Wednesday, 3 December 2025

 Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (10:30): I move:

That this house:

(1)   expresses its strong support for the North Richmond medically supervised injecting room (MSIR) and the life-saving services that they provide in preventing overdose deaths and in offering wraparound support and pathways to recovery;

(2)   notes that:

(a) over 11,000 overdoses have been safely managed in the North Richmond MSIR with not a single fatality;

(b) there have been over 600,000 visits to the service since it opened in 2018 with wraparound health and social supports offered to many vulnerable Victorians;

(c) prior to the opening of the MSIR, North Richmond had one of the highest overdose fatality rates in Victoria;

(d) the MSIR offers evidence-based and human-focused harm reduction health care that acknowledges that drug use is a health issue; and

(3)   affirms that drug harm reduction services should be targeted where there is the greatest need, and decisions on location should be based on evidence not politics.

I am here today to back in the North Richmond medically supervised injecting service, because this service saves lives. It reduces overdose deaths, and it provides people an opportunity to connect with wraparound services that offer health and social supports as well as pathways to recovery. My Greens colleagues and I have long been supporters of this service, and I stand here today to reiterate that support and to thank the staff at North Richmond for their vital and compassionate care for people who use drugs in our community.

Everyone in our state should have the right to accessible health care, and it must be offered where and when people need it. The North Richmond medically supervised injecting room has done the excellent work that it was set up to do. It has reduced drug harm and it has reduced deaths in the area, and behind each of the over 11,000 overdoses that have been safely managed at the service is a person. It is someone who has loved ones around them, someone whose life matters and who should have access to the life-saving care that this service offers. Too often people who use drugs in our community face harmful stereotypes and stigma, and this creates real-world barriers for them in accessing health care as well as pathways to treatment and to recovery. The medically supervised injecting room staff are experts in offering health and social supports with the respect and the care that everyone deserves. Drug use and addiction in our community are complex issues, but ultimately they are health issues. Making sure that people have access to a range of expert community healthcare service provision is critical, and this is what the North Richmond Community Health service provides.

We have to acknowledge context here. The medically supervised injecting room was set up in North Richmond because that is where significantly elevated drug use was already occurring. It is where we were routinely seeing people lose their lives. The local government area of Yarra in fact holds the awful title of having the highest number of overdose deaths involving heroin across Melbourne over the last 10 years and also the highest number of heroin overdose deaths that have occurred outside a residential setting. Lives have been lost in our public spaces, in our parks, in our alleyways, in toilet blocks. Decisions of where to locate these crucial services must be based on evidence, and the evidence is clear: this area is where the harm has been occurring. There is work to be done to make sure that more people can access this service, so that overdoses can be safely managed inside a service like the MSIR. Without it operating, the harm to many vulnerable Victorians – the preventable loss of life – and to our state would be tragic.

In saying that, I do think there is also a need for more outreach workers to be funded at the North Richmond Community Health centre. I believe there are currently two people who are doing an amazing job at connecting with people in the wider community and offering drug and alcohol support for people outside of the centre. This work should be expanded, and the government should provide the funding required to support more people into these roles.

When the bill to make the North Richmond medically supervised injecting room permanent came through this chamber, I and my colleagues in the Greens did move some amendments to expand access to the centre to more people, because we should all know drug-related harm in our community does not discriminate. It is our position that someone who is under 18, who is subject to a court order, who is pregnant or who requires peer or partner support should not be referred away if they are standing in front of the desk asking for medical assistance and supervision.

If people from these vulnerable groups want to seek this medical assistance, they should be permitted to. I say that not in any way to reflect upon the standards of the centre itself; this is a reflection on the current legislation – legislation that my Greens colleagues and I sought to amend. While those amendments failed, we remain committed to expanding access to this life-saving care.

Beyond the excellent work that the North Richmond medically supervised injecting room does, my Greens colleagues and I want to see more of this service provision offered across the state to people who need it. It can be offered in a discreet manner. It can be offered in an area based on evidence, not politics. We do not need people whipping up fear. We do not need people in our community, particularly leaders in this place, fostering stigma and discrimination against vulnerable people. We need the provision of life-saving health services where they are needed. Where there are overdoses occurring, there should be an overdose prevention service on offer. That could be in Dandenong, it could be in Geelong, it could be in St Kilda or it could be in our regional centres in this state. They should be where they are needed to save people’s lives. We can reflect on the data.

