would also like to pause to take a moment to acknowledge the words of my colleague Mr McIntosh. That was a very moving and personal contribution, and I think we are all the better for hearing it. It was very, very moving.

This is a motion requesting documents into something that is a very, very, very important subject, but as others have said on this side of the chamber, it is a flawed motion. Frankly, it is actually a redundant motion, and I will come back to that shortly. The motion reads:

That this house:

(1) notes the:

(a) refusal of the Andrews Labor government to release any report conducted by former police commissioner Mr Ken Lay into a second injecting room in Melbourne’s CBD –

well, that is wrong, but we will get back to that later –

(b) conflicting commentary given by the Premier and Treasurer …

(c) significant impact to local residents …

(d) significant concern from CBD businesses … about a rumoured second injecting room on Bourke Street; and

(2) requires the Leader of the Government, in accordance with standing order 10.01, to table in the Council, within three weeks … the most recent draft of Mr Lay’s report handed to the government.

I say it is redundant, and as a member of the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, whilst there are no other members of the committee in this room right now, I am sure many of you would have been glued to your screens all throughout that exhaustive two-week period of insightful discussions. Perhaps those members opposite were not paying attention – perhaps those members who were in the room asking questions were not paying attention – because this question has already been comprehensively answered by the minister multiple times on two occasions. It has been answered. I do not know what this motion is here for. I refer to the transcript from Wednesday 7 June 2023, the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee hearing into mental health. I am delighted to see my colleague from PAEC Mr McGowan join the room, because it was in fact Mr McGowan who asked:

Do you commit to releasing Mr Lay’s report in full?

The minister responded:

Mr Lay’s report will be released.

Mr McGowan also asked for good measure:

And Mr Ryan’s report, will that be released in full?

I believe the minister advised that that report had already been released. Shortly after, in case that answer was not actually clear enough, we then proceeded to Mr O’Brien, the member for Gippsland South from the other place, who said:

Thank you, Chair. Good morning, Minister and co. Minister, can I just go back to the Lay report and just confirm that you have committed to release the Lay report that you have received in full?

The minister responded:

I have said I would release the Lay report, and we will be releasing the Lay report with a government response.

There was some back and forth after this, and Mr O’Brien –

Nicholas McGowan interjected.

Michael GALEA: Quite unusual for PAEC, I am sure you will agree, Mr McGowan. Mr O’Brien wanted to know if it would be supplied in full. Minister Williams said:

What I have received I will be releasing. The Lay report will be released.

Mr O’Brien then responded:

Why won’t you say ‘in full’?

Minister Williams said:

I am happy to say ‘in full’. We will be releasing the Lay report in full.

So there you have it. We have a motion here put to the house today. The opposition is using its time today, which I think is actually valuable – I think it is actually important that all parts of this chamber are given an opportunity to raise matters of significance to them, to the state – to have Mr Mulholland raise a motion on a matter that the government has already committed to providing a response to, and we are already committed to providing that report, in accordance, I might add, with the standard procedure. A report is supplied, the government considers it, the government prepares its response and the government releases the report along with its response. That is exactly what Minister Williams committed to us in the PAEC hearings just a few weeks ago, and that is exactly what I expect to happen.

So I am a bit curious as to why this motion has been put up. I hope it is not to merely allow Mr Mulholland to go on a rant about the safe injecting rooms that we have and to try and scare people about what might or might not be happening. I have got to say there are many of Mr Mulholland’s contributions that I have appreciated and enjoyed. We have had many good debates in this chamber already about housing. He has been an absolute champion against nimbyism. Yet here we have him saying, ‘Not in my backyard. No, let’s not have it in Victoria Street, there are all these issues. Let’s not have it in the city.’ Well, where do we have it? We have not actually heard –

Nicholas McGowan interjected.

Michael GALEA: Have you seen the supposed proposal that we are all apparently –

Evan Mulholland: Do you know something we don’t?

Michael GALEA: I do not know something that you do not, Mr Mulholland.

Nicholas McGowan interjected.

Michael GALEA: Let us not get into chamber conflict, Mr McGowan. We are saying these are the locations, and I do not know what is in the Lay report. As I said, it has not been released yet. But when it is, I look forward to reading it, as I am sure many of my colleagues in this place do, and when we do, we will all examine what it says. It might say it might be around the corner. It might say somewhere else entirely. Let us assess that when it comes out, have a mature debate about it and see what is the best way to do this. This, frankly, nimbyism is not something that I was expecting to come out of Mr Mulholland’s mouth today, so I admire the ideological flexibility you have shown.

