Flinders St likely place for Melbourne’s second injecting room
Struggling CBD businesses say they deserve to be paid compensation if a drug injecting room is built in Flinders Street.
Victoria
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A peak business group is demanding small traders be paid compensation if a planned drug injecting room is built in Flinders Street.
Small Business Australia executive director Bill Lang said the state government should compensate business owners within 1km of the site for loss of earnings.
The Herald Sun on Monday revealed Flinders Street, west of Swanston Street, had emerged as the likely location of Melbourne’s second injecting room.
One spot being examined was the former Yooralla building at 244-248 Flinders Street, near popular city laneway Degraves Street, sources said last night.
“Small businesses across Melbourne’s CBD have taken enormous financial blows due to lockdown, COVID restrictions and hundreds of thousands of office workers refusing to return to work, the last thing these struggling businesses need is an injecting room that will encourage illegal drug use in the centre of Melbourne,” Mr Lang said.
“Yes, the Melbourne CBD needs an injection, but this should be one of creativity in getting people to return to city and the only ‘businesses’ that will benefit from this injecting room will be the dealers hovering around the site as they ply their illegal trade.
“If the government are intent on placing an injecting room into the heart of the city, perhaps that site should be located next to, or even inside Parliament House, that way our politicians can experience first-hand what they expect others to live with.”
CBD INJECTING ROOM PLAN DIVIDES CITY
Opposition leader Michael O’Brien slammed the proposed location around Flinders St, labelling it detrimental to the city’s recovery.
“The City of Melbourne is on life support as it is. It’s on its knees. All Labor wants to do is put a drug injecting centre here. How the hell is that going to get people back into Melbourne?” he said.
“We need to have confidence and safety in our CBD not the antisocial behavior and the honeypot crime effect that has happened with the Richmond injecting centre.”
Mr O’Brien said the residents neighbouring the north Richmond facility needed to be consulted in future decisions.
“You’ve got school students being locked down in their own schools because of antisocial and violent behaviour from clients of the drug injecting centre,” he said.
“For the government to say they’re going to expand drug injecting centres when they haven’t got the Richmond one right is just madness.
“Why would you take that same flawed model to Melbourne’s CBD?”
Mr O’Brien said his party weren’t opposed to the trial, but said it needed to be undertaken in an industrial area.
“It should be somewhere that’s close to health services. It shouldn’t be next to a primary school, or homes, or small businesses,” he added.
While the precinct is close to two stations and existing drug abuse hotspots, some officials consider it disastrous for the COVID-hit CBD.
Tourist landmarks in the area include Crown casino, the Melbourne Aquarium and Federation Square, while Lord Mayor Sally Capp’s proposed Greenline “superpark” would stretch along the Yarra River’s north bank.
Doherty’s gym owner Tony Doherty, whose business operates at the Banana Alley Vaults, said Flinders Street would be “a poor choice” for a safe injecting room.
“We should be working on cleaning the city up and attracting people back to what used to be the world’s most liveable city,” Mr Doherty said.
“It will make the city scummier — it is a terrible place to put it.”
A body corporate chairman, whose building is near Flinders Street, said the injecting room would only fuel the city’s drug crisis. He said the area was already a “heroin den” with users shooting up on his complex’s doorstep and regularly overdosing nearby.
“It’s just ridiculous. There’s more and more people coming into the city to live and there’s some significant residential towers in that area,” he said.
“Cafe owners in the laneways already have to request injecting addicts to move on.
“They need to keep these centres away from residential areas. It’s simple. Just keep them away from where people congregate and where families like to visit.”
Opposition planning spokesman David Davis also slammed the proposal, tweeting: “This one is a real doozy. Well done DanielAndrewsMP (sic) and Labor you may win dumbest idea of the year award.”
But minister Gabrielle Williams said Mr Lay was still in the process of working to determine an appropriate location.
She said there were currently no plans to have a site at Enterprise Park.
“The key message that we’ve got is the work is underway. It’s been very capably led by Ken Lay and it’s yet to be finalised,” Ms Williams said.
“We await his recommendations from that work.”
Ms Williams said it was “always important to focus on” why the City of Melbourne had been identified as a key site, rather than the impacts it might have on the city’s recovery.
“That is around the prevalence of drug use and more than that the impact of that drug use, and from memory, there is about a heroin death a month in that area,” she added.
“So obviously with that in mind and wanting to see better outcomes, the Melbourne area has been located as the most suitable location.
“Ken Lay is leading that work on the most appropriate location. I have no doubt he will be taking into account a very broad array of considerations.”
The state government in June announced a supervised injecting room would be tried in the City of Melbourne after an independent review of the centre at North Richmond.
The government’s preferred site was the Cohealth Central City health service on Victoria Street.
But after objections from traders at nearby Queen Victoria Market, Mr Lay has been consulting the public, residents, traders, health experts and people who have battled drug addiction.
The government will support Mr Lay’s recommendation, while Melbourne City Council will also be consulted.
Ms Capp said: “We await the findings of the independent process.”
A state government spokeswoman ruled out Enterprise Park, which fronts Flinders Street and has become notorious for drug taking.
“With around one person a month dying from heroin overdose in the City of Melbourne, there is a real and growing need for a health facility of this kind in the central city,’’ the spokeswoman said.
RICHMOND SCHOOLKIDS COUNSELLED FOR SHOCKING INCIDENTS
Children from a primary school near Richmond’s injecting room are receiving counselling after witnessing a spate of shocking incidents.
Neil Mallet, the father of two boys aged 10 and 12 who attend Richmond West Primary School, said children were having grief counselling after the school went into lockdown in March when a man was seen brandishing a knife on school grounds.
Another man was found dead near the school the day after the incident.
“I have been made aware at recent meetings between school parents that children are receiving counselling after the knife incident,” Mr Mallet said. “They are also witnessing users injecting themselves and overdosing nearby school grounds and this is unacceptable.
“Politicians keep stating the injecting room saves lives but they are not addressing the fundamental issue, which is the safety of our children.”
Paramedics attended an incident on May 3 where a man aged in his 40s was taken to hospital in a stable condition after falling from a multi-level carpark on Vere Street about 1.30pm, which is close to the school.
While it’s unclear if students saw the incident or whether it was drug-related, parents say it has left them “shocked”.
Last week, police were seen searching bags at the front of the injecting room in Lennox Street after a group of men were believed to be dealing drugs.
A man was also seen injecting himself as students walked past the facility.
But the injecting room’s medical director Nico Clark said there was a significant reduction in the number of ambulance attendances where paramedics needed to use naloxone around the facility since the trial began.
“There’s clear evidence that it’s having a positive impact on reducing public injecting and public overdose in Richmond around the injecting room,” Dr Clark said.
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Originally published as Flinders St likely place for Melbourne’s second injecting room
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