Wednesday, 22 March 2023

Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Medically Supervised Injecting Centre) Bill 2023

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Gabrielle Williams:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Emma KEALY (Lowan) (10:50): I rise today to speak on the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Medically Supervised Injecting Centre) Bill 2023. Much has been said about the medically supervised injecting room (MSIR) in North Richmond attached to the North Richmond Community Health centre. There is no doubt that much, much more needs to be done when it comes to supporting people facing drug and alcohol addiction in the state of Victoria. For too long people with substance addictions have been ignored. I think government has turned its eyes away from some of these critical issues, and unfortunately what we are seeing with the injecting room today is a continuance of the issues around damage to the amenity of the local area; the impact that that is having on the local community, with some of the highest densities of public housing in the state of Victoria; and of course the impact on the young schoolchildren that attend Richmond West Primary School.

I am hearing calls across the table from the Minister for Health that it is wrong that there has not been a focus on people with alcohol and other drug addiction issues in recent years. I would like to bring to the attention of the house the $40 million cut to the AOD sector in last year’s budget. This was at a time when the sector was absolutely struggling to keep up with the rampant demand on AOD support services and treatment services on the back of the COVID lockdowns and restrictions, which had a significant impact on the mental health of all Victorians. It is well documented that because people had not been able to access mental health supports, so many people turned to alcohol and other drugs in order to self-medicate. We have the situation now where we have many people who are attending the injecting room who also have serious mental health issues. It is something that was highlighted in the executive summary of the Ryan report, which has been published. It is something that must not be ignored. We need to see a serious investment to support this sector and to support all Victorians, particularly people who are attending the injecting room, who are some of the most vulnerable people in our community.

At the last election the Liberals and Nationals had a very positive suite of policies that we took to the election that was about providing more treatment services. I was very pleased to read in the executive summary of the Ryan report that there is support to introduce a hydromorphone therapy program in Victoria. This is a policy that the Liberals and Nationals took to the last election. It is the gold-standard drug treatment to assist people who have a heroin addiction when other programs such as methadone are not successful. I believe strongly that that should be a priority for this current government. While they have said they will accept all recommendations aside from some minor elements of the Ryan review, I do urge them to move very, very promptly and take on the policy of the Liberals and Nationals around a hydromorphone program but also take the word of the John Ryan review and the independent panel who supported that and of course the drug and alcohol sector, who have been tireless advocates for an extension of treatment programs to be available in Victoria.

The other policy that was quite substantial and would make an enormous difference to the people of Victoria seeking support for alcohol and other drug addictions was to expand the number of AOD withdrawal and rehabilitation beds across the state of Victoria. We made a fabulous commitment around that to build six sites across the state which would cover off on withdrawal services as well as residential rehabilitation services, and all of the sites that were proposed by the Liberals and Nationals addressed sites where there had been acknowledged significantly low access to drug and alcohol support services as found by the Productivity Commission. That included a facility in Warrnambool. They have been fabulous advocates for so many years. They have worked so hard to try and attract funding for that area. I certainly will continue to support it and stand with my very close colleague the member for South-West Coast, who has been a fierce advocate for that investment by the state government. I urge for that funding to be included in this year’s state budget.

The facility in Mildura, which we know the government said they would do, is strung up with some issues at the moment, including ensuring that the local Indigenous groups have a say over where the proposed site will be. I think that that is very, very important in terms of inclusiveness to make sure that people of Aboriginal descent have a linkage to being on country and that they are able to access treatment on country. That can make a substantial difference when it comes to a commitment to entering into drug and alcohol treatment.

We also committed to a facility in Shepparton, an all-ages facility in the Latrobe Valley, another facility in Frankston, where we know there have been serious drug and alcohol issues for a long period of time, and a standalone 30-bed withdrawal facility or 30 withdrawal beds in Melbourne, because that is where we know that there is a substantial bottleneck. You have to undergo detox or withdrawal services before you can enter into residential rehab. Until we address that shortage it is going to be very difficult to give people the support that they need in getting through withdrawal so they are actually eligible to go into residential rehab. I still stand by that. It is basically the same policy that we took to the 2018 election. We have not seen any investment in expanding our AOD beds and making sure there are more beds available at a time when demand has never been higher, and so again I urge the Andrews Labor government to ensure they put AOD first and ensure that these families and individuals who are facing addiction issues can access the treatment they need when they need it, because waitlists of up to a year simply perpetuate the cycle. It is not feasible for people to be able to just go cold turkey and not get any support in between. It is not fair, it is not right and it is not what we expect in the state of Victoria.

In relation to the legislation, I will note that we had a bill briefing last Wednesday. There were a number of questions taken on notice, and we have not received a response to those as yet. I urge the minister and her office to provide a response to those questions as soon as possible, because they are questions that have been raised by the sector. This is something that is not about politics at this point; there are questions that are arising from people who want to know more about it. There are people who will have to work underneath this legislation, and so it is very important we have those responses sooner rather than later. I realise I cannot speak to them today; however, they are responses that will be raised in the Legislative Council when the legislation moves to that stage of debate.

There are a number of elements of this legislation which we have concerns about. My concerns relate to some of the language that is utilised within the legislation. I also have concerns that recommendations outlined in the Ryan review, which we have been told provide the foundation for the amendments that we are debating today, have not been transferred at all across to the legislation. Further, in some ways the legislation does not reflect the recommendations of the Ryan review.

Given the Ryan review, as we have been told, is the foundation for the amendments that have been put forward in this legislation, I think this is very important, for a sense of transparency for the public and particularly for the drug and alcohol sector, that we have access to the entirety of the John Ryan report. I know that there is a much, much bigger report that has been submitted to the government. I understand it may not have been submitted as this has been provided, as a report specifically to be made public, but every other review that we have had of the injecting room is hundreds of pages long, with a lot of evidence included, which helps to inform the drug and alcohol sector on how they can best advocate but also how they can best service the people that they provide support and treatment to. I do again urge the government to release the full John Ryan report and all the information that has been submitted to the government, including the additional research papers which have been undertaken to inform John Ryan’s and the independent panel’s work. I know that there has also been a security report undertaken by Tony Zalewski that has not been made public. There is a significant amount of work that has been undertaken by the CERE, the Centre for Evaluation and Research Evidence. Again, in my view, coming from a health background, we should be having evidence-based policy and evidence-based practice. That is why I believe that information should be made public. I think in terms of providing transparency to the local North Richmond community, it is very, very important that that full report is published sooner rather than later.

The biggest issue which was reiterated through the Ryan review was around the failure of the government to be able to deliver upon the objectives that were outlined in the trial of the North Richmond injecting room. We note that there were six objectives in the legislation. They have not been amended in the version of the bill put before us today; however, when we look down the list it is difficult to say that any of the objectives have been met in an evidence-based way. In particular there is of course objective 2, which is about providing a gateway to health and social services for people who inject drugs. It was highlighted throughout the Ryan report that this has not been done. There are a number of recommendations in relation to that, particularly in relation to the lack of support for treatment on site and rehabilitation on site but also in relation to not having support services for mental health, which I think is very important.

It also referred to reduction of ambulance attendances and emergency department presentations attributed to overdose. What has not been mentioned in the John Ryan report, which I think is a deficiency but perhaps is included in the full report, is the impact of COVID and particularly international border closures on supply of heroin to Australia. So the lack of flights and the lack of boats coming in and out reduced the ability for heroin to be illegally imported into the country. As a result, supply was much lower, usage of the injecting rooms was lower and overdoses were lower. The significance of that impact cannot be understated. The fact that it was not mentioned as a key point in the Ryan review is a deficiency of the report; however, without seeing the full report I cannot reflect on the other work. It is disappointing that we have not had access to that, but it is not surprising from this government, unfortunately.

The Ryan report also found the government have failed to reduce the number of discarded needles and syringes in the neighbouring public places. In fact this review has found that the number of needles found in the streets around the North Richmond region has increased two- to threefold. Before the injecting room was built, we were told that it was like a war zone around the North Richmond injecting room, with 6000 discarded needles on the streets of North Richmond every month. This Ryan report actually finds that 12,000 to 18,000 needles are being discarded every month. It makes up 80 per cent of the total needles collected by the City of Yarra now. In terms of reaching that recommendation, the injecting room in its current model has been an abject failure.

The government have failed to improve the neighbourhood amenity for residents and local businesses. This is something that was found in the Ryan report, but it was also highlighted in the Hamilton review which was handed down a couple of years ago in 2020. It was highlighted then that work should be undertaken to deal with the amenity issues sooner rather later; however, again we see another report which says the amenity is deteriorating in the North Richmond area. It backs up the views of businesspeople, people who are parents of the kids at the school and people who live in that local North Richmond area. They know that the amenity has decreased so much since the opening of the injecting room. The drug trade has moved south. It has moved from Victoria Street to the community health precinct surrounding the injecting room and primary school, and it has not been dealt with effectively. Given that there are still significant issues and they are getting worse – they were issues that were highlighted before the injecting room was opened, they were issues that were raised after the Hamilton review and they are now issues that were raised and have substantially increased since the Ryan review and were included in the Ryan review – I think that there are good grounds to extend a trial to get the model right before it is made permanent.

The other aspect which is very important and was highlighted in the Ryan review in their findings is around the impact on the amenity in relation to local community members and particularly to school-age children. That is in relation to goal 4, which is on page 15 of the 24-page report that was undertaken over many years and cost a huge amount of money to be informed. It is very upsetting for me to read these quotes, because I have school-age children and I would not be happy if this was happening next door to my children’s school. That is something that we are hearing from so many parents, and they have spoken out and they have not been heard. We always have to listen to the Victorian community, whether we like what they are saying or not. We have to have a level of empathy with them, and to be honest, the North Richmond community are extraordinarily patient and tolerant.

There are more proponents of injecting rooms as a whole than there are people who actually oppose the injecting room. I think the number of people who oppose the injecting room has diminished significantly. But I do urge the government to get the location right. This model can work. It will not work next to a primary school, and until that is dealt with there are always going to be issues that plague this. It is not fair on the families who live in the area, it is not fair on the drug users and it is not fair on the AOD support workers who have to deal with some of the issues around the injecting room as well. I urge the government to align the Victorian legislation with the New South Wales legislation, which specifically refers to injecting rooms not being in near proximity to schools, to childcare centres and to community centres. This is why I will be moving a reasoned amendment, and I ask that to be circulated, please. I move:

That all the words after ‘That’ be omitted and replaced with the words ‘this bill be withdrawn and redrafted to prevent a medically supervised injecting centre from operating in near proximity to schools, childcare centres and community centres’.

