Three new injection rooms touted for Melbourne suburbs

Despite controversy over North Richmond’s trouble-plagued injecting room a key player wants more built in these Melbourne suburbs.

Three new drug injecting rooms with the power to carry out pill testing would be built across Melbourne under a radical plan from a key crossbench MP.

Reason Party leader Fiona Patten will this week call on the Victorian government to increase the number of supervised injecting rooms to five.

Ms Patten, who was instrumental in setting up the state’s first centre in North Richmond, wants others in St Kilda, Footscray and Dandenong, in a move expected to spark strong public debate.

The highly contentious North Richmond room is the state’s only centre, and a second is to be built near the Queen Victoria Market.

But Ms Patten said: “