Andrews Government ignores pleas to relocated Richmond injecting room

Students who attend school near Richmond’s injecting room are witnessing horrific overdoses, yet politicians are still pushing to make the site a permanent fixture.

Legislation to secure Victoria’s only drug injecting room as a permanent fixture will return to parliament this week.

If it passes in its current form, which it almost certainly will, it will do so ignoring the genuine concern of many who have experienced it closely during its five-year trial.

Specifically, concerns of parents from the adjacent West Richmond Primary School.

The school has, for political reasons, stayed largely silent in regards to formal opposition to the facility over the years. But it has long lobbied the government to take their concerns seriously.

As revealed in the Herald Sun this week, a 2021 letter penned by the school council to former education and health ministers James Merlino and Martin Foley raised explicit concerns.

It warned that students did not “enjoy an acceptable level of safety and security in their learning environment – either while at school, or when travelling to and from school”.

Richmond West Primary School is located next to the Richmond injecting room. Picture: Ian Currie

“This is as a result of exposure to drug-related criminal and anti-social behaviour driven by the growth of the drug industry since the Medically Supervised Injecting Room has opened next door.

“This risk has been evidenced with recent school lockdowns and a fatal overdose within metres of the school entrance.

“School Council has identified a likely and foreseeable risk of catastrophic harm and is calling on the Victorian Government for urgent and immediate intervention.”

The school council went on to call for definite action to improve the risks identified around student safety.

It included a request the government establish a child safety and security focused precinct governance body.

All but one of the calls for action were met with radio silence.

Any notion that the facility would or could put an end to street injecting is pure folly.

People appear to use drugs in front of Richmond West Primary School. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Since the facility opened in 2018, police and ambulance triple-0 call-outs to the street have more than doubled.

But advocates of the centre don’t want to talk about that, despite the concerns of parents and families with real lived experience of overdoses and drug activity at their school gates.

The state opposition wants the legislation to prohibit the facility, and any future ones, operating within 250m of schools, childcare centres and community centres.

The idea makes sense, and would align Victoria with NSW and would be consistent with recommendations from the recent Ryan report into the North Richmond site.

It would also put children first.

Labor and the Greens last month blocked the move in the lower house.

Instead the Greens want to make it easier for kids to access, and use, the facility as part of their own sweeping amendments to the legislation they will introduce in the upper house
this week.

Melbourne's only safe injection room is located at North Richmond Community Health building (left) next to Richmond West Primary School (right). Pic: Google maps.

It would give children under 18, pregnant women and people subject to court orders which didn’t prohibit them from accessing such a service to use the facility.

The way the upper house is configured, the Greens have a much better chance of getting their amendments through.

In order to pass a bill or motion, 21 votes are needed in the 40-member house.

Labor has 15 MPs and the Coalition has 14. It means the four Greens MPs are crucial to any vote.

The question must be asked, if the injecting room was the runaway success the government claimed it to be, why are there now real doubts over a second facility proposed
for the CBD?

It’s been three years since a panel of experts recommended setting up a second injecting room in the City of Melbourne, near an illicit drug market and wider network of services.

Premier Daniel Andrews has more than once hinted that changing drug use patterns could see the second location moved away from the CBD.

Degraves St traders Johnny Sandish (R) from XpressoMondo and Theo (L) are among some of the voices opposing an injecting room in the CBD. Picture: Brendan Beckett

A site on Victoria St, between Swanston St and Elizabeth St, opposite the Queen Victoria Market was initially announced as the government’s preferred location.

But the controversial decision sparked a war with the City of Melbourne over concerns it would kill the tourist mecca.

Flinders St emerged as another potential site after the government bought the Yooralla building opposite the railway station, which was listed at $45m-plus.

But widespread opposition and concerns within the government about the impact of a facility has stalled progress.

Senior government figures believe a CBD facility would be a major setback for the city’s recovery after it was decimated during the pandemic.

Fancy being concerned about the effect the facility may have on the local community.

Of course, the real concern might just be the politics of it all.