Most glaringly, and I have long been on the record about this, there needs to be a supervised injecting centre in Melbourne’s CBD. It was a primary recommendation from Ken Lay’s report that the city needs an MSIR. Almost 80 prominent organisations wrote to our Premier in support of a Melbourne CBD MSIR. These are experts in experiences of drug dependence, in health and medicine, in homelessness and in justice and youth services. Their concerns are clear. The letter says:

Every day, people are risking death by injecting drugs on Melbourne’s streets; in car parks, laneways and public toilets. Approximately one person a month dies after using heroin in the City of Melbourne.

These deaths are unnecessary. These are sons, daughters, brothers and sisters. All loved and mourned by families and friends.

It goes on to say:

We need to look beyond the emotion, judgement and fear, and assess the hard evidence.

It was a dark day when the Labor government announced that they were not proceeding with the Melbourne CBD medically supervised injecting room that they had promised. They already had the building. They knew that it was necessary, that it would save more lives, and instead they crumbled to the businesses and opponents who said, ‘Not in my backyard.’ Well, people are already using injectable drugs in our city, and they are dying from preventable drug overdose. Leaving people out in the open without medical supervision to use these substances will lead to more deaths and will put people and our communities in harm’s way.

It was deeply disappointing that Yarra and Melbourne city councils have voted to end their support of supervised injecting services. I know that not all councillors supported the motions that passed these councils, but that there was a majority of support is really concerning. These councils seem to be buying into, frankly, cheap, populist and stigmatising rhetoric that ignores the fact that offering overdose prevention services should be above politics. The decisions made as to where medically supervised injecting rooms are offered should only be made based on the evidence. Where there is evidence of injectable drug harm, we need to be offering drug harm reduction services. Where people are dying in our streets from drug overdoses, we need to be offering medically supervised injecting centres and their wraparound supports. It is just that simple. Choosing politics over the lives of people who use drugs in our community is despicable. The councillors who claim to care about people who use drugs but then vote to oppose these services in their areas should be ashamed of themselves.

Medically supervised injecting centres like that of North Richmond are not the panacea to drug harm. They are absolutely life-saving and life-changing, but they are one part of a holistic approach to reducing drug-related harm in our community. There is more we can be doing to support people experiencing addiction who are also experiencing poor mental health and people who are experiencing PTSD. We need to make sure that there is adequate housing for those experiencing homelessness or housing instability. Pharmacotherapy is crucial to helping people end or reduce their drug use and dependence, and Victoria needs to expand access to these services, including by offering many more hydromorphone places than are currently available.

Medically supervised injecting rooms are also an important tool given the rise that we are routinely seeing of potent synthetic opioids like nitazenes in our state. These drugs, which are found in a range of illicit substances, often as a contaminant, are often many, many times stronger than substances that we all hear about, like heroin. The naloxone program of vending machines and take-home kits is excellent, and it should be expanded. But so too is offering people access to the life-saving care that our medically supervised injecting centres provide.

People in our state are using injectable drugs. People are dying from overdoses in our communities. My colleagues and I want to make sure that people who are vulnerable in our state have access to safety and security and the service that services like North Richmond provide. The North Richmond MSIR is very literally saving lives and offering so much more to our community. I call on all members of this chamber to support this motion and to support the important work of the supervised injecting room in North Richmond.

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (10:41): I rise to speak to Mr Puglielli’s notice of motion 1188 on the injecting room. It is well known the opposition’s concerns around North Richmond and where this injecting room has been situated – next to a primary school. We have said from the outset that it should not be next to a primary school, and I will come to that. I notice that in Mr Puglielli’s contribution he is calling on the government to have more injecting rooms around the state – Dandenong, Geelong. I am sure that is the Greens’ policy, and they will be pushing that and no doubt speaking to the government about the need for that. They have made their position very clear.

On this side of the house we want more rehabilitation, and we want people off these dangerous drugs. We have seen the harm it has done in so many areas, not just to them personally but also to the broader community, around crime, spiralling and a life of really appalling situations, with the numbers that are now using these awful, awful drugs. Whether it is heroin, whether it is ice, whether it is a combination of very serious drugs, it does no good to anyone, and we need to have a greater focus on rehabilitation and a greater focus on more mental health beds to cater for this. What I have great concerns around, with the injecting room, is we can never see the data about how many people have actually been rehabilitated. Where is the rehabilitation? Where are the numbers that have said ‘There are X amount of people going into this facility and X number being rehabilitated and off drugs’? We never see the data. We do not get that. We get spin and we get the numbers saying that we have saved lives. Well, there are people dying around the injecting room. There are children walking past dead bodies. There is the most appalling anti-social behaviour and crimes that have gone on.