But I would also like to make a comment: you made a few comments around Victoria Street in North Richmond, and that is actually an area that is quite close to my heart. Even though I am from the south-east, when I was much, much younger in fact, as a toddler and as a young chap, I used to spend a lot of time there because my mum used to work in that area, and I still have a great appreciation and affection for the area today. I also recently had the privilege of representing retail workers in that area just a few years ago, and I know all too well the challenges that are faced with some of the social problems in that area. I can tell you, Mr Mulholland, that those problems did not appear the day that the injecting rooms went in. Much as I would love it to be the case, I cannot say that Victoria Street in North Richmond was a panacea of harmony and sobriety before the injecting room went in. The injecting room is in that area for a very good reason.

Nicholas McGowan: What is wrong with Victoria Street?

Michael GALEA: I love Victoria Street, as I said, Mr McGowan. It is a fantastic place.

Nicholas McGowan interjected.

Michael GALEA: I do have a love for it. Some of the best food in Melbourne, frankly, you will find in Victoria Street, for one, and wonderful people as well. I have also had the chance, as I have said, in previous roles to engage with many different parts of the community and to see some of the ins and outs of this particular issue, and there is no simple fix. But to say that all of the problems are caused by an injecting room is just frankly ridiculous, and it ignores much of the history of the area as well. So I would caution members when they are making these remarks: let us not get into the field of fearmongering or revisionism; let us focus on what is actually best. Other colleagues have already spoken to the incredible benefits that these rooms have at both a broader facts-based statistical level and also a personal level, and it is a really important service to have.

Going back to the motion itself, again, to claim that the government is refusing to release any report conducted by the former police commissioner Mr Ken Lay, as I said, is completely ridiculous. We have on record, which I have quoted extensively in this contribution, the minister committing to release the report and saying that the report will be released in full. Frankly, I am not sure where this motion has come from. I am not sure why you would choose to make this the use of your time today given that we already have that clear commitment from the minister. Nevertheless it is your prerogative to do so. But for these reasons and for those expressed by my other colleagues in this place today I will not be supporting the motion.

John BERGER (Southern Metropolitan) (16:33): I too rise to speak on motion 31, which my colleagues have spoken on earlier on. It is the second time that I have spoken about the safe injecting rooms since I have been in the Parliament. I just want to acknowledge the comments of Mr McIntosh about his family, and I think they resonate quite well with a lot of people. I understand those difficulties you do face with families as you go along. My wife is a nurse and prior to being a nurse was a paramedic, and she dealt with quite a few of the people that were involved in drug taking and all of those sorts of activities. I have had some quite lengthy discussions about what those things all mean and about safe injecting rooms and the people that have to deal with them. This motion speaks to the report conducted by the former police commissioner Mr Ken Lay into the second injecting room in Melbourne’s CBD.

Acting President Galea, congratulations on your new position as Acting Chair. I am sure you will cover that in leaps and bounds.

The medically supervised injecting centre saves lives. The science proves it and we get it: medically supervised injecting centres save lives by providing a safer place for people to inject drugs of dependency in a supervised health setting instead of injecting at home or, far more dangerously, on the streets or in parks or at local businesses where dangerous needles can be discarded on the road, which just does not provide a proper alternative – instead of injecting in a dangerous place and putting lives at risk. The statistics show that people are more likely to die, suffer harm from drug use and face risks on the street than if they stayed in a safer space, a place where they are less likely to die or suffer harm from drug use and where there is a lower risk to the public.

Harm reduction is not just for the client but for the staff. Think about what happens if an overdose occurs in the street or in a public toilet. This is where most overdoses happen – in stairwells, in houses occupied by large groups of people and in dangerous places and spaces. Where paramedics arrive on a call-out we must consider their safety, but in the safety of a safe injecting room you have all the support you need – clean needles to be disposed of safely and properly, access to rehabilitation and support programs that may play a positive role in someone’s life, a needle and syringe program, opioid substitution programs and of course safe pathways out. These services provide life-saving interventions for people who have a full range of health needs who may otherwise experience significant barriers to accessing healthcare services, including housing, medical care, drug treatment and hepatitis C screening and treatment, among others.