This can be done very promptly. I am not seeking in any way, shape or form to interrupt the licensing of the injecting room. However, I do believe that no injecting room should be built right next door to a school. This is something that comes through in the Ryan report quite clearly, and I think that it was deficient of the government to not include examination of the location within the scope of the Ryan review. Location is very important in terms of the success of an injecting room, and that is not just around where the hotspot is for drug use – and as I said, the Ryan report actually finds that that drug hive has actually moved further south to surround the injecting room – but also around making sure that we get the location right in terms of the impacts on the wider community.

I am certainly not prepared to have children exposed to drug dealing and to drug-induced psychotic events. There have been needlestick injuries on school grounds. There are needlestick injuries on the way to school. I have spoken about the number of needles in the street. There have been horrific things, like somebody who had been using drugs who was on school grounds with a machete, and the school had to go into lockdown. We have had dead bodies in the green area next door to the school and the injecting room. There have been dead bodies in cars. There are drug deals, there is public injecting and there are public sex acts. I am not prepared to have children in Victoria exposed to that. That is a very high cost to pay. While I think the state can make this model work, the government’s stubborn refusal to even reconsider the location is not just disappointing but actually creating some critical harms to those children for the longer term. It is very disappointing, and that is why we are putting forward the amendment today. It is not just me that is saying that. There are people who are vehement supporters of the injecting room from the AOD sector who absolutely say the government have let the AOD sector down by refusing to look at the location. There are other locations which are readily available. It does not have to be next door to a primary school. So why not reconsider and simply move it?

There are of course other issues around that, and one was highlighted which I think is so interesting, because it is something that we do not usually hear about in terms of the safety of people who are drug users in the local area. I refer to a quote on page 17 of the Ryan review:

“It doesn’t make you feel safe as you’re walking down Lennox Street to the room,” client Jerry, 52, told the MARC researchers. “Also, there’s people trying to rip you off … or rob you. As I say, you’ve just got have your wits about you all the time.”

If you have got people who are within the drug-using community who are refusing to use the injecting room because they are concerned about the way that people are congregating in the area – that they are dealing drugs, that they are stealing, that there is violence at play – then this is not just about one group of people. It is not just about the schoolkids. It is not just about the local businesses. It is not about the people who live in the public housing. It is not about people who live in the other streets neighbouring the injecting room. It is about an environment where even the people who this support service is supposed to be providing assistance to do not feel safe to enter the building. It is extremely concerning that that is the case, and there is no doubt that this is not what we see in New South Wales. As I said, the legislation that we have in Victoria is not representative of the legislation that we have in New South Wales. New South Wales specifically prohibits an injecting room being located next door to a school, next door to a childcare centre or next door to a community centre. Until that is dealt with, I find it very difficult to understand how the injecting room will ever be successful.

There are other elements of the legislation which are of concern to the Liberals and Nationals. Since the opening of the room in North Richmond we have had a considerable increase in drug-related and antisocial activity on the grounds of Richmond West Primary School in the immediate vicinity that has not been addressed. The number of needles in the City of Yarra has increased. Both the Ryan review and the Hamilton review have now identified the deterioration of the amenity of the MSIR precinct since its opening; however, that simply has still not been addressed. There is concern that this government relied on the Ryan review to inform the legislation and only consulted with North Richmond Community Health and the Department of Health legal team beyond the Ryan review. The AOD sector itself was not consulted, and it holds concerns that Labor’s revised MSIR model will again fail as experts in the field are being excluded from the design process. While the Ryan review was used as the primary reference to inform this bill, we still have not seen the full report.

In relation to the recommendations that the Ryan review makes, there are a number of elements which I stated earlier which I do not believe show that the legislation has gone far enough. Specifically, section 55E of the principal act regarding internal management protocols could have been expanded to include specific recommendations of the Ryan review, including expanding health care access at the MSIR to ensure clients receive the treatment, care and support they need, including developing a system to follow up and monitor referrals; addressing complex trauma-induced mental health issues within a harm reduction framework; offering holistic gender-specific services such as safe spaces for women and referral pathways that acknowledge their higher levels of trauma, complex needs and vulnerability; and engaging with Aboriginal-controlled health organisations to ensure strong linkages with specialist services that are culturally safe for people from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Further, there are elements within the legislation which are not fully met in the amendment we are debating today. Specifically, recommendation 9 of the Ryan review states that the Minister for Mental Health:

Commissions periodic independent reviews of the North Richmond facility at least every three years, with a report to be submitted to the Minister and released publicly.

I note that this legislation specifies a review every five years, and while there is a commencement date which is legislated, there is no end date. I feel like perhaps the government is putting into legislation what we have seen with the Lay report into the second injecting room in Melbourne’s CBD. We know that report has been started. In fact it was started back in May three years ago, so it was a long way back, in 2020. It was supposed to be handed down by the end of 2020, and yet we still have not seen what Lay has recommended. There has been no information for the public, and this is of great concern to the drug and alcohol centre, who want to get confirmation. Is this something the government is still going to do? Are they going to go ahead with it? At the same time, the business community wants to know: where are you going to put it? Where are you ruling in places? Where are you ruling them out?

The Premier confirmed that the government have already purchased a building. It is like the worst kept secret in the state that the government have purchased the Yooralla building on Flinders Street, right next door to Degraves Street. I have been down there on many, many occasions not just to have a lovely coffee and a bit of brunch on a weekend at that beautiful, iconic cafe precinct, as many Victorians do and many international travellers do, but also to inspect the building, which fundamentally fails the public safety aspect which is included in the principal act. Looking at the model of injecting rooms, you come in one door and you exit out of the other. Under the structure of that building, you would have to enter from Flinders Street or exit on Flinders Street and enter from the back lane which comes off Degraves Street. For those not familiar with Degraves Street, it is filled with cafe chairs and tables. There are just so many people walking through that area. It is like a little part of Paris really in Melbourne. To either have people who have drugs on them who are very keen to inject those drugs coming in that back laneway off Degraves Street or have someone who has just injected – and we know that the injecting room is not just about heroin, it is also about ice. It is utilised for that. People can be very obviously erratic. Their behaviour can be inconsistent with what you would expect in an area that is packed with chairs, tables and people having brunch, and it could pose quite a significant public safety risk not just for the people who are in that area but also of course for the drug users themselves.

The other element which has not been appropriately included in this legislation is recommendation 10, which ensures the community is provided with reports on progress against the recommendations of the current and previous reviews. This again has not been legislated, and I think that it is a deficiency that there is not more transparency around the injecting room and how it is achieving its goals. Again, it is something that was highlighted in the Hamilton review, that there should be a lot more transparency around the information that is provided to Victorians, as well as the local community. It is something that has been reiterated in the Ryan review, and it is something that I strongly believe in. We have got the objectives of the bill, which the Ryan review has specifically reported against. We need to make sure that those reporting requirements are pulled back to three years. But in my view, given we have got those objectives set down in legislation, there is no reason that they should not be reported on an annual basis, as we expect for other publicly funded health organisations across the state. We need to make sure we get the model right. We cannot expect that anything we do is right the first time and that we must never go back to that ever again. I think that there are critical failures with the design of this model that should be addressed. There are even simple changes within the legislation which are not consistent with the Ryan review recommendations, one of which is as straightforward as changing the name – which could have been enabled through the bill that we are debating today – of the MSIR to the overdose management and recovery service. There are many opportunities to improve the way that people who are in the midst of drug and alcohol addiction can be supported. We are not seeing the full opportunities realised in Victoria.

I will never support drug-injecting rooms next door to a primary school or next door to a childcare centre. At the moment it is also next to a maternal and child health centre. I have spoken to so many people. I have received so many emails, dozens of emails, and I have not had the opportunity to refer to all of those and put them into parliamentary debate. There are critical issues when you have an injecting room next to a primary school. I am not happy that in Victoria we are content with having primary school age children coming home with needlestick injuries and having to be tested every few months for hepatitis until they are clear. I am not happy with children having to walk past people who are dealing drugs or involved in sexual acts to get money for drugs or to secure drugs. These are things that all the reports say have escalated since the injecting room has actually moved to that location. There is a solution to this. It is very, very straightforward. The government have the answers. They have got the full Ryan report. They have got the Lay report. They know where better sites are. Please, put your mind to it. Listen to the AOD sector. Listen to the North Richmond community. Listen to people in the business community. Listen to health services. Put children first and move this injecting room away from a primary school.

Steve McGHIE (Melton) (11:20): I rise to contribute to the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Medically Supervised Injecting Centre) Bill 2023. The first thing I want to do is to acknowledge the minister for putting this bill forward and her staff for their contribution. I thank them for that. Obviously the objectives of the bill are to establish the North Richmond medically supervised injecting room as a permanent service in its current location and also to remove limitations to the MSIR models of care and improve service delivery, efficiency, responsiveness, governance and continuity.

My contribution will be about going back in history. When I was the secretary of the ambulance union back in 2017 when this model was proposed, I represented 3500 to 4000 ambulance members who, on a day-by-day basis, responded to drug overdoses, in particular in the North Richmond area. We were totally supportive of the trial of this supervised injecting room. I know the members I had at the time were totally supportive of it. The lead-up to that was there were 54 deaths in the streets that schoolchildren walked past. To suggest that it is in a bad location because it is near a school is complete nonsense, because they were walking over dead bodies. They were walking over unconscious people with needles in their arms. They were in the gutters, they were in cars, they were in laneways, they were in houses, they were on the footpath, and to suggest that it is worse now because it is beside a school is complete nonsense.

Emma Kealy: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, the member for Melton is misleading the house. He is referring to the Ryan report. I am happy to make this report available to the house, which clearly states that the issues around amenity in the local area have escalated since the injecting room opened.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Jordan Crugnale): Member for Melton, do you want to speak on the point of order?

Steve McGHIE: No, I just want to continue.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Jordan Crugnale): That is not a point of order; it is a point in the debate.