I have been to the community meetings from day one, well before most of you were in the Parliament, because this issue has been a big issue for the residents and the community. The Victoria Street traders have spoken about the issues that they have been facing since injecting room opened. It is in the wrong place. Even the left-leaning Stephen Jolly is saying we got it wrong – the government got it wrong. I will come back to some of his comments because he is speaking on behalf of his community, and they are speaking out and quite rightly saying that this should not be tolerated in any way. Mr Puglielli’s motion does talk about the prevention of overdose deaths and offering wraparound support and pathways to recovery, and that is what I am most interested in. Our shadow minister Emma Kealy has been leading the charge. She led the charge on opioid replacement therapy, and the government followed suit and finally made that commitment. But we have said for years that we do not support this, and residents have felt ignored by the government because of the community safety crisis that is in their areas. This is of the government’s own making. Just a few weeks ago hundreds of locals marched against the injecting room because they have had enough, they are fed up with it, and they cited the rising crime rates and the business closures. Anyone can see Victoria Street and what has happened to that vibrant strip that now is too dangerous for many people to even contemplate going to in order to attend restaurants there, and restaurateurs say that they have to close their doors. That is not what we want to see.

We want to see vibrancy. We do not want to see a honey pot of drug use like this injecting room has created – and it is well known and well understood that is exactly what has happened. I want to quote from Yarra’s mayor Stephen Jolly. He calls it:

… the greatest public policy disaster in recent Victorian history.

They are very strident in their views now, because they have heard from residents. There are the hundreds of thousands of needles and syringes that the council has to clean up – $400,000 annually spent cleaning up syringes, with no clear financial commitment from the government at all to assist in this. They have done some landscaping – they talk about landscaping and improving amenity – but that does not take away from the dangers in the streets for the residents. I have seen videos of the drug use in the streets and the sexual acts that are done for deals. I mean, the residents are all there with their CCTVs, and they send it to us, and it is pretty graphic. This is where children play, this is where children live and this is where children go to school. And they have to step over dead bodies, watch drug users using drugs and see the shocking degradation of the area in terms of the human filth that is there. This is unacceptable on any level. This is a policy failure, because it has not taken into consideration the amenity of the residents of North Richmond. I hope that their voice gets louder and louder and louder, because the government has ignored their concerns for too long.

I want to quote from somebody else who has said what is going on. They have called it a ‘one-stop shop for crime’ – this is what local police have dubbed the area. The article goes on:

… a nearby Buddhist temple … told councillors the community had been forced to “put the metal bars on the windows” due to “violence [and] break-ins constantly”.

It is:

… “littered with needles vomit, faeces, [and] drug dealing”.

The life-saving service is one thing, but it is this total degradation that is going on where it is ruining the amenity, and the concerns of residents have just been ignored for years.

A couple of weeks ago I asked the Minister for Mental Health about this area, about what the government was going to do to address the concerns of school parents, the Richmond community and Yarra City Council and to move the injecting room. The minister did say:

We will continue to work closely with everyone in that precinct, and we will continue to have a very sharp focus on harm reduction and helping people turn their lives around.

Well, I was glad that the minister said that at the time, but there is no evidence of that occurring, and that is my point. This has been here for years, and we do not see that data. We do not see those results. There is no follow-up and there is no tracking – or if there is, the government does not release it so that Victorians have full transparency about what is going on.

I acknowledge that there is a very big drug issue in this state, and I acknowledge, as Mr Puglielli said, there are a lot of people that are on drugs and they need support. They do need support; no-one wants to see anyone on drugs. I am sure all of us have had friends and family members who have slipped into this terrible decay and have seen their lives ruined and their family lives ruined after it. It is appalling, and no-one wants to see that. We need to give support and turn these people around.

I say and the coalition says that this is in the wrong area. This injecting room is in the wrong area. I want to just say again that it has also been acknowledged by the operator of the injecting room. They have admitted that the service initially failed to adequately address community safety concerns about anti-social behaviour of drug users. That has only got worse with the increased crime.