In 2017 we announced the bold and brave action plan to take this safety-first, science-based medical approach to address the intergenerational harm caused by drugs in the City of Yarra. The establishment of the trial followed growing concern about the number of heroin-related deaths, two parliamentary inquiries and a coronial finding that an injecting room would reduce the risk of death from heroin overdose. But I want to skip ahead to 2020, when our government accepted the Hamilton review recommendations in full. This included the expansion of the medically supervised injecting centre – or MSIC – trial to the City of Melbourne to ensure more Victorians can access life-saving services in the space that those Victorians occupy, where the drug activity takes place.

We know that the decision to extend and expand the MSIC trial to the City of Melbourne was informed by a high number of heroin-involved deaths in the cities of Yarra and Melbourne and recommended by the Hamilton 2020 review. That is why we decided to appoint Ken Lay AO APM, a former Chief Commissioner of Police, someone who is widely respected in the community, to lead an independent consultation on the establishment of a second service.

We know that drug use and drug harm have rapidly changed over the past few years. Patterns are different and constantly evolving, in large part as a result of the pandemic. That is why we wanted former Chief Commissioner Lay to take all the time he needed to write a thoughtful and comprehensive report. That is why the consultation period was extended to May this year, to ensure all factors were considered in establishing a second facility in the right location, a place that gets it right for all stakeholders – the community, the local businesses, the clients, the workers and the public.

Ken Lay worked closely with the Department of Health, Ambulance Victoria, Victoria Police, the City of Melbourne and other key stakeholders to explore wellbeing, safety and amenity considerations for the CBD service. But the reality is no decision has been made yet on any final location in the City of Melbourne for the supervised injecting service. To speak to the crux of the motion, the government is closely considering Ken Lay’s report and will release the report and the government’s response when it has fully considered what it means. We are not in the business of making policy on the fly. We are in the business of improving lives and in the business of improving services available to the CBD – services that will reduce the burden on ambulances and hospital services and, more importantly, will save lives.

Our government is committed to doing the right thing. We will carefully consider this report and make sure that we do not rush the decision. These sites are complex and we need to get it right. Decisions need to be guided by the data and the body of research and evidence on the topic. The Andrews government recognises the diversity of views within the community, but it must be guided by the advice of the experts and evidence.

To address the part of the motion that talks about the small business owners and the CBD businesses, we know that the local community, local users of the CBD, are more concerned about the volume of drug use, inappropriately discarded injecting equipment and antisocial behaviour that is occurring in the CBD. We know something: the evidence shows that if the existing service was not located in North Richmond, most people would continue to visit the area to access the street-based drug market that has operated in the area for the last two decades. The centres do not attract people to the area who would not otherwise be in the area – that is a misrepresentation of the facts. The Ryan review surveyed people who use drugs in the area and found that those coming to North Richmond solely to access the MSIC was only 6 per cent. Section 1 of this motion talks about the significant concern. Well, I know the significant concern posed to the community if this is done in a dangerous way. That is why I am proud to be a member of the Andrews Labor government, which is committed to making our community safer. We have a lot of things to be proud of on this side of the front.

We are expanding access to rehabilitation, increasing education in the community and delivering more training for our alcohol and other drug, or AOD, workforce. The 2023–24 budget invested an additional $255.2 million for AOD treatment, rehabilitation and harm reduction services, which includes opening 145 residential rehabilitation beds to ensure that people can access the service they need, closer to home; continuing the operation of 57 adult beds across six metropolitan, rural and regional locations and 80 treatment and eight withdrawal beds – this will be for adults and young children across three facilities in Corio, Traralgon and Wangaratta; continuing Turning Point’s AOD Pathways programs to ensure that people are efficiently matched with services they need; expanding opioid pharmacology services; continuing community-based AOD treatment for people involved in the criminal justice system; continuing the successful AOD and family violence behavioural change program and expanding it into the Hume region with the creation of 84 AOD workforce trainee positions; establishing a residential treatment and outpatient service for Victorian workers; delivering our government’s commitment to expanding access to naloxone by covering the wholesale purchasing costs, distribution and training, plus evaluating this program, which we know already saves lives; continuing the Rapid and Precise Intelligence on Drugs program, which produces valuable statewide intelligence about emerging drugs, allowing for central public health information to be disseminated ‍– this is done through the department’s drug alerts and advisory service; delivering the Emerging Drugs Network of Australia – Victoria program, which provides clinical toxicology reviews of severe drugs and collects and shares drug harm data; and delivering the government’s commitment to decriminalising public drunkenness and shift to a health-led response.