Steve McGHIE: Thank you, Acting Speaker. Anyway, we will move on. History shows that paramedics were totally supportive of it because of 54 dead bodies in the street. Unless people were walking around with their eyes shut, they were there. You had to step over them. That is not happening today because that injecting room is beside a school. It is not happening. That does not mean to say you get rid of all overdoses in the street. You will never do that, no matter how many rooms you have. But to suggest that it is worse now for students is not accurate. It is not accurate –

Emma Kealy: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, the member for Melton is reflecting upon the Ryan report, which was used as the basis to form this legislation. He is reflecting on it by saying that it is not true. Therefore I again ask that I make the report available to the house so that the full information is available to the member for Melton and he understands that actually there has been a massive impact on the local area after the injecting room was opened –

The ACTING SPEAKER (Jordan Crugnale): As I ruled earlier, it is a point of debate not a point of order.

Steve McGHIE: Thank you, Acting Speaker. Anyway, we will move on from where I started. I will come back to the issue about the school later.

As people probably know, I was a paramedic for 15 years and I did attend drug overdoses. The member for Footscray is here, and I will say that in my history in the western suburbs, where I practised for most of my career – and there were drug overdoses in every suburb, not just North Richmond – we had an injecting room in Footscray but it was not supervised. It was called the tenpin bowling alley at Footscray. I remember a specific case that I attended, which was a 30-year-old woman who had injected herself in the toilets in the tenpin bowling alley at Footscray, but unfortunately she did not come out of that cubicle alive. If she had had a supervised injecting room available for her, she would probably still be here today. I can still see that woman in the back of my mind. It stays with you for the rest of your life as a paramedic. We attended to many people in that tenpin bowling alley. It is gone now, so they have obviously moved on from there. I know there are some still around Footscray, but they are not doing it in the tenpin bowling alley.

Let me tell you, paramedics respond to these incidents every day, and in North Richmond there was such a high incidence that that is why this room is there. You can talk to the local paramedics in the Richmond area and they will say to you that they are not responding to dead bodies on the street like they used to because of this supervised injecting room. In fact I happened to have a conversation with Danny Hill last week, the secretary of the Victorian Ambulance Union. Danny set me an email and said he was prepared to be quoted, so I will quote him:

The Richmond supervised injecting facility has successfully managed over 6000 overdoses. Without the centre, that would have been 6000 overdoses that happened on the street, each requiring at least one, most likely two ambulance resources to be dispatched, and spending at least an hour trying to revive the patient, much longer if the patient requires transport to hospital, clean up and restock of equipment. In resource hours that are saved by the centre, we are almost talking about an additional fully staffed, 24 hour ambulance station in Richmond that is available to respond to people in the Richmond community. Even if you ignore the outcomes to patients, ignore the reduction in needlestick injuries and assaults on paramedics in Richmond and ignore the long term effects on the health system in caring for people who suffer acquired brain injuries as a result of hypoxia, from an ambulance resourcing perspective, the centre stacks up.

Danny Hill represents 6000 paramedics across the state of Victoria, and he knows that the centre stacks up and so do his members.

I do not know if anyone in this room has been to a drug overdose before, but I will describe it to you. You get a call-out, you go to an overdose. Someone is unconscious on the ground. We do not know how long they have been down unless someone there has witnessed it. They may still have the needle in their arm. What happens first is that their breathing reduces or stops, so they go into respiratory arrest. If they are down long enough, their heart stops. That is when they go into full cardiac arrest. In my early days as a paramedic we did not have Narcan to be able to inject that patient. MICA paramedics did, so we had to get MICA paramedics out to administer Narcan. Fortunately, later on in the 1990s general duties paramedics got Narcan and they could provide it intramuscularly. Then there was an intranasal spray created, and now they can administer it through IV. But when you administered Narcan to a drug overdose, that person on the street generally would get up and say, ‘P off, I’m going. I’m not going to hospital. See you later.’ Or if you did take them to hospital, guess what – they would say to the staff, ‘P off, I’m out of here.’ So they generally abscond.

This supervised injecting room provides additional health support for these people, and there have been over 3000 referrals for these people to get other health support. They do not create a relationship when they meet paramedics. They do not create a relationship when they are taken to hospital. They just want to be out of there and go back to what they were doing prior, and that is going to get another hit; that is what happens. But this supervised injecting room provides for additional services for them, and again, it can only happen if we can get those people off the street into this room, not lying unconscious on the footpath, not dying on the footpath where all of a sudden people do not see them. I do not know how they do not see them; 54 of them were dead on the footpath, so someone must have seen them.

I should say while have got a few seconds to go that I want to commend the staff that work at the centre and applaud their efforts. I also want to commend the paramedics that respond, the nurses, doctors, the allied health people and everyone that is involved in saving lives. This supervised injecting room saves lives, and it has proven that. And I am a fan of having more of them, because if they save lives in Richmond, they must save lives elsewhere. The primary role of this injecting room is to save lives, and that is what all of us in this Parliament should be about – supporting and saving lives, keeping people alive and trying to get them to kick their habit. This is a fantastic bill, and I commend the bill to the house.

David SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (11:30): I rise to support the reasoned amendment moved by the member for Lowan:

That all the words after ‘That’ be omitted and replaced with the words ‘this bill be withdrawn and redrafted to prevent a medically supervised injecting centre from operating in near proximity to schools, childcare centres and community centres’.

What we have seen already in this debate is that the government is trying to attack the opposition’s very fair and reasonable position when we are talking about where this drug-injecting centre has been located. We have been very, very consistent right from the beginning in airing our concerns about having a drug-injecting centre located right next to a school.

If you look at it, this drug-injecting centre had a soft opening at the beginning of July 2018, and it was established at 26 Lennox Street, Richmond. Now, at the time there was a lot of discussion about the location even then, and a lot of concerns were raised by residents and by families and parents about the location. There was a temporary facility while the new facility was being done. At that time I took the opportunity to do one or two things. Firstly, I went to Sydney to see the drug-injecting room in Kings Cross. I think at the time I was Shadow Minister for Police. I had a briefing with those that ran the drug-injecting room in Sydney. It was fantastic, I have got to say, because I saw what they did in Kings Cross with the drug-injecting centre, which was located in a high-traffic area, in an area where you had a lot of drug use but you also had night-life – and it was certainly not located next to a school.

One of the things that was really, really important as part of that was that the bill that was drafted as part of the drug-injecting centre in Sydney was drafted as a health bill and also with police, so police worked hand in glove with health. So there was safety at the forefront of all of this – safety for users and safety for those that lived around the centre. I spoke to those medical professionals who actually worked in the centre, and they said that whenever they felt unsafe or users felt unsafe, police were there within a minute. They were able to ensure that safety was paramount in the whole situation.

I contrast that with the way this government has tried to run this whole situation in terms of the drug-injecting room. The difference here is that the government have not tried to work with police at all. In fact the Police Association Victoria and Wayne Gatt have been on record many, many times raising safety concerns and saying that actually it is quite the contrast that they have kept police away. Now, you look at two examples. Ours was not the first drug-injecting centre. You would think that the government would have said, ‘Great. Let’s go and see what’s worked in Kings Cross. Let’s see what’s worked in Sydney, and let’s have one here.’ The government did none of that. In fact when I went and spoke at the drug-injecting centre in Kings Cross, they said, ‘We’d love to work with the government more. We’d love to share our information. We’d love to share our experiences.’

I just think there has been a fundamental flaw, where safety has not been put first. When I talk about safety, I talk about safety for everyone: for the users, for the residents, for the businesses and most importantly for the kids at that school. That is what we talk about. It is appalling that after years and after so many cases of people that have raised concerns, the government just say, ‘That’s okay. Let’s ignore that, and let’s just press on.’ There has been lots of commentary. I have been down there on many, many occasions and I have spoken to residents and families, and we have seen situations. I absolutely think we need to do whatever we can for those that have been caught up in drug and alcohol abuse, and we should be supporting them at every possible opportunity. I talk to families that have loved ones, children, that are caught up in drugs, and we have got to do everything to help them get off drugs. We have got to support those kids and those families, so I do support that. But I do not think we are doing enough, and I do think we could do a lot more.

I do recall, after initially going to the drug-injecting centre in Kings Cross, that I also went down for a viewing of the drug-injecting centre in Richmond. There was a viewing for members of Parliament. It was very, very early in the morning, and we had an opportunity to see the drug-injecting centre and what they were providing. This was very, very early on in the trial. I cannot remember who was with me at the time, but I do recall that we arrived there about 40 minutes early. We were coming from somewhere, and we arrived about 40 minutes early. At the time we came we literally saw those people that were employed by the centre running around and collecting all of these needles. They did not know who I was – I was dressed casually – and they did not know who we were. I said, ‘What are you doing?’ and they said, ‘We’re collecting these needles. We’ve got some very important people that are coming to the drug-injecting centre. We want to make sure that it’s presentable.’ What they were trying to do was – near a school, where you had all of these needles and you had all of this stuff that was just dumped there – for show, for members of Parliament, tidy it up and make it look good. This is about more than show. This is safety 24/7, not just every time you raise it. This is the kind of situation where safety has to be paramount for everybody.

I know the member for Lowan and I have had correspondence from constituents and locals from Richmond. There is one from Sharon, a local, that says:

My main issue is with location. Next to a primary school. If there is no risk to the children’s safety what was the justification to fortress the grounds, fencing that blocks the view in or out, the heavy-duty cameras, the likes you see at stadiums, the security guards, and the teaching of emergency behaviours when an addict gets on the grounds? These security measures apply to the school. These same children need to walk to and from school, with no safety measures in place. They play in the parks with no safety measures in place.

So you have got a fortress. You have effectively put these kids in a prison and put the security all around them, but they have got to get to the school and from the school. We saw in a report in December last year that kids literally walked past a dead body on the way to school. We have seen the situation. These kids are not being led by cavalcade into the grounds and then out. The kids have to go through this every single day. The families need to go through this every single day. As this person said:

We are not against the room, we support the room, but it can save lives in another location other than next to a school and a maternal health clinic. It seems that anyone against the location is the enemy but I don’t understand why we can’t work together to come up with solutions to the problems instead of saying everything is wonderful.