Again, in closing, Stephen Jolly, the Yarra mayor, says it is the greatest public policy disaster in recent Victorian history, calling it ‘Disneyland for drug users’. The president of the local traders association on Victoria Street, who I have referred to before, Ha Nguyen, locks the doors of his cooking school during classes to prevent drug-affected individuals from entering. He says while the injecting room may keep some drug use out of laneways, it also makes the area a drawcard for users who engage in anti-social behaviour that has a devastating impact on the once-vibrant shopping and dining hub.

CEO Simone Heald has admitted, as I said, that the service initially failed to address antisocial behaviour and community safety concerns. This is a very big issue. The government has ignored it. They have tried to cover up what the impacts of government decisions are. I again say: this injecting room has been a public policy failure. It is in the wrong area. We have consistently said that for years. We will continue to say that. We took to the last election that the injecting room should be moved. We still hold that view. It should never be in a residential area next to a primary school – never, ever. The government has failed the residents of North Richmond.

 Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (10:51): I am pleased to rise to speak on Mr Puglielli’s motion with respect to the medically supervised injecting facility in North Richmond. In relation to this particular policy but of course more broadly, it is very clear that the Allan Labor government has a demonstrated track record of taking a harm minimisation approach to alcohol and drug policy and reform. As a government we look past the divisive rhetoric to implement evidence-based policies that actually improve the health and social outcomes of Victorians, whether it is at the medically supervised injecting room (MSIR) or whether it is at the pill-testing service or other initiatives, which I will get to in my contribution. This demonstrates that we are delivering on a harm minimisation approach to alcohol and drug policy and reform and that we are backing the expert evidence and standing up against those who seek to stigmatise those who use drugs and who seek to divide communities. That is exactly the approach that this government is taking.

We are absolutely proud to support a health-led approach to reducing alcohol- and drug-related harm. We have made significant investments to expand treatment services and to establish and support harm minimisation services for those who need it. Since we were elected we have invested more than $3 billion in drug and alcohol treatment. More than $380 million was allocated in the 2025–26 state budget – so the last state budget – to allow the government to continue to expand many of the life-saving and life-changing services and initiatives because we know that there is ongoing harm from alcohol and drug use and alcohol and drug abuse, and each year we service 40,000 people across alcohol and drug treatment and harm reduction supports. The establishment of the medically supervised injecting facility at North Richmond is a very clear example of the government’s commitment to implementing drug policy that works, reduces harm and supports those who need support with services, and we are proud of the work that the MSIR does.

We have had several debates in this chamber in the last couple of years about the medically supervised injecting room in North Richmond. It is patently obvious, from history, that Melbourne’s drug market has operated in this area for decades. Members of the local community, including the former member for Richmond Richard Wynne, have advocated strongly for decades the need to improve the harm minimisation and support services located in the area where a drug trade has existed for a long time, because residents on the streets around the drug use were experiencing significant harm and ambulances were turning up to overdoses on a frequent and regular basis. What this medically supervised injecting facility in North Richmond has done is provide a space where injecting drugs can occur in a safe manner, supported by a range of services.

With more than half a million visits and more than 11,000 overdoses managed without a single death, that facility has established itself as one of the world’s most effective medically supervised injecting facilities. When we manage the injecting drug use in the local area and provide those support services, it has benefits, yes, for those who are using injected drugs, and it has benefits for those in the local community who are not walking over overdoses on the footpath. But it also takes pressure off the broader health and hospital system so that we do not have ambulance call-outs on a frequent basis into these streets dealing with people that can be properly looked after in the medically supervised injecting facility, either to safely manage their drug use and prevent overdose, so to have a prevention function, or to navigate them into a range of broader support services that exist alongside the injecting facility, which means that a range of other health benefits and health and support services can be provided. We know that since the facility has opened in North Richmond there has been a significant reduction in ambulance attendance in the area involving naloxone administration to reverse heroin overdoses. The facts speak for themselves: fewer ambulance attendances in the local area involving naloxone administration to reverse heroin overdoses since the facility has been opened – that is what has been happening at North Richmond.

But as I said, it is not just about emergency response, it is also the role that the facility plays as a gateway into broader support services, whether that be general health services, mental health services, dental services, housing support services or a range of things which are provided onsite. In total, more than 4000 referrals have been made to date to external health and social services, and more than 177,000 instances of support services have been provided onsite since the facility opened. It is very, very clear that the medically supervised injecting facility is delivering the kind of services that the users need, delivering the kind of services that benefit the broader community and reducing harm both to those individuals and to the broader community.

