Tuesday, 7 March 2023

North Richmond medically supervised injecting facility

Emma KEALY (Lowan) (14:07): My question is to the Minister for Mental Health. Why was the suitability of the location of the North Richmond injecting room, which is next door to Richmond West Primary School, deliberately excluded from the scope of the Ryan review?

Gabrielle WILLIAMS (Dandenong – Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Treaty and First Peoples) (14:08): Let us remember what drove calls for this medically supervised injecting room from the outset. We had it explained very articulately this morning by Judy Ryan, a long-term resident of that area, who spelt out the community’s observations around drug use, and deaths, and ongoing sirens and lights, and the disruption that that caused that local community, and dead bodies in alleys, and people fleeing as she described and hiding in what she described as hidey-holes without access or being connected to services that they needed. This is what led to community calls for this service. The Ryan review has done, I have got to say, as the Hamilton review did before it as well – these are two reviews that have been now completed by experts who have consulted widely, deeply, broadly to tease out the value of this facility. And in assessing –

Emma Kealy: On a point of order, Speaker, on relevance, this question goes specifically to why the location of the injecting room, being next to a primary school, was specifically excluded from the scope of the Ryan review.

The SPEAKER: Order! A point of order is not an opportunity to repeat the question. The minister was being relevant to the question.

Gabrielle WILLIAMS: In assessing the achievements of the service in meeting the objectives under the act, the Ryan review has found clearly that the service has met the core objective of saving lives. Saving lives: 6000 overdoses were safely managed through that facility and there was not one death in the overdoses that were managed through that facility. On modelling that, that would mean some 63 lives saved. I would like to see the member for Lowan speak to, say 63, families who have lost a loved one through overdose and tell them that –

Emma Kealy: On a point of order, Speaker, the minister now has had nearly 2 minutes to mention the school. She has not referred to the location of the injecting room once. I ask you to bring her back to the specific question I asked: why wasn’t it included in the scope of inquiry for the Ryan review?

The SPEAKER: The minister was being relevant to the question in that it referred to the Ryan review.

Emma KEALY (Lowan) (14:10): Will the minister attend a community meeting to explain to the residents of North Richmond why the suitability of the location of the drug injecting room was left out of the scope of the Ryan review?

Gabrielle WILLIAMS (Dandenong – Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Treaty and First Peoples) (14:11): Let me be clear, for some no site is an appropriate site for a facility like this, and that includes those opposite. In determining the best locations for facilities like these, we are and experts are, of course, guided by where drug use actually happens. That again draws me to why there were calls for a facility like this in the first place and I outlined in great detail before the kind of environment that existed and the very issues that many residents in that area themselves brought to us back then, which led to the –

Emma Kealy: On a point of order, Speaker, again my question was quite specific: will the minister meet with the local community? I ask you to bring her back to that point: yes or no.

Members interjecting.

Emma Kealy: On relevance, I said – relevance.

The SPEAKER: I cannot direct the minister on how to answer the question.

Gabrielle WILLIAMS: Thank you, Speaker. Look, again, for some people no site is going to be an appropriate site, and while we appreciate that there are a range of views on this, we cannot lose sight of the fact, as confirmed by the Ryan review, that this site is meeting its core objective of saving lives.