That is the key. We support helping drug users in every possible way. The member for Lowan had a very, very good policy that looked at putting all kinds of support next to health facilities to be able to support those drug users, to help them get off drugs and to help the families, with rehabilitation clinics and beds. I took part in an inquiry into ice and methamphetamine use, a parliamentary inquiry, one of the first of its kind. The harm that drugs do to the individual, to their family and to all those people around them is horrible. There is nothing worse; it tears lives apart. If there is anything we have got to do, it is to help people get off drugs. That should be our focus. We should be supporting those people that have been caught up and attack the pushers who attract those who are targeted. There was certainly around Richmond a honeypot for those people that were pushing drugs – we saw that. I saw them standing and sitting outside the school, pushing drugs in the way of those people going into the drug-injecting room.

Very simply, it is the wrong location. Let us get support for those drug users. Let us help them and their families in every possible way but let us get the location right. Let us listen to what Victorians have said. That is why this is the wrong bill, and I support the member for Lowan’s amendment that she has put before the house.

Michaela SETTLE (Eureka) (11:40): This is an incredibly important bill, and as my wonderful friend and colleague the member for Melton so succinctly put it, this bill is about saving lives. I am very pleased to stand and speak on the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Medically Supervised Injecting Centre) Bill 2023. Like many people in our community, I have been touched by the impacts of drug addiction. I have seen family and friends battle with addiction. It is an incredibly complex area that anyone working or close to people in this area understands. It is a complex and difficult journey.

Dealing with addiction in the community requires helping people that have got some really complex comorbidities, be it mental health or those sorts of things, and getting them to navigate a system of support – it can be health, psychological or legal systems. And then the next layer again, which is really what this bill is about, is around governments coming to address addiction and the complexity that is faced in balancing those needs of users and so forth with the expectations of the broader community. This government is keenly aware of that need to work with the local community, and I would like to highlight for those opposite that over $14 million has been spent on place-based solutions around the location, improving security and amenity for people there. So that tension is something that we are keenly aware of.

Obviously supervised injecting rooms are not the silver bullet. They are not going to cure drug addiction, and we on this side are aware of the many, many facets in these complex issues. But one of the things that really is important to understand around the injecting room, and it was a point that was very well made by the member for Melton, is that what these rooms do is they not only support someone in an overdose situation and save lives but also offer an opportunity to reach out, to do some outreach work and to really work with people. I believe there have been over 3200 referrals to other health and social services – and that is incredibly important, because that is where we are making change, where we can really support these people. So as well as the absolutely vital life-saving element to these injecting rooms there is also that greater and longer term purpose.

The trial obviously began under the Andrews Labor government in 2017. I was really delighted when this trial began. Like the member for Caulfield – well, I certainly lived in New South Wales for many years and remember the safe injecting room there. It has been there for a long, long time. I think last year it celebrated its 21st anniversary of saving lives. The trial was commenced, and of course the reason we are here today is to now make that a permanent fixture.

There have been a couple of really solid reviews done – two independent reviews. There was a review done in 2020, and then in 2022 there was the Ryan review. Now, the Ryan review as a panel held over 102 local consultations, so there was certainly a very big effort made to go and talk with the local community about their experiences. The most fundamental thing to come out of that review was the necessity of making this a permanent fixture. There were also another couple of things that came out of it, and the key change in this bill is the ability to transfer or reissue a licence – the medically supervised injecting centre licence – the ability to extend the licence and the ability for a service to have clinical nursing oversight as an alternative to supervision by a medical professional.

The reports were very, very clear about the life-saving impacts of this centre. Since opening in 2018 they have safely now managed 6750 overdoses and saved 63 lives, and I think we would all do well to remember the very moving words of the member for Melton about what it is to be at the coalface and what it is to face someone who is overdosing. Like him, I would like to extend my absolute thanks to all of the staff that are there. But, as I say, we have to think about those 3200 referrals, which mean that people are getting help for their addiction.

The opposition are putting forward a reasoned amendment and seem to be very fixated on the location of this. It is interesting because the location was selected because that is where the need is. There was a study done, and it was published in the Medical Journal of Australia, which was actually about the Sydney centre, but it talked about the importance of locating it near usage and high-traffic areas. Indeed that is what has been done. It might suit those on the other side to put it somewhere altogether different, but that is where drug trafficking has gone on and in the past, as we know, that is where people have lost their lives. The other thing about where it is placed is that it is close to the community health centre. We need people to go and get the broad spectrum of help that they need, not just the injecting room, so it is placed very carefully to be accessible for users to use the services of the community health centre.

Those on the other side choose to make a very emotive argument around schools and children. I am a mother. Of course the protection of my children is incredibly important to me as well, but I would rather that my children did not have to walk over dead bodies to get to school. I think this area was selected for a very particular reason. It is also very important for those on the other side to understand that the enrolments at that school have been completely stable throughout, so parents appreciate the work that has been done – the $14 million that has been spent – to make place-based solutions. They understand that in the context of that school it is now a safer place because of the safe injecting room. I noticed that their lead speaker, the member for Lowan, said this is not political, but yet again those on the other side want to make it political with these kinds of scare campaigns about where it is placed – next to children.

It is absolutely outrageous that they will kick some of the more vulnerable people in our community just to score points. We have put the injecting room where it is because that is where the need has been. Those communities know more than anyone that they were faced with an epidemic of overdoses and lives lost on their street. As usual those on the other side will just make political gain and use this kind of fear campaign around it. In the 3½ years before the service opened there were 818 ambulance attendances, and there has been a 55 per cent reduction. As a mother, I would be glad to know that there has been that reduction and there has not been that requirement to attend people on the street in the open near those schoolkids. There seems to be on the other side a fairly selective idea of exposure. People are going into those centres, getting help and they are not overdosing on the street in front of children. There are over 120 of these services across the world, the first opening in Switzerland in the 1980s. As I mentioned, the Sydney one opened in 1999, and it was really in response to the 1990s heroin epidemic. There was a recent drug report, and I think unfortunately heroin remains in fairly high use in Victoria, so it is incredibly important that we address it through the safe injecting rooms.

I obviously commend this bill to the house, but I really would just like to leave everybody with that figure – 63 lives. Those 63 people that were saved were someone’s brother, someone’s sister, someone’s friend. Those on the other side can get as emotional as they like about children, but let us think about those 63 lives that were saved and the people that are still with their families and friends.

Cindy McLEISH (Eildon) (11:50): I too rise to make a contribution to the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Medically Supervised Injecting Centre) Bill 2023, and I note that in addition to the bill our lead speaker, Shadow Minister for Mental Health the member for Lowan, has put forward an amendment, in fact a reasoned amendment. I do not know how many people on the government benches have actually visited the centre in North Richmond, but I have. I spent a bit of time there about four years ago, and what I saw was quite eye opening. Certainly there were people ducking in and out and doing their injecting: some people well dressed, others clearly just ducking down from work, others that had long-term addiction problems. But I saw women with prams from the towers, going to playgroup or going to the maternal and child centre. These had to walk past the centre. They are residential towers, where people are living. I saw the school right next door. I also saw the community health centre as part of that, which on one hand was good for the users, for the addicts, who could access some services. But at the same time we had families, people with small children and, as I said, mothers with prams having to go there.

There has been a lot of talk about the amenity. It was only a few weeks ago that I happened to be in Victoria Street, Richmond, and I was horrified at the changes in that street, how almost derelict it looked, with shops closed, graffiti and blinds down. It is not the vibrant centre where everybody used to go because it was renowned for the Vietnamese food; it has really fallen away. That whole area has suffered as a result. But what I do know is that the location is not in the right place, and this is at the heart of the reasoned amendment put forward by the member for Lowan:

That … ‘this bill be withdrawn and redrafted to prevent a … centre from operating in near proximity to schools, childcare centres and community centres’.

I will bring the house’s attention to the fact that there is no other injecting room in the world next to a primary school. New South Wales legislation directly recognises that an injecting room must have regard to the visibility of the premises, public safety and the proximity of the premises to schools, childcare centres and community centres. This is absolutely important.

The changes that we are bringing to take this centre beyond a trial to be permanent really come on the back of a couple of reviews. The most recent is the Ryan review. John Ryan did a review with findings and recommendations. That was published not so long ago, 21 February 2023. I notice that of that only 25 pages, the summary and recommendations, have been released, and certainly that is not in full. The government have relied primarily on this review to inform the legislation, and they have consulted with North Richmond Community Health, the Department of Health legal team, and that is pretty well it – very limited consultation. The alcohol and other drug sector were not consulted, and they hold concerns that the revised model will again fail, as experts in the field are being excluded from the process.

As I have mentioned, the Ryan review, as you can see from that little bit, the 25 pages, does talk about new approaches being needed. This is one of the recommendations: ‘New approaches are needed to improve local amenity’. I certainly refer the members that have spoken on the other side to that, because I think the member for Melton kind of disputed that. But this is what is in the Ryan review. This is not me saying it. This is one of the recommendations in the Ryan review, and I am very happy to actually read it out in full if the member wants to improve his knowledge, because I think he did not have regard to what has been put out there. We have heard that there is $14 million for improving the security with place-based solutions – clearly. This was put out in February 2023. That is a month ago, and the Ryan review is saying that new approaches are needed to improve local amenity.

Not only that, we have also had an earlier review from Professor Margaret Hamilton. Margaret Hamilton has worked in the field for a very long time and is quite renowned and respected. We have got her 10-page executive summary and recommendations from a full report of 378 pages. I question if her report, which can be summarised in those 10 pages, was actually 378 pages. We have got 25 pages released of the Ryan review; I wonder if that report is actually 400 or 500 pages that we do not get to see. It has not been released, and I do not think that is good enough.

The Hamilton review, which was published in June 2020, says that by the end of 2019 this is one of the things that had not worked: the amenity had not improved. She identified that by the end of 2019. It pops up again in the Ryan review as well. What had not changed was that the local people reported that there had been no change in their experience of seeing discarded injecting equipment. I think these are things that we really need to think about. It is quite interesting to see that the number of needles in the City of Yarra increased from 600 discarded needles a month in the street prior to the injecting room opening to between 1200 and 1800 a month since it has opened. That is pretty telling in itself. There are a lot more people heading to that area. The police refer to where people are going as a honey pot.