That is exactly what the independent review that was established to examine these issues has found. The Ryan review was handed to the government in March 2023, and that review was emphatic in its findings that the North Richmond medically supervised injecting facility was saving lives. I think if we as members of Parliament are trying to think about what some of the key metrics that we want to see our investments having and our laws having are, for many of us, saving lives is pretty high on the list of the things we want to see demonstrated by the investments that are being made in services and the impact of the laws that we are passing. Certainly what we have done in the past to make this facility permanent, through laws that we have passed in this Parliament, as demonstrated by the independent review, has been saving lives. Also, as I said, the independent review found by that time that the overdose management was working effectively, and that has continued.

The report is not blind to the challenges and acknowledges the complexity for local residents and for local businesses in dealing with drug addiction in the community. It is complex because it requires people with complex needs to interact with a complex web of social, legal and other supports. The service system that we provide to many in the community is often not easy to navigate. What I think one of the benefits of providing the sorts of services that the medically supervised injecting facility does is to provide some of those wraparound, integrated support services in one place so that they can be much more efficiently and effectively used by those with particularly complex needs and particularly those who are injecting drug users who need that support.

In the last minute I just want to touch more broadly on some of the other initiatives that the government is taking to support harm minimisation across the state. We have obviously invested quite considerably to expand access to public pharmacotherapy services by supporting more community health organisations to deliver those supports. There are the 20 naloxone dispensing units that have been provided in key locations of high overdose harm; expanded community outreach to services, particularly to teams in St Kilda and Footscray, targeting areas where additional wraparound supports are provided; and supporting the Salvation Army just across the road here on Bourke Street to establish a new health clinic, providing right now health, mental health and AOD supports. Plus, in Gertrude Street in Fitzroy, we have now got the permanent fixed-site pill-testing service, which is doing an exceptionally important job in making sure those particular drug users are fully informed about what they are ingesting. Fundamentally, the medically supervised injecting room in North Richmond is saving lives and should be supported.

 Rachel PAYNE (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (11:01): ‘You talk, we die’: those words are painted on the mural on the side of the Hive on Victoria Street in North Richmond. They were there before the overdose prevention centre opened. These words were a plea from the community that had already lost 23 people in the 400-square-metre area around the North Richmond health centre in the year before the medically supervised injecting room (MSIR) began operating in 2018. Back then calls to 000 were constant. Ambulance sirens never seemed to stop. Residents said some days they felt like they were living in a war zone. This is a community where some of the poorest Victorians live alongside some of the wealthiest, and for more than 30 years policing and punishment have done nothing to reduce the local drug market or ease the suffering of people dependent on heroin.

Today ambulance callouts have halved within 1 kilometre of the centre, yet just a kilometre from here drug-related ambulance call-outs are increasing. The MSIR now supports around 230 clients a day. It is one of the busiest and best medically supervised injecting facilities in the world. It is world-class because it provides direct pathways to support. For hundreds of people it has been the beginning of recovery. For thousands it has meant access to opioid replacement therapy, life-saving hepatitis treatment, mental health care and housing support. For many it is the first time someone genuinely asked how they were and cared about whether they live or die.

We should be proud of what we have achieved here in Victoria and we should be expanding this model, because here in our state overdose kills nearly twice as many people as road accidents. In 2024, 584 Victorians died of an overdose. That same year 281 Victorians died on Victorian roads. We rightly spend billions of dollars on road safety – of course we do – but when it comes to preventing overdose and reducing drug harm, our investment in that is a pittance. It is unacceptable that governments continue to commit far more to policing than to treatment, prevention and harm reduction combined. Less than 2 per cent of Australia’s illicit drug budget goes to harm reduction measures such as needle exchange programs and supervised injecting facilities.

Instead of talking about shutting down life-saving services like the MSIR, we should be asking what more we can do. We should be investing in community-based harm reduction services, especially in places like North Richmond, one of the poorest communities in the country, surrounded by suburbs of extraordinary wealth. Just as with road safety, we need to place services where the risks are highest and where the need is greatest.

Facilities like the MSIR are only one piece of what this community deserves. The North Richmond estate needs investment. Victoria Street needs investment. The people who live there deserve safety, dignity and support. Yet we continue to hear people in this chamber and local politicians calling for the MSIR to be moved up the road to St Vincent’s or closed altogether, as though this would magically fix homelessness, chronic illness and decades of neglect. We know that it will not.

