CLAIMS that the Victorian Government is advocating “very, very strongly” for a medically supervised injecting room in Mildura have been described as “ridiculous”.
The Nationals’ Member for Lowan Emma Kealy recently raised the “very important matter” of Labor’s “terrible rollout of drug-injecting rooms” as a matter of public importance in State Parliament.
Ms Kealy claimed the rollout was not just happening in Richmond and not just in the Melbourne CBD.
“There are plans for additional injecting rooms right across the state in Dandenong, Footscray and St Kilda, and they are advocating very, very strongly for drug-injecting rooms in Geelong and even in the fabulous rural city of Mildura,” Ms Kealy told Parliament.
The Speaker accepted a statement from Ms Kealy proposing the matter of public importance for discussion, including that the House notes the ongoing problems associated with the existing drug-injecting room in North Richmond as well as its advocacy in favour of drug-injecting rooms in Mildura and Geelong.
Planning Minister Richard Wynne said the government’s roll out of the “next iteration” of a supervised injecting facility would be “based on where the locus of concern is and where the drug issues are confronting the community”.
“This is the age-old thing … ‘we’re going to have Mildura, and then we’re going to have Footscray’,” Mr Wynne said.
“You cannot help yourselves, can you? At every opportunity, you will seek every chance that you can to talk it down, to talk us down, to scare people and to throw out these ridiculous claims that we are going to go to Mildura,” he said.
Mr Wynne said the government relied on expert advice in planning for supervised facilities.
“At the end of the day this is about people – this is about saving people’s lives,” he said.
“We have saved thousands of people’s lives at the MSIR (medically supervised injecting room) by resuscitating them.
“You go and look in the eyes of those families that have been crushed with the deaths of their young people, and you say that this is not warranted.”