There has been a lot of talk about the primary school and the residents, and it is very difficult because a lot of parents say the school has been gagged and they are being told not to speak up. They cannot say much. The parents were saying a little bit but were also very worried, and certainly there has been a considerable increase in drug-related antisocial activity on the grounds of the primary school and in the immediate vicinity. Many of the more serious issues have been reported in the mainstream media, and these are quite disturbing – sex acts, a person wielding a machete, drug injecting, drug dealing, needlestick injuries and, as we have heard, not so long ago there was a dead body in the grounds and on public view as children walked to school. The member for Melton seemed to be really quite flippant about this, just saying that is okay because at least they are not walking over many, many more, which is what it was like in the first place.

Members interjecting.

Cindy McLEISH: If you were listening to what he said, that is pretty well what he said.

We have also got some concerns with the legislation itself. There are a couple of issues. The new bill will provide that more than one medically supervised injecting centre licence may be issued but no more than one such can be in force at a time, and a lot of the bill is actually around the transitional arrangements. So it sounds to me as though they are looking at the current arrangement with North Richmond Community Health maybe coming to an end, and there is a lot of work about the transitional arrangements going to a different arrangement. You have to have processes in place to allow that transfer of the arrangements, but at the same time you cannot have two licences operating, so it tells me that there is something moving on that we are not 100 per cent sure about.

Another element is that there is no ‘fit and proper’ test for a licensee to meet, which means that anybody can be appointed as a licensee, including those convicted of drug-related offences. This can be simply tightened up, and I think it should be tightened up. Everyone would expect that a person that is given the licence is fit and proper, but there is no guarantee. Sometimes people may have done something that has gone under the radar and it becomes apparent a bit later on, so I would expect that the government should be looking quite closely at that and to tighten it, because it can be done quite simply in the other place.

It is proposed that the recommissioning of the centre will occur over the coming year, with the new operator to be appointed by tender, and they expect a consortium of community health providers, hospital and alcohol and other drug providers. Now, we asked in the bill briefing about the hospitals that may not be involved in this and, lo and behold, they had not even spoken to the hospitals about this. So they have got their idea and their model, but they actually have not done the homework and the background, and I think that is not good enough.

I totally support the reasoned amendment put forward by the member for Lowan, because the location, as we have seen, is not working out. There are so many issues, and I think the government need to have a good look at that. If they do transition to someone else, it needs to be in a different location.

Tim RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (12:00): It is great to speak on the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Medically Supervised Injecting Centre) Bill 2023. The member for Eildon cracked the code on what this really is about. We saw these consistently in our community – fear campaigns – and the reasoned amendment goes to the heart of that. It goes to the lack of understanding of how drug use is impacting community and the mental health and wellbeing impacts on so many. You cannot just put a reasoned amendment through here that says that you can exclude the impacts of drug use on individuals from communities. I mean, are they seriously suggesting that we just put people out in the desert who have drug and alcohol impacts or out in industrial estates? What an extraordinary thing this reasoned amendment puts forward in saying that we should exclude people from their communities who are impacted by the impacts of substance abuse.

Members interjecting.

Tim RICHARDSON: What we also saw in 2018 – and I want to detail this, because the member for Gippsland South may want to actually address the horrid campaign techniques that were used in 2018, the sickening approach of the coalition in my community – was that they handed out DLs saying there are going to be safe injecting rooms all through the City of Kingston. They wore T-shirts saying ‘They’re coming to your community’. That was the level of behaviour and impact. So it was not really about caring for those lives that we saved, it was more about political opportunism and how they could get mileage in the community on political opportunism.

Danny O’Brien: Northcote by-election, anyone? Do you want to talk about that for political opportunism?

Tim RICHARDSON: That is what is put forward. The member for Gippsland South can berate and he can carry on as well, because I think deep down he knows that the inconsistency in what is being put forward in this reasoned amendment is extraordinary. It says that drug use is not in our communities and that the millions that are impacted across Australia are some out-there problem. The member for Eildon’s comments were really telling when she talked about visiting the medical injecting room – really telling.

Danny O’Brien interjected.

Tim RICHARDSON: And maybe the member for Gippsland South may want to listen up, rather than ranting and raving.

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Gippsland South, you will get your turn.

Tim RICHARDSON: You sound a bit deranged. Just hang on, because we are 2 minutes in, and you might get a bit of a lesson here if you listen up.

Why on earth does the member for Eildon make a differentiation between those that are well dressed coming into a medically supervised injecting room and those that look like they have long-term drug use? What on earth do you mean by that? What on earth does the member for Eildon mean by ‘well-dressed people’? If you are going to a medically supervised injecting room, you do have long-term drug issues and challenges. You are accessing services. What do we say – that the medically supervised injecting room has induced demand that suddenly a drug problem has presented? The reason it was put here was because of the impacts on residents, the lives that were lost and the hundreds and hundreds of ambulance admissions. I mean, how does that go for amenities when you see the sirens whirl and you know that someone is in a life-or-death situation and they are seconds away from whether they live or die? How is that good for your amenity when you are walking through one of the wonderful streets in North Richmond or Richmond and you look around and you go ‘We’ve lost another Victorian to an overdose’? How is that good for amenity? How is that good for policy?

Then I hear the member for Lowan and others talk about needing to deal with the challenges and the wraparound support. Well, we are doing that. We are doing that by following these recommendations. We are doing that by establishing permanently a medically supervised injecting facility in North Richmond to make sure that we save lives. The 63 funerals that were avoided, the 63 families, communities and lives – I mean, those opposite wilfully suggest that we should accept as a Parliament the toll of those lives lost over the right thing to do, saving lives and outcomes. That is what the reasoned amendment does.

Danny O’Brien: That’s not what the reasoned amendment says.

Tim RICHARDSON: It pushes it off for months, if not years. Goodness me, the member for Gippsland South says ‘common sense’. If we used common sense as a radar for the Nationals, we would be in the dark ages of policy. We would see nothing change in our state if we used the ‘commonsense’ approach of the Nationals to anything in policy. This saves lives and outcomes.

Danny O’Brien: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, the member for Mordialloc is straying from the debate. He is also misquoting me. I asked him to actually look at the reasoned amendment. I did not talk about common sense. I said, ‘It’s not what it says.’ The member is actually misleading the house.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is not a point of order.

Tim RICHARDSON: They get a bit sensitive when you call out some of the ridiculous notions put forward by those opposite – just the absolutely ridiculous notions.

Danny O’Brien interjected.

Tim RICHARDSON: Well, I have read the reasoned amendment that says that it should not be anywhere near community facilities. To the member for Gippsland South, I know that there are a few issues going on in the coalition, but you do not have to scream and rant and rave. You can make your contribution. If you want to stand up on the bill, have a crack yourself and detail to our communities why you are willing to allow 63 more lives to be lost and hundreds of ambulance admissions into the future. That is the stuff that you will not detail.

The SPEAKER: Through the Chair, member for Mordialloc.

Tim RICHARDSON: That is the stuff that the member for Gippsland South and others will not account for. It is not in any of their speeches. It does not talk about the time delay and the lives that will be lost as a result. Not one of them in their contribution will talk about the ‘but for’ – the ‘but for us not acting’ and the lives that will be lost. How many days are enough? How many lives are enough before we see the amenity that you are talking about, which is a clear recommendation and is clearly going to be part of the recommendations that are taken and addressed as a part of a whole package of reform?

This is not easy policy, and this is why it was so hard to get to this point. We see the speculation about a second safe injecting room and all the negative hysteria and fear campaigning that the coalition is lining up on this, because it has never been about those outcomes. The member for Lowan can put that on the record in Hansard, but maybe the member for Lowan is a shining light and the sole voice of a range of coalition voices that have gone down a dark road of fear campaigning and demonisation of people that experience substance abuse. That is the opportunity cost for anyone that bothers to speak on this bill among those opposite. How long do we wait? How many more ambulance admissions in our communities? How much more wraparound support?

I take up the member for Lowan about a couple of things regarding wraparound support. From the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System that we have all had such a great interest in, recommendation 35 and recommendation 36 go to the heart of support for people who are experiencing the impacts of drug use. As to the wraparound support that is needed, those services are in the medically supervised injecting room experience – referral services, mental health and wellbeing support and care. You do not get that if you have injected heroin on the streets of North Richmond with no wraparound support or care. No-one is there to say, ‘Is there support here or have you considered this service? How can we support you holistically as a person and support your mental health and wellbeing?’ It might be unemployment circumstances or housing; it might be family crisis that people are experiencing that has seen them on a pathway. You do not get that by sitting on the street or in the local park and overdosing with no-one around and no-one there to care for you. You get that support if you are in the medically supervised injecting room in North Richmond.

That is the big element of this bill and the recommendations that have been put forward that are being worked through by the government. The member for Eildon puts up the report about amenity, but then the very first elements of the recommendations say this is the right spot. You cannot be selective in which recommendations you want to take out of the report. You cannot say, ‘Oh, I am going to pinpoint some recommendations because they suit my political narrative of undermining this bill, bringing fear into the community and demonising people experiencing mental ill health and drug addiction issues.’ You cannot take that amenity argument when on the same report, emblazoned as clear as day, it says: this is the right location for the medically supervised injecting room. That is the cheap nature of politics. That is the no context, cheap and nasty low-road politics that we see. It is cheap. It is easy politics to do the fear campaign rather than fronting up and doing the right thing. That is the challenge for those opposite.

We will do the right thing by Victorians because lives are at stake. We will do the right thing because our ambulance and emergency departments are already under an immense amount of pressure. We do not want to add to their load by opposing such important landmark reform policy in Victoria. These things have been around for decades, as we have heard. There are examples in Switzerland and New South Wales as well that have led to better outcomes, and I remember speaking on the first bill as it came forward and how important this will be in the future.

I am really proud of this reform. It is policy that the former member for Richmond proudly championed. He was a wonderful advocate for his community and someone who made a wonderful contribution not only to his community but to all Victorians as he passionately fought for this policy. We have put this forward because it is the right thing to do. We will have those learnings into the future to make sure that we are supporting residents, and we will have those interactions to make sure that amenities are protected as well. But there is no protection of amenities when you are losing Victorians in your streets – when the car that comes around is not the school drop-off and pick-up but is the coroner’s van that is picking up the next person that has been lost or is lights and sirens. That is no amenity. That is poor outcome and poor policy, and we are here to change it.

Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (12:10): I am pleased to say a few words on this legislation, and it is very difficult legislation. I would actually like to compliment the member for Melton for some of his commentary, particularly as one of the few of us in here that actually speak with experience of overdoses and treating people as a paramedic, and I will come back to him. For the benefit of the member for Mordialloc, I would like to just re-read the key parts of the member for Lowan’s reasoned amendment. It is that:

… this bill be withdrawn and redrafted to prevent a medically supervised injecting centre from operating in near proximity to schools, childcare centres and community centres.

The member for Mordialloc came out with a load of rubbish about how the opposition does not care about drug addicts, does not care about deaths on the streets and wants to put people out in the desert and leave them to themselves and then had the cheek and the absolute gall to suggest that we are playing politics on this.

Tim Richardson interjected.

Danny O’BRIEN: Have a read of the reasoned amendment, member for Mordialloc. Have a read of it and have a think about whether it is reasonable or not. As a former Parliamentary Secretary for Schools I would have thought he might be standing up and saying, ‘I agree that the medically supervised injecting centre’s a good idea; let’s just not have it next to a primary school.’ I would have thought that might be what you were saying. It is extraordinary that the member for Mordialloc has gotten up and tried to attack the opposition for being political about it and then failed to actually understand what the reasoned amendment by the member for Lowan actually does.

I want to come back to the member for Melton, because as I said, I have a lot of respect for his expertise and experiences on this.

Tim Richardson: You won’t listen to him.

Danny O’BRIEN: Well, I will listen to him. I will go to the point. I will agree to disagree with the member for Melton, but he made the point that he actually supports the idea that there should be more of these. We then had the member for Mordialloc complaining that the opposition at some time in the past were saying that there might be more medically supervised injecting rooms. This is the logical fallacy. Absolutely, we on this side understand the need to address drug addiction and to address people dying on the streets – and again I will come later to what we did at the election – but to suggest that this is the be-all and end-all and the only solution is just wrong. It is wrong on the basis that yes, there’s a problem in North Richmond, so we are going to put an injecting centre there. Well, what about the bowling alley that the member for Melton talked about? Why isn’t there one in Footscray? Why isn’t there one in Mildura? Why isn’t there one in Latrobe Valley? I mean, it becomes this absolutist argument, and then I think we actually get into problems. There is a logical inconsistency in the argument that this is the only solution and we must have it here at North Richmond because it saves lives when there are people dying elsewhere.

Indeed the Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association highlighted the statistics to us recently in terms of overdoses across the state. In terms of metro Melbourne, they have not changed in recent years. They have not dropped dramatically as a result of the medically supervised injecting room. These are the fatal drug overdoses overall in the last couple of years in metro Melbourne. Starting in, say, 2016, there were 373; in 2017, 388; in 2018, 393; in 2019, 383; in 2020, even during the lockdowns, 396; and in 2021, 399. That is overall, it is not just heroin. That is the overdose death rate, and these are tragic circumstances. But to suggest that putting the effort, the money, the time and the resources put into one facility in North Richmond is the only and best solution I think is wrong, and that is what I want to go to.

The member for Mordialloc will say, ‘Well, what’s your solution?’ Well, we had an election, and we took our solution to that election. It was actually quite comprehensive, but at its core was the commitment to establish Australia’s first hydromorphone treatment program, a supervised injectable opioid treatment, or SIOT, program, at a major hospital. It is one of the things that is being done around the world to help people who are addicted to illegal drugs, to stop the deaths and to get them off and out of that cycle of addiction.

We committed to opening 180 withdrawal and residential rehabilitation beds across six sites, including in the Latrobe Valley in my neck of the woods, Mildura, Warrnambool, Shepparton, Frankston and Melbourne as well, because that is a significant issue. When you talk to families about the issues that they are struggling with with children with a drug addiction – when I say ‘children’, they are adult children in the main – the issue is the inability to get treatment, the inability to get someone in to actually deal with their addiction and get them off the drugs in the first place. That is something that we want to address. We think we could be doing much more to address that, to save those lives, to get people off drugs and to get them out of the cycle of addiction.

I do want to be critical of the government when it comes to the issue that is at the heart of the member for Lowan’s reasoned amendment, and that is the amenity. One of the goals of the medically supervised injecting room trial was to improve neighbourhood amenity for nearby residents and local businesses. We have got the Ryan report – we have got an excerpt or a summary from the Ryan report because the government has not provided the full report. I note, before the member for Mordialloc jumps in again, that the government promised to improve the amenity with the trial. It promised to improve the amenity of the local area before the Hamilton report came out and then again afterwards, and it has promised to do it again since. Yet still we have got from the Ryan report itself, from the government’s own report, that that amenity is not being improved in the nearby area. That is a difficulty. There are quotes in that Ryan report from local residents:

It’s not a positive experience going to maternal and child health when people are having loud arguments outside. Other mums have been intimidated, people trying to touch their baby, so don’t go back. The entrance is right next to the room …

the room being the drug-injecting room. Another local resident said:

I walk my daughter to school, witness fights, brazen drug deals, drug use, drug-affected people.

I am not suggesting for a minute that was not happening before the drug-injecting room was established. Of course it was. That is one of the reasons it was established, and it happens elsewhere. But the government set a goal of trying to address that and it is failing in that respect.

That brings me to the idea of a second drug-injecting room in the CBD of Melbourne. We know the government bought the old Yooralla building. We know there has been an ongoing debate about a new room being set up right opposite Flinders Street station, next to Degraves Street. I am, for my sins, a member of the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, and the member for Mordialloc will remember this: in December 2020 I asked the then health minister when the Lay report was going to be released and he said, ‘Before Christmas’. Often we do make the mistake of not asking the question which Christmas, but I did in fact on that day. I asked the former Minister for Health: ‘Do you mean by the 2020 Christmas?’ He said, ‘Yes, hopefully.’ Here we are now in March 2023 and the government still has not released the Lay report. I do not know what is going on, but I am sure there are political concerns in there as well.

It comes to the point that I raised earlier: the Premier has given us one excuse that there are changing patterns of drug use. It is moving around. It gets to the point that I made earlier about the logical inconsistency of saying, ‘Well, if we put a centre here, it is going to fix everything because the problem is the problem moves around.’ I do not know that this is the right approach. Indeed the Premier’s own justification for not releasing the Lay report and for saying that the issue continues to move around is reason enough to move the North Richmond injecting centre, which is still right next to a primary school. That has seen huge impacts on the local community. We have had reports in the media, and anyone who goes down and visits can see it: sex acts, a person wielding a machete, drug injecting, drug dealing, needlestick injuries and even a dead body, unfortunately, on the MSIR ground in public view of the children as they walk to school.

Steve McGhie interjected.

Danny O’BRIEN: The member for Melton is right. Of course we had that before. But why would you create the honey pot, the focus of it right next to a primary school? That is the thing that is wrong about this legislation, and that is why I support the member for Lowan’s reasoned amendment.

Nina TAYLOR (Albert Park) (12:20): I rise to speak on this incredibly important subject matter, and I do feel some of those opposite have been recreating history a little bit. I know that we would all love addiction to just evaporate. We would all love it to just go away – magic, gone. But unfortunately, it is very much part of our world, and therefore we are confronting it head-on; we are not glossing over it in any way, shape or form. Hence the outcome and recommendations of the Ryan review are being so very seriously taken on board by our government – that is the purpose of having the review. And there is a subsequent review being built into the legislation as well, because we care so deeply about the outcomes for the Richmond community and for all those persons who unfortunately suffer under a particular addiction.

I also took offence to the member for Eildon making commentary about the different clothing of those entering the facility and the inferences that one is supposed to draw from that. I actually do not know what she was suggesting, but it did not land well, because there is an inherent judgement of and a differentiation between persons according to how they are dressed, assessing their state in terms of their levels of addiction or otherwise or their status in the community – I do not know. But I think that gives something to the tenor and perhaps to the attitudes of those opposite when it comes to addressing what is an incredibly sad aspect, one of the most vulnerable aspects, of human nature. That is falling to usually – I was going to say ‘customarily’, but I should be a little careful; I am not a psychologist.

I have visited the facility, I have been there – I cannot remember the exact date, but I did have a tour through the facility – and one of the things that really stood out to me was the ability of that facility to connect people at perhaps some of their most vulnerable points in life to support services. Out of that, it was also giving them opportunities to find work and other things, because there were people who had dental problems which were otherwise not being attended to, and we all know that when you are fronting up for a job, if you do not have teeth or you have a lot of dental issues and challenges – I am just giving the example of what these services can assist with – you are very much diminishing your chances of getting a job. So that stood out to me when I did the tour of the facility – the broad array of incredibly important services addressing not only the addiction but also the ability of people to reform their lives in so many aspects and perhaps have a possibility of future employment and other opportunities that they so richly deserve. So we could take the judgement out of the debate, because that certainly was put into the debate with reference to clothing. I do think that was extraordinarily distasteful, and I do not think it lent anything to the tenor of the debate.

I also thought it was a cheap shot to have a go at the member for Melton, suggesting he was somehow flippant. I found that to be a very heartfelt reflection on his time as an ambulance worker, and particularly reflecting on – and this is a really critical point – even one death that stood out to him. I am sure there are many other memories that he would have accumulated over his experience as an ambulance worker, and many ambulance workers also experience incredible challenges that we can only imagine. But he was reflecting on one. This is why I think there is a tendency with the tenor of the debate led by those opposite to not take heed of the significance of not only 6000 safely managed overdoses but saving 63 lives. Each and every one of those lives matters. They matter to us on this side of the government, and that is why we are so serious and concerted about getting the best possible outcomes for those who unfortunately are vulnerable or have serious addictions and may not have the shelter of necessarily – but who knows. I am not here to assess who presents at the facility. It is all about, at the end of the day, treating what is a disease. Addiction is a disease, and we wish we could just magick it away but unfortunately we cannot. It is incredibly complex and it is incredibly difficult and incredibly emotional.