To be kind, those arguments are naive; more often, they are politically motivated. What are we doing to support the small businesses struggling with costs and vacancies? Half the shops on Victoria Street are empty. Homelessness is rising and chronic illness is rising, yet we still argue that closing a life-saving service is somehow the solution. It is far more expensive to police drug harm than to treat it. Pathways into treatment cost less and save lives. We have discussed in this chamber many times the enormous cost, financial and human, of criminalising drug use. Criminalising cannabis alone costs Victorians millions of dollars and stops people from seeking the help that they need.

Rather than closing MSIR, we should be asking: how can we strengthen it? Can we expand access to evidence-based treatments such as hydromorphone, a pharmaceutical alternative to heroin that has proven highly effective when methadone and other opioid therapies have failed? Can we ensure medicinal cannabis is affordable for people in this community? We have growing evidence that medicinal cannabis can reduce the harms of other drug use. While we delay, people continue to die. Within a kilometre of where we stand today dozens of people will lose their lives to preventable opioid overdoses this year. The City of Melbourne now has the highest overdose rate in the state.

I just want to make mention of the opposition’s position around the relationship of the school with the MSIR. From my understanding of what the community have told me and what the school has told me, the school has a great relationship with the North Richmond Community Health centre and has been a long-time supporter of the MSIR. If anything, the continued attacks by those who oppose the MSIR have far greater negative impact on that school and the children that attend that school than the life-saving centre itself. What we do know is criminalising and stigmatising people who use drugs harms far more than it helps, and as the mural says, ‘You talk we die.’

 Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (11:07): I am happy to respond to this motion. Certainly we have addressed this issue in previous iterations as well. On 4 May 2023 the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Medically Supervised Injecting Centre) Act 2023, which facilitated the medical supervised injecting centre, was debated right here in this chamber.

It was the day before Father Bob Maguire’s funeral, so I remember that as well. I also remember that he spoke very strongly in support of medically supervised injecting rooms. He had been an advocate for people experiencing drug addiction and related issues for a very long time. When I say he was an advocate, he was not judgemental and he was not passing blame or individualising people’s challenges that they faced, which is very consistent with a health-based approach to drug addiction. He was a generous, sharp, exceptional, maverick Catholic priest who epitomised values of love and generosity towards the most disadvantaged in our community. I am sure he was at the point of being booted out of the Catholic Church on occasion because of his determination to be that way. He was not interested in issues of hierarchy of the church but, rather, doggedly persistent in his support for all people in his neighbourhood. He cared about his own community, and he wanted to make his own community a better place. That sounds a little bit familiar to what we are addressing here today. He believed community is made up of compassion and care, common sense and communication.

He established the Father Bob Maguire Foundation to provide material, emotional and social support to whomever, whenever and wherever necessary. His motto was ‘We leave no-one behind.’ I feel it is very apt to continue to channel those values as I respond today by seeking to help and support those who find themselves in difficult circumstances, rather than to judge or police them. There is significant evidence supporting a response to drug addiction as a health issue requiring treatment and support rather than a moral failing or a criminal activity, and it should not be used to drive fear and panic in communities. As I said, Father Bob wanted to make his own community a better place. These communities should not be exploited for political purposes – and I do not say that the moving of this motion has anything to do with that; I think it is really important that it is raised. But when these issues are politicised negatively and judgmentally this instils fear based on false information within communities and it implies judgement and blame, which is not fair or inclusive, and none of the evidence justifies that kind of approach.

The medically supervised injecting room (MSIR) operates where Melbourne’s drug market has existed for decades. It is something the previous member for Richmond, the Honourable Richard Wynne, strongly advocated to support the local community. Now with more than half a million visits and over 11,000 overdoses reversed without a single life lost, the North Richmond medically supervised injecting room has firmly established itself as one of the most effective facilities of its kind anywhere in the world. These are not abstract statistics; they represent thousands of people who are alive today because this service existed when they needed it most.

This service has also played a crucial role in easing pressure on our local health system. Since it opened, ambulance call-outs for overdose incidents in the area have fallen significantly. As a consequence, in real terms this means ambulances are able to attend other emergencies and there has been a marked reduction in the need for naloxone administration by paramedics. That is good news for emergency services, for hospitals and for the broader community. In a sense the medically supervised injecting room sits within a suite of services that we now have in Victoria. The urgent care clinics are another example of providing affordable options to people that might have otherwise ended up in the very, very expensive and time-consuming emergency departments – same, same.

