Victorian Liberal Slam Labor’s Plans to Build Second Drug Injection Room

People cross a quiet Flinders Street in Melbourne on Sept. 1, 2021. (Daniel Pockett/Getty Images)

The Victorian Liberals have slammed the state government’s plans to build a second drug injection room in metropolitan Melbourne, stating that it “must not go ahead” as the release of the consultation report on the second room gets further delayed.

“Labor is focused on further destroying the CBD’s efforts to recover and rebuild by putting an injecting room at the gateway to Melbourne’s CBD,” said Emma Kealy, the Victorian Shadow Minister for Mental Health.

The condemnation comes as the state government’s long-awaited consultation report on the second room, originally expected to be completed by the end of 2020, remain delayed with no news of its expected completion date.

The promise of a consultation report came as the Victorian Government announced a second medically supervised drug injection room on June 5, 2020, following the recommendations of an independent review panel.

The first drug injection room, established in June 2018, was made to supervise the administration of methamphetamine and heroin for drug users.

Though the establishment was “absolutely positive” in its effects on controlling drug abuse and deaths from overdose, it also concentrated drug crimes and abuse within the local neighbourhood, worsened by the reality that the room was right next to a local primary school.

Parents told the Herald Sun of stories of their children being to be able to differentiate between methamphetamine and heroin abusers they encounter on the way to school simply by their behaviour.

An adult’s dead body was also found by the school in May 2021.

On June 6, 2020, the Victorian government announced it would establish a second room in Melbourne CBD near Queen Victoria Market, a popular tourist attraction.

The Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews said that he was “absolutely convinced” that the second facility would save lives.

However, the announcement was met with backlash both by the local residents and the council, upset at the sudden announcement without any consultation.

Though the second room is now expected to be established on Flinders Street, at the very heart of the Melbourne CBD, outcries still persist, with local businesses pleading the government to establish a room away from the metropolitan area.

Nonetheless, no announcement of a report on the consultation of the second room has been released.

Kealy slammed the secrecy of the report and said that local traders feared “the Government will push ahead with its plans for a second injecting room” without seeing the final recommendations of the unreleased report.

“Labor’s claims that consultation couldn’t take place during lockdown are a weak excuse, given it managed to run online consultations on numerous other projects in the past two years,” she said.

However, Andrews stated that there is a need for the government “to do more to save lives and to change lives not just in North Richmond, but according to our expert panel in the City of Melbourne as well.”

Both the Victorian Police Association and councillors of the Melbourne City Council have also opposed the Government’s plans.

The Mayor for the City of Melbourne Sally Capp expressed that she would not be supporting the establishment of the second room at the current location.

Councillor Roshena Campbell, put forth another motion in the council room to end the motion for a second establishment of the injection room on April 28, 2022.

The movement comes amidst election season with the federal election expected to be held on May 21.