Another thing that I did want to reflect on, because I think the member for Lowan may have said something about failure or otherwise of this facility and I was just looking at some of the statistics, is that in the 3.5 years before the service opened there were 818 ambulance attendances involving naloxone administration to reverse a heroin overdose within 1 kilometre of the service compared to 459 ambulance attendances in the 3.5 years after the medically supervised injecting room opened – a 55 per cent reduction. There were also reflections on resources. If we are thinking about critical resources in our community, and I would argue that ambulance services are critical resources – we can all agree on that – a 55 per cent reduction means those services can otherwise be deployed in the community. That is certainly very, very important.

I think the member for Lowan also reflected on AOD investment. I am happy to share that in 2022–23 the Victorian government invested $313.3 million for alcohol and other drug services, including $1.4 million to maintain alcohol and other drug support for First Nations people in Victoria, $6.6 million to respond to alcohol and other drug treatment demand, $1.3 million to respond to global supply pressures for critical harm-reduction products like naloxone and $36 million to establish a 30-bed alcohol and other drug residential treatment facility in Mildura. These investments support approximately 40,000 people per year to access alcohol and other drug treatment, care and support. I did feel there was an inference there that somehow those opposite had a preferred way of addressing AOD investment or otherwise, and I would like to perhaps allay concerns of those opposite by saying that we do – and it is ongoing – have a very significant investment in AOD, as I have just spoken to there.

With regard to the school, that has become fairly significant in the debate today, and I certainly understand why. Can I speak to that. The Department of Health is establishing a new Richmond enhanced outreach service with increased hours of operation. It will include a team of nurses, Aboriginal health workers and lived-experience workers to engage with business and community and to respond to community concerns, as well as strengthen partnerships with Victoria Police, housing estate security and so forth. The school has been – this is something that has been sadly missed by those opposite and is absolutely fundamental to this debate – a strong supporter of the medically supervised injecting centre since establishment. Working really closely with the school has and will continue to be an integral element of getting the right outcomes at this facility, and we are completely aware of that. That is why our government has worked so closely with the school. Those opposite for the last couple of hours have been talking here about ‘The school, the school! It shouldn’t happen near the school.’ I think they might have missed that a fundamental element of this whole program is working comprehensively and collaboratively with the school – as if to suggest that otherwise, prior to the safe injecting centre being established here, somehow everything was perfect, it was all working beautifully, they did not need this extraordinary number of ambulance attendances and kids were not seeing anything untoward whatsoever. Of course nobody wants children to be exposed to any of the negative outcomes of addiction, but to suggest that somehow moving the facility elsewhere would protect them from that is grossly naive and is not founded on evidence.

There was also the other suggestion – and I am happy to be corrected by the member for Lowan – that they believe in evidence-based information informing outcomes and policy. That is it. That is exactly what we have here. We have been very precise about the numbers of overdoses that have been safely managed and the number of lives saved. Each and every one matters. So to suggest this is anything other than evidence-based policy is a furphy.

Roma BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (12:30): I rise to speak on the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Medically Supervised Injecting Centre) Bill 2023. I do so because I consider this a very important bill. This bill amends part IIA of the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act 1981 to facilitate the transition of the North Richmond medically supervised injecting centre from a trial site to an ongoing operation. So it is with deep disappointment that I cannot support this bill, but I do support the reasoned amendment that:

… this bill be withdrawn and redrafted to prevent a medically supervised injecting centre from operating in near proximity to schools, childcare centres and community centres.

This is to align with the legislated New South Wales restrictions and include that a medically supervised injecting centre may not operate in near proximity to schools, childcare centres and community centres. Also I think we should be taking into consideration some of the recommendations that we have seen from the reports that the site should have high regard for visibility of the premises and regard for the impact on public safety. There are many other recommendations that we have seen, but what is for me most difficult is the fact that this medically supervised injecting room is right next door to a primary school.

Now, I understand anyone can be affected by addiction. It is an affliction that ignores gender and age, education and socio-economic status. Addiction is a health issue and needs to be treated as such. I know that addiction destroys lives, destroys families and destroys communities. Addiction touches most of us and cannot be addressed – and this is the critical point that I think was made very eloquently by the member for Gippsland East – with a one-size-fits-all approach. Guiding people towards recovery requires a multidisciplinary approach that works collaboratively to manage this very complex health issue. A medically supervised injecting room is one tool, but when you locate it next to a primary school, I do not see it as a solution. I have spoken at length in this chamber about my previous career as a nurse and my time spent in community health. Community health nurses work with people and their families to prevent disease, maintain health and treat underlying health problems, and walking with patients as they battle addiction is part and parcel of community nursing and something I did quite a considerable amount of.

The Liberals and Nationals acknowledge that more needs to be done to support Victorians living with alcohol and drug addiction, and we acknowledge that many Victorians want to fight addiction. This is why we took the brilliant policy to the last election that would have seen Australia’s very first hydromorphone treatment program for heroin addiction rolled out here in Victoria. Now, this is an opportunity missed – a gold-standard treatment program that has been used successfully all around the world. We also committed to providing an additional 160 beds, with six new alcohol and other drug rehabilitation facilities across regional and metropolitan Victoria, including one at Warrnambool, in South-West Coast.

I find it disgraceful that there is no residential rehabilitation facility west of Geelong. Not one person from South-West Coast is able to access a residential rehabilitation facility near their home, their support networks and their treating team. We know that that is a critical factor for success, being able to seek treatment around those that support you. The people of South-West Coast have recognised that this is unacceptable, and since 2016 the community has been advocating and working to get this rectified. The community’s solution is known as the Lookout, a residential rehabilitation facility on the outskirts of Warrnambool. Geoff Soma, the CEO of Western District Alcohol and Drug Centre, together with the former Warrnambool mayor Glenys Phillpot and the steering committee, with Tracy Kol, John Rantall, Sue Cassidy, Matty Stewart and Greg Best, have been the drivers of this well-supported and well-advanced cause.

The only thing holding this back is support from the Andrews Labor government. This committee from 2016 to now, 2023, have worked so hard. They have been through the planning process, as government meetings they have had with departments have advised them to do. They have been through two VCAT hearings. And yet, despite ticking all the boxes they have been instructed to tick on behalf of government to do the work, they are left begging for a health facility that is as fundamental in this day and age as going to a plaster clinic and having your arm set when you have broken it. I call on the Premier to govern for all Victorians, as he said he would at the last election, and fund the building of the Lookout in the 2023–24 May Victorian state budget.

In October 2017 it was announced by this Andrews Labor government that a medically supervised injecting room would be trialled in Melbourne. North Richmond Community Health (NRCH) at 23 Lennox Street, Richmond, was selected as the location, and the medically supervised injecting room commenced in June 2018. Now, 23 Lennox Street Richmond is right next door to Richmond West Primary School at 25 Lennox Street. I think that, if you have not been there, demonstrates just how close they are: 23 Lennox Street, the injecting room; 25 Lennox Street, the school. This is a primary school. The mind boggles. Whoever thought that this was an appropriate place to operate a facility. North Richmond Community Health is a not-for-profit community health centre and seeks to improve ‘equity, health and wellbeing for all’ – that is the quote. I know these are very noble objectives, but is it really the right fit for a trial for an injecting room? I am not sure. In what world is it appropriate for a child wanting to see a speech pathologist to share the same waiting room as an adult waiting to use a medically supervised injecting room?

In June 2020 the Hamilton review was published, reviewing the first 18 months of operation of the medically supervised injecting room. The Hamilton review made 14 recommendations, and these included:

The Victorian Government works with local government and the community to continue to develop local safety and amenity, including formalising the role of the existing roundtable to be responsible for community engagement, community safety and coordination of relevant services …

The licensee of any supervised injecting service be proactive in engaging and communicating with the local community and key stakeholders on issues that may potentially affect the community.

Another one is:

Harm reduction initiatives continue to be provided to those areas and people experiencing most harm, such as by expanding overdose response training and the direct provision of naloxone including through needle and syringe programs and in prisons, detoxification and rehabilitation settings …

So from the very beginning of this trial it was apparent that safety and amenity were issues. The next review in 2020, the Ryan review, we have not seen in full form, but the summary is quite alarming. It demonstrates that the North Richmond medically supervised injecting centre is an inappropriate location, is too large and leaves many issues unaddressed. The Ryan report states:

While determining the suitability of the current location of the MSIR was not within the scope of the Review Panel, we did hear from many in the North Richmond community and other stakeholders that they held deep concerns around this issue, especially the proximity to Richmond West Primary School and the general impact on residents and other clients attending NRCH.

…

This is a lost opportunity. The MSIR’s significant potential will only be achieved under the auspices of an organisational structure that can offer a broader range of direct assistance to more people and with the critical mass to deliver services effectively and efficiently.

So it is becoming quite clear and evident the reports do not support the positioning, and that is why this reasoned amendment should be taken seriously by the government. This bill is seriously flawed. The bill must be withdrawn and urgently redrafted to address the concerns of the Richmond community and Victorians at large. Medically supervised injecting centres have no place next to a school, a childcare centre or community centres, and whilst it is next to a school the injecting room has little chance of success. It is an arrogant government that refuses to listen to the experts, who actually are in favour of the injecting room, a government that will not release the full report – probably because they do not want the community to know it is ignoring the guidance of experts – more secrecy, usual behaviour by this government.

Vicki WARD (Eltham) (12:40): Like others on this side of the chamber, I rise in support. I rise in support because I believe that it is the role of government to care for community, to care for the people in their community and do all they can to help them live the best lives that they can. I find it pretty distressing to recognise that yet again people’s lives are to become a political football, that people’s lives, their distresses, their vulnerabilities are to yet again be exploited at an attempt for political gain. There is a track record here that we see continually in this place, that we have seen over many, many years, where vulnerable people are used as collateral damage for political pointscoring, and it is absolutely shameful. We saw an example of this on Saturday, when it was fine for people to be demonised for their vulnerabilities. We saw a party who does not actually speak out about that demonisation until the Nazis turn up.

People who experience any addiction are vulnerable people and people who need to be supported. Their stories have to be understood, supports have to be in place and changes have to be made to see how they can be supported through their addiction, and there is a role for government in this. On this side of the chamber we do not believe in individualism, we believe in collectivism and we believe in community. We believe that there is a role for government in helping people, and that is exactly what safe injecting rooms do. They help people. They preserve lives. They keep people alive. They help people navigate their addiction when they are ready to do so, and they have the wraparound supports and services available to do just that. To demonise this cohort, to talk about the distress that a community sees, is wilful ignorance, absolutely wilful ignorance, of what safe injecting rooms achieve.