Critically, the MSIR service has become about far more than responding to overdoses. It has gone on to reflect the advocacy of foundations such as the Father Bob Maguire Foundation, as it is based on the principle of working actively with the community to implement new and sustainable solutions for people who need support. It is now a vital gateway into broader health and social care for people who often fall through the cracks of traditional systems. I was just reflecting on what it means to fall through the cracks. Even if we just have a look at some of the underlying causes of addiction, it is not possible to justifiably blame people for becoming addicted, because there are so many different reasons why people become addicted. They could have a genetic predisposition. Early childhood trauma is also acknowledged as a cause.

Social pressure and a whole range of other dynamics facilitate an individual becoming addicted. Certainly, as I have mentioned before, as a sexual assault counsellor at the Centre Against Sexual Assault in Warrnambool, every now and again one of the coping mechanisms of a client, usually a woman, would be addiction. That was their way of coping with what was going on in their mind, as I said, with not just early childhood trauma but trauma in general.

Providing onsite access to mental health care, dental care, housing support and case management means people are being supported to stabilise, recover and rebuild their lives. Women reported to me that being influenced by alcohol or drugs or even a gambling addiction emptied their mind; it pushed aside all of the other thoughts that were going on. So these wraparound services help people deal with those issues and provide support, not judgement but validation and respect, and I think with all of the evidence it is absolutely such a strong case for this approach. To date more than 4000 referrals have been made to external health and social agencies. This has been a great success in a community that had established drug abuse and that was creating unmanaged risks for the community. Now there are options, and I am very pleased to have had the opportunity to respond to this motion.

 Ann-Marie HERMANS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (11:17): I too rise to speak on the Greens motion from Mr Puglielli, and I thank him for bringing the issues to the house. These are issues that I have certainly raised in the house before but from a different perspective. My question is: how much do we really care about our Victorian children? How much do we really care about their education, about protecting them, about what they learn, about what they are exposed to, about what is important to the families that are zoned for this primary school?

I have been to and I have attended meetings to do with harm minimisation, and I understand the issues, I understand the arguments for it and I understand the amount of use that this centre has. Long before we did the housing inquiry and visited the area for the inquiry, I made a special visit to Richmond to look at the primary school and the drug injecting centre right next to the primary school. I know that it is stated as being so many metres away, but the reality is there is a really tall fence that has had to be built that just divides the buildings between the primary school and the centre that is used for the drug injection program. For me as a parent, to think that families that are zoned in this area must use this primary school – this is their allocated primary school for their zoning, and they are surrounded by a situation which is just unthinkable for little children. It is not protecting our vulnerable little ones. It is actually not safe. We talk about and we see the issues for people who are going to and from work, saying that they do not feel safe, that they are exposed to situations where they do not feel safe. But what about these little children? At the meetings that have taken place in the school, the amount of people and the amount of children that have found syringes in and around their fence lines and their school is simply outrageous.

This is not how Victorian schools are supposed to be. They should not be located in an area where young, vulnerable children are put into a situation where they are unsafe, with drug dealers and with crime.

I listened to what Ms Payne had to say, and I take issue with some things, because in fact both times that I have been down to the Richmond injecting rooms and the school, the ambulance callouts have been constant and the sirens going off have been endless. It did not stop the number of ambulances that were being called out. Whilst I think it is great that we can have a service where people can get an ambulance and be taken off to hospital and the ambulances are being called out regularly, this is simply the wrong place for harm minimisation. I understand that we are coming into an election year, and I understand that this is a Greens seat. Suddenly the government is looking at the issue and thinking, ‘We need to do something.’ But the reality is you have needed to do something for a very long time.

I also went out to this site because I had heard rumours that in my region in the south-east there were going to be a number of potential drug injecting rooms opening up, and I wanted to see and hear from the residents about the outcomes of having an injecting room in a residential area right next to a primary school. As it turns out, this government then went and did needle syringe programs right near yet another primary school, in Springvale. Again, just through the needle syringe program we have outrageous outcomes. It is simply not okay. It is not safe for the businesspeople, and it is not safe for the children. How much do we really value protecting children in this state? If this program is working so well, then release all the data and make it transparent all the time at real time so we can see it. If it is so successful, then help us to see it.