I want to wrap up today by saying that dealing with drug addiction is a complex task. We have been strengthening our laws to combat those who prey on the most vulnerable in our community through the sale of drugs since we were elected in 2014, and when it comes to the issue of saving lives and reducing harm, only this side of the chamber will deliver. Only a Labor government can be trusted to reduce harm and support those struggling with addiction to get the support they need for a better life, and only Labor can be trusted to balance the different stakeholder interests to deliver the best outcome.

David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:43): I was not going to speak on this motion, but I thought I had better clarify something. As a matter of course I normally support documents production motions, and I will be supporting this one also as a matter of course on the principle of transparency. However, I do have some concerns with some of the preamble in this motion, so I would just like to comment. Point (1)(c) effectively says that not ruling out a second injecting room shows the government’s disregard for community safety. I think that that is totally inaccurate and I disagree with that. So although I take issue with some of the points in the preamble, I will support the idea of releasing it. I do note that the government have already said they are going to release this report and therefore this is sort of redundant anyway. But if this is going to come to a vote, I just want to make my position clear. That is all I had to get on the record.

Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (16:44): Acting President Galea, can I take a moment to acknowledge your elevation to Acting Chair, and it is truly a delight to be presenting to this debate in this, your first Acting President shift, so congratulations to you. How very fortunate we all are to be here in the chamber at this time as you mark this special occasion in your parliamentary journey.

I am delighted to join so many speakers before me in speaking to the medically supervised injecting room. Of course I have put on record my views on medically supervised injecting rooms a great number of times, and they bear repeating. The truth is that medically supervised injecting rooms save lives, and the medically supervised injecting room that already exists there in my electorate in North Richmond has saved lives. I have spent a great amount of time talking to the medical professionals there, and the work of our health and mental health professionals there in North Richmond is simply outstanding. It is outstanding, and it is done with the esteem and support and encouragement of the Andrews Labor government.

The idea of a medically supervised injecting centre (MSIC) is complex and requires careful consideration and a detailed body of work, and that indeed is what has happened in the past and continues to happen. These are not decisions that are made on impulse. They are guided by data on patterns of drug use and drug harm, and we really do recognise that there is such a diversity of views. Can I take a moment to acknowledge all those constituents in the Northern Metropolitan Region, particularly here close to the city, who have reached out to me with their views, and I have assured them, as I continue to do, that we must be guided by the advice of experts and the evidence before us. We know that business owners and members of the local community are concerned – deeply, deeply concerned – about the volume of drug use, the really inappropriate and dangerous discarding of injecting equipment that we have seen in various spots around our city and the antisocial behaviour that is occurring in the CBD. In fact next week to mark national Homelessness Week I will be visiting some of these sites with great enthusiasm to understand more directly from our service providers exactly what is happening right here in our city. I have seen it for myself, but now to be guided by our experts, our medical professionals, our professionals that work with people doing it rough and those that use injecting drugs, I am very much looking forward to that opportunity.

Of course there is so much evidence that shows that if the existing service was not located in North Richmond most people would continue to access the street-based drug market in the area that has operated for – oh my gosh – at least two decades. The review into drug use in the area of North Richmond found that only 6 per cent reported coming to North Richmond solely to access the MSIC.

Our experience and our expertise gathered through our time there in North Richmond is incredibly vital as we understand more about the needs of the community and the needs of local service providers, and of course understanding from our hospitals and our other frontline medical professionals just what is going on each and every day. So to the folks that make themselves available to our health professionals can I just say to you: thank you for being there and using a service that really is set up with your life central to it. That is in fact the truth – that there are a great number of hospitalisations that have been avoided. There are a great number of lives that have been saved since North Richmond started in its operation, and these are not figures on a piece of paper – these are lives saved. These are people’s family members, these are people that folks know and care about very deeply, so in North Richmond it saves lives, and I have no doubt that wherever this very much tested and based-in-fact service is delivered it will continue to save lives. It will continue to be staffed by the very best medical and health research professionals in the state, and for those that find themselves in a career servicing our most vulnerable can I say to you: thank you. Thank you very, very much.