We know that lives have been saved. We have got the evidence of this. We know that there are less bodies sprawled across Richmond streets because of this. We know that children are confronted with less distressing images than they were before the safe injecting room was opened. So why then are those opposite going down this path? It is not about a public health response. It is not about what is the best outcome for people. It is not about how we save lives. It is about how we make a political football out of this, how we try to get a headline in a paper, how we help create clickbait because that is the only way we think that we will get electoral success. That is shameful. I will tell you what, Victorians also think it is shameful and that is why they have refused to elect those opposite into government in the last three elections, because divisive politics does not work. Politics of hate, of fear do not work. So I would suggest to those opposite that they stop going down this path, that they actually look at how they can help and support people rather than demonise and divide them and come up with some policies that actually resonate with people as opposed to the empty rhetoric that we get from them that does nothing but actually harm people.

Words are powerful, Deputy Speaker, as you well know. Words in this place are our bread and butter. We use words all the time. We are supposed to be using words to help people, to empower people and to represent people. Words can hurt. There has been a lot said by those opposite which is hurtful, both for those experiencing addiction as well as many other vulnerable people in our communities. And it really does seem that those opposite are prepared to go after nearly any vulnerable group in this community if they think that they can get some electoral success out of it, or if it appeases branch members out who knows where who are actually just a bunch of bigots. That is really shameful. It is really shameful when your political party has become populated by people who are more motivated by hatred and intolerance than by inclusion and trying to work through with people to make things better.

Now, there were independent reviews that began after the trial commenced in 2018, and they have shown that medically supervised injecting centres have prevented at least 63 deaths – that is 63 children of someone who are still alive. That is 63 people who are able to get services, who are able to get treatment and who are able to change their lives. I would say that 63 lives saved is pretty important. I would say 63 lives are well worth saving.

I find it really interesting that in the last election this came up again, safe injecting rooms, and there was an attempt to again make some political mileage out of it – again, to try and stir up some fear, try and divide communities and try and get success from it.

James Newbury: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, in relation to standing orders 118 and 120, both in terms of continued reflections and objectional behaviour in relation to this member’s –

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: What is the point of order?

James Newbury: Well, I have just referred to it. I would ask you to draw the member back to the question, back to the debate at hand. This speech is just diatribe, and it is repeated instances of just taking the opportunity to make cheap political attacks which are unfounded.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Brighton, points of order are not an opportunity to debate. It has been a very wideranging debate from both sides. There is no point of order.

Vicki WARD: Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I am actually talking about the Richmond safe injecting room. The Liberal candidate for Richmond was reported on in the Herald Sun as follows:

… Richmond candidate Lucas Moon told residents at a community meeting … that the Liberals would not renew the North Richmond trial.

James Newbury: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, I have referred you to standing orders 118 and 120. The member is referring to matters that are far outside the scope of this debate, and I would ask you to reconsider your ruling.

Ben Carroll: On the point of order, Deputy Speaker, the member for Eltham has been very clear, and the member for Brighton has only just arrived in the chamber. The member for Eltham is well within her parameters to talk about different policy positions on the supervised injecting room, and that is what she is putting succinctly.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: On the point of order, on 118 in regard to imputations and personal reflections, the content that is being said is a matter for debate, and there is no point of order. On your other number, 120, ‘Objection to words’, again it is a matter for debate. There is no point of order.

Vicki WARD: Thank you, Deputy Speaker. While those opposite might try and bring down my clock so that they cannot hear the words that I am saying, I will persist, because the Herald Sun recorded Lucas Moon as saying:

‘There will be no injecting room in North Richmond under the Liberal government, we’re very clear about that,’ he said.

Now, based on what evidence? Based on what? How are you going to decide to move something, and where are you going to move it to? Based on what research? Based on what care? Based on which lives you want to save or which lives you have decided are not worth saving? I think it is quite astonishing that those opposite want to continue to make political mileage out of this. Now:

Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association (VAADA) executive officer Sam Biondo said he was concerned by the coalition’s move to close the North Richmond injecting room saying there was a ‘critical need’ for any facility to be near where a user population was located.

He said:

It’s very concerning as we don’t want to be put into a situation where a large number of people’s lives are put at stake and greater harm.

Where people’s lives are put at stake – and this appears to be in the interests of politics, what those opposite are willing to achieve, and it is shameful.

James Newbury: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, standing order 118 clearly states that it is improper to imply improper motives on members of the Assembly. That is exactly what this member is doing. It is outrageous. Talking about people’s lives and making implications about members of this place and their motives being improper is a breach of the standing orders, and I would ask you again to draw the member back to the question.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have already ruled on this. The member’s time has expired. There was no point of order.

Josh BULL (Sunbury) (12:50): I am very pleased to have the opportunity this afternoon to contribute to debate on the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Medically Supervised Injecting Centre) Bill 2023. We are of course a government that follows science and a government that listens to the experts when it comes to people’s health. We have seen that through the global pandemic. We have seen that through the course of what has been a significant and monumentally challenging period for this state when it comes to health. At each and every opportunity when this government has had the chance, we have always worked with experts, have always followed science and have made sure that we are listening to those people that have significant experience backed up by research and backed up by evidence and have ensured that our policies and our decisions have been taken – particularly through, as I mentioned, an incredibly tough period through the pandemic – for the health care of people right across our state. We are a government that proudly works with our medical professionals, our scientists and all of those people right across the industry who do an incredible job in supporting local communities. This bill is about saving lives. It is about ensuring that a medical approach is taken to the harm caused by drugs, and it is about supporting those who need it most: some of the most vulnerable in our community. As I alluded to earlier, it is about evidence, about science and about supporting our community.

We know of course that in late 2017 the government announced the first trial of a medically supervised injecting room in the state’s history. It was a bold, brave action which put safety first, a medical approach to addressing the decades of harm caused by drugs within the City of Yarra. The establishment of the trial followed what was a growing concern within the community about the number of related deaths. Two parliamentary inquiries were held, with findings that an injecting room would reduce the risk of death and heroin overdose. That was backed up by a significant amount of research and significant amount of work that was done to inform the decision that was taken by the government.

When it comes to health, when it comes to education, when it comes to transport and when it comes to our significant and bold reforms right across all of our portfolios, this government will not take a backward step in standing up for those people within our community who are at their most vulnerable. Those people need a health approach rather than a law and order approach for this matter. We are a government that time and time again throughout our first two terms and now into our third have taken the hard decisions when and where they needed to be taken, and this bill is yet another example of those decisions.

We know that since opening in June 2018 the facility has safely managed more than 6750 overdoses and saved 63 lives. I have listened to a number of contributions that have been made across the chamber this afternoon and listened closely to the terrific member for Melton’s contribution. This is a person with significant experience, lived experience, within the ambulance service. The member for Melton has that experience. He brings that experience to the chamber and he brings that knowledge, and to listen to his contribution is to step back and understand those challenges and that lived experience of a paramedic dealing with the matters that are before the house this afternoon and of course contained in the bill. It was a significant and important contribution from the member for Melton that I think goes to the nub, the critical importance, of why this bill before the house this afternoon is so important and why the government is bringing the bill through the chamber and making sure that we have got an opportunity to support those people within our community that are at their most vulnerable but also ensuring that we are taking a health approach to what is a very complex matter.

I mentioned the June 2018 facility opening – 6750 overdoses and those 63 lives saved that I mentioned earlier. There have also been more than 3200 referrals to health and social services, including GPs, oral health, housing, drug treatment and bloodborne virus testing and treatment. One of the most significant recommendations the Ryan review made was to keep the service ongoing. It is why we have introduced this amendment, to ensure that the key changes within the bill are making the North Richmond facility an ongoing service and granting the ability to transfer or reissue a licence to another provider, the ability to extend the licence and the ability for the service to have clinical nursing oversight as an alternative to supervision by a medical professional – making sure that all of those provisions are contained within the legislation to make sure that at the very heart of this piece of legislation is the protection of people within our community, the protection of Victorians.

As I said earlier, whether it comes to the health of our community or whether it comes to education, to transport or to the environment, this government will always stand for ensuring that we are working with experts. We are listening to and working closely with those who make recommendations and who do the work. We do not fly blind and we are not led by some unusual ideology. We actually listened to people, such as the member for Melton and a whole range of others that have participated in two inquiries and have made submissions to government, to ensure that this bill is responsive to the needs of the community. I have heard other members on this side of the house speak about ensuring that we are a practical government and a government that deals with the challenges that are facing us and confronting us.

Of course we know and understand that this matter is a highly complex matter. This is a matter that goes to some very difficult challenges within our community, but I am sure all members of the government and I know and understand that through the work of the trial and through the work of all of the research, all of the evidence and all of the work that has been done by the experts in the field, this is a bill that is fundamentally important to saving lives. The evidence is clear. Other members of the Parliament and other members on this side of the house in their contributions have mentioned many of those statistics, but the numbers are just numbers. What we know and understand is that one life lost to drugs within our state is one too many. We know and understand that, and we are ensuring that there is a health response and ensuring that the experts are working with those that are facing some incredibly difficult challenges as they go about their daily lives – whatever the drivers might be.

I am sure that all members of the house know and understand that these are complex problems, but you do not address and look into these complex problems and help people turn their lives around with either a heavy-handed, law-and-order-style approach or a broad ideology that does not go to the heart of actually fixing the problem. That is why this trial was implemented. That is why the trial that has been occurring needed to happen, and it is why it is critically important for this bill to be before the house this afternoon: to make sure that we are working with the local community, working with healthcare professionals and working with those people who do an outstanding job.

While I have the opportunity I do want to thank and acknowledge the incredible team of healthcare workers that each and every day work with the local community, work with people that are facing incredibly difficult challenges and work with those that we know need support at what is very often the lowest point in their life. I have perhaps spent a bit of time talking about the member for Melton’s contribution, because it was a fantastic contribution, but to listen to that contribution and to understand why this bill is so important goes to the heart of what this government is all about: ensuring that we are always supporting the lives of our community. I commend the bill to the house.

Sitting suspended 1:00 pm until 2:01 pm.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.