I have an issue with the fact that we do not invest enough in the opportunity for rehabilitation, because I come across people who say, ‘There is nowhere for me to go.’ We simply are not investing in that opportunity. Not everybody wishes to use harm minimisation. Not every family wishes that to be their option. There are people crying out to have a second chance at completely getting off their addictions, and they want rehabilitation. What about funding some rehabilitation? Again, rehabilitation cannot take place around areas where there are drug dealers. You simply cannot do it that way.

I understand the sense of urgency and where the Greens are coming from, saying, ‘We need to protect people. This is a very busy centre.’ Yes, it is a very busy centre, and no, I do not want drug injecting rooms. I am even struggling with the needle syringe programs in the regions of the south-east because of the implications of the way they have completely changed the landscape in every area where these vending machines have been introduced. It has changed the crime rate; it has increased it. It has changed the dynamics of the help that people are getting and the level of safety that people feel. I understand the issues and those who are completely compassionate and passionate about having harm minimisation as an option. I have heard everything that they have had to say. As I said, I have attended their meetings – they have held stuff here in Parliament before – and I have made the effort to learn and to listen. But the reality is we need to invest in rehab. The reality is you simply cannot have a program like this literally right next to a primary school with just a fence between the two buildings. It is not okay. Would anyone that has a little child that they have ever cared about and looked after honestly want to expose their children to this? It is not fair that local residents have only got this option available to them as their local primary school.

As has been said, even the mayor Stephen Jolly, mayor of Yarra City Council, has said very clearly that the Victorian government got it wrong when it placed Melbourne’s only medically supervised injecting room in North Richmond next to a primary school in a dense public housing and residential precinct. That has come straight from the council. He is quoted as saying:

The current site is not right. You can’t put a service like this next to a primary school and expect no problems.

Stephen Jolly went on to say:

We support the injecting room – just not where it is now. It needs to move to a spot that’s safer for residents and still saves lives.

He also went on to say:

The locals are worn out. They’ve lived with this for years but are tired of being ignored while crime soars – break ins are 50% higher in Richmond than the Victorian average, car theft just about double. It’s time the Victorian Government stepped up and fixed it.

That is from Stephen Jolly. I can say that if you go and move these injecting rooms anywhere in the South-Eastern Metropolitan Region, if you care for the residents – nine out of 11 seats are Labor seats – and if you give a damn about any of the Victorian public, you will not be putting services like this in residential areas next to primary schools, next to aged care facilities, next to community centres or next to people who live and work and have to walk past these centres. It is not okay – it is simply not okay. I cannot support a service that is provided in an area that causes more harm to innocent lives. I completely understand the arguments for it, but the locations need to be selected sensitively and intelligently.

 Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (11:27): I rise to make a contribution on this motion in Mr Puglielli’s name in regard to the Richmond medically supervised injecting room. I also want to thank Mr Puglielli for bringing this motion. I know he has a keen interest in this matter, as do I, and I want to thank him for bringing this important motion to debate.

I think what we all know is that the medically supervised injecting room has played a critically important role in saving many, many lives. As somebody who grew up in New South Wales, and having been in and around Kings Cross, these sorts of places are not new in New South Wales. They have been around for quite some time. What is absolutely clear and irrefutable is that these sorts of facilities save lives – they absolutely save lives. Whether it is injecting rooms or giving people safe places where, if they are affected by drugs, they can get the medical treatment that they need, it is critically important. It is always a little bit disappointing when we debate these sorts of motions with those opposite that we still have to deal with the approach that we have got to stigmatise people who are suffering from addiction. The approach is to say that they should be ridiculed. There is hysteria around it. The bottom line is that this should not be happening. The bottom line is that people are struggling with addiction; it is a health issue.

People need access to medical treatment. For example, with the North Richmond site – and I understand what Mrs Hermans was just saying, that she broadly supports the issue but does not agree with where it is placed – there was a long process that was around how this was actually set up. Just looking through the notes and having listened to what has been said before, this is managed by Cohealth as well, and one of the reasons for the selection of this site was actually because this is where a lot of drug overdoses were happening. I do not know what people expect will happen if you just say, ‘Well, we can’t have it there.’ Do you just think that then people are magically not still going to present with the same problems? That logic does not make any sense at all. You have to provide the service for where people are presenting. This ongoing picking, nitpicking, complaining and whingeing away about something being placed where it is does not resolve the fact and does not address the fact that people are presenting with a problem that they need medical attention for.

[The Legislative Council report is being published progressively.]