Of course the information on this and what will happen with this report will come out in due course, and I look forward to making that available and reading that when it comes out, but the truth is that the decision that this government makes will be entirely based on evidence and on facts and on the view of our experts. So with that in mind can I just say I very much thank you, Acting President, for the opportunity to speak here in your first time in the chair, and I look forward to a continued conversation about this in the months to come.

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (16:49): Acting President Galea, can I congratulate you on taking on this role.

Thanks to the contributions of all colleagues across the chamber. It has been a very interesting debate but I think an important one. It is important to especially, as I said earlier, listen to residents and local communities that would be affected here while also at the same time acknowledging the importance of, in my view, injecting rooms. But they do need to be in the right place and based on the right research. We would like to see the Lay report because we know – not a lot of others talked about it – that the government did send Ken Lay back to the drawing board.

A member: Maybe more than once.

Evan MULHOLLAND: Maybe more than once. It did not like the original report that came forward. Ms Terpstra had quite an overzealous contribution and remarked that I had aligned with drug users, though I did no such thing. Mr Puglielli said that he is on the record calling for the release of the Ken Lay report. So I hoped that he would support this, but he has indicated that he will not.

Mr Batchelor read some talking points, probably from the Premier’s private office – given instructions just like he was disgracefully given some instructions to ask some outrageous questions to Mr Redlich the other day. I like Mr Batchelor, but I thought they were quite out of character. Considering the even-handed way he has conducted himself in the duck-hunting inquiry, watching that, I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed at that performance and the performance of his colleagues in the lower house. But I thought Ms Crozier gave an excellent contribution to this debate, as usual. Mr McIntosh asked me where –

John Berger interjected.

Evan MULHOLLAND: I am summing up. This is what you are meant to do.

John Berger: Get on with your summary.

Evan MULHOLLAND: I am. That is what summing up is about. Mr McIntosh asked me where I would want a location. Well, first of all I would listen to the research. I am on the record saying somewhere like the St Vincent’s site would be a very good location for an injecting room. As I said, I am not against an injecting room, and personally my view on harm minimisation and drugs probably aligns more with Mr Limbrick and Mr Puglielli than with some of my colleagues. I said to look at the research, and we know from the research at Kings Cross, which I have looked into, that all of the evidence out of that tells us it should be near an integrated health service facility where there are wraparound health services and somewhere that is located close to public transport so as to not create an ant trail of harm, which is exactly what has happened at North Richmond. There are several good sites where it could be, and I am open to suggestions. One site that would be quite bad for the CBD is the Bourke Street proposal, which is what I have spoken about previously.

Mr Berger gave a contribution, and I thank him for his contribution. But I would say –

John Berger: Just get on with your summary.

Evan MULHOLLAND: I am summing up. But I would say, like many other contributions in this place, it was read word for word and included slabs of text that appear in other colleagues’ contributions as well.

But I thank Mr Limbrick for his contribution as well, and I thank Ms Watt for her contribution. I know that she has spoken passionately about this issue in the past, and I do respect her for her contribution. I do note that CBD residents have told me that they have tried desperately to reach out to their local Labor upper house MP, and I hope that she has been able to call them back or get in touch with them so they can pass on their concerns to her. I know Ms Watt will treat them respectfully and courteously and get back to them with the government’s opinion as well, and I know that CBD residents have been attempting to reach out to put across their view. But in summing up, I think this motion should be supported.

Council divided on motion:

Ayes (16): Matthew Bach, Melina Bath, Jeff Bourman, Georgie Crozier, David Davis, Moira Deeming, Renee Heath, Ann-Marie Hermans, David Limbrick, Wendy Lovell, Trung Luu, Bev McArthur, Joe McCracken, Nicholas McGowan, Evan Mulholland, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell

Noes (21): Ryan Batchelor, John Berger, Katherine Copsey, Enver Erdogan, Jacinta Ermacora, David Ettershank, Michael Galea, Shaun Leane, Sarah Mansfield, Tom McIntosh, Rachel Payne, Aiv Puglielli, Georgie Purcell, Samantha Ratnam, Harriet Shing, Ingrid Stitt, Jaclyn Symes, Lee Tarlamis, Sonja Terpstra, Gayle Tierney, Sheena Watt

Motion negatived.