Allan government dumps plans for second Melbourne injecting room, rejecting Ken Lay report advice
The Victorian government has scrapped plans to establish a second injecting room planned for Melbourne’s CBD, rejecting the advice of a report by former top cop Ken Lay.
Victoria
Don't miss out on the headlines from Victoria. Followed categories will be added to My News.
The Allan government has rejected calls to establish a second injecting room, instead opting to build a new community health hub in Flinders St in Melbourne’s CBD.
Rejecting a key recommendation from a years-long top-secret report to trial another injecting facility within the city, the government will instead spend $36.4m to build a new health service hub that will provide wraparound support services to vulnerable Victorians.
But it will not offer medically supervised injecting services which are provided at the Richmond injecting room.
The government will also establish a new “chief addiction adviser” within the Department of Health.
The decision to dump a second injecting room — long flagged for the CBD — was confirmed as the government released a long-delayed report into the issue carried out by former top cop Ken Lay.
It also comes after the Herald Sun exclusively revealed in February the government had gone cold on a second injecting facility.
Premier Jacinta Allan on Tuesday said drug injecting rooms were no longer on her government’s agenda and wouldn’t be built anywhere in Victoria.
The Premier defended her decision to ignore Ken Lay’s key recommendation, citing a need for urgent action to combat drug harm rather than continuing to search for a suitable location.
“This now puts a line in the second injecting facility here in Victoria,” she said.
“We could have pushed on and continued this division, (by continuing) to search for a site or we can take action now by putting in place a suite of initiatives that are going to save lives in the CBD, in the suburbs and right across the state.”
Mental Health Minister Ingrid Stitt said constant speculation about a potential second site was unhelpful and divided the city.
“There is a lot of division within the community around this issue, and what I want to be able to do is make sure we are getting on with the practical support that people need on the ground,” she said.
“I don’t want to waste time on a continuation of a divisive debate within the CBD that only further serves to stigmatise people, who we should be concentrating our efforts on helping them turn their lives around.”
Victorian taxpayers coughed up about $270,000 for Mr Lay’s four-year long report, but Ms Allan said that was money well spent.
“It was an investment in providing advice to the government,” she said.
Asked whether the injecting room backflip could now pave the way to trial pill testing in Victoria, Ms Allan said: “We’ve got no announcements today to make on drug checking.”
But she pointed to the need to implement a statewide alcohol and drug policy.
On Tuesday, the government finally made public a 119-page report from Mr Lay — almost four years after he was first engaged to investigate a potential second site.
Mr Lay, who handed his final report to the government in May last year, recommended that a “small (four- to six-booth) and discreet” injecting service be trialled within the City of Melbourne, citing a surge in drug use post Covid pandemic.
Ms Stitt said the government wouldn’t build a new injecting room because it could not land on a suitable site that would meet the needs of both drug users and the broader community.
Instead, the government has announced a $95m statewide action plan, headlined by a community health hub at 244 Flinders St due to open in 2026.
In other initiatives a trial of opioid replacement therapy hydromorphone will be offered for the first time.
The two-year trial will involve 60 drug users who have previously been resistant to other diversionary treatments.
In recommending an injecting room trial, Mr Lay’s report said a committee should be made up of senior executives from the Department of Health, City of Melbourne, Victoria Police and Ambulance Victoria be created to co-ordinate and respond to injecting drug harms within the city.
His investigation identified 50 potential sites for an injecting room, which was eventually shortlisted to three locations: 104 A’Beckett St, 340 Flinders St and 244 Flinders St.
Mr Lay was first asked to compile evidence about the suitability of building an injecting facility in Melbourne CBD in July 2020.
At that time he was to probe the government’s preferred site at 53 Victoria St, near the Queen Victoria Market.
In September 2022, Mr Lay was again sent back to the drawing board, this time to examine issues around the potential establishment of an injecting service.
A new terms of reference directed him to consider the impact of Covid, and whether there were any pandemic-related implications associated with building a service.
Mr Lay’s final report found that heroin-related harms within the city had returned to pre-Covid levels, with the rate of overdose deaths higher than pre-pandemic.
“The community understands that there is a problem with injecting drug use in the City and wants more support to mitigate these terms,” he said in the report.
“However, there are concerns that an injecting service would negatively impact the broader city community.”
In 2022, 549 Victorians died from drug overdoses. 230 of those deaths involved heroin.
City of Melbourne recorded the highest number of heroin-related deaths, with 24.
In his report, Mr Lay said he heard “consistent concerns that establishing an injecting service just as the city was getting on its feet would create more problems for an already struggling economy”.
“But I also heard a different view: that a post-Covid recovery should not leave anyone behind — including the most vulnerable. I heard that an injecting service in a well-considered location, with strong local engagement and good safety and amenity mitigations, could help reduce some of the drug-related harms that traders, residents and visitors are currently experiencing, including public injecting,” he said.
Souled Out festival cancelled at last minute, but there’s a twist
The Souled Out R & B music festival has been cancelled, with organisers saying the event “did not reach the level of support needed”. But they had earlier boasted one of the shows had sold out. What happened?
‘$1000’: The real cost of love in Melbourne this Valentine’s Day
Victorians are set to fork out a whopping $140m on gifts for their loved ones this Valentine’s Day — so, how much should you really spend on your partner? We asked Melburnians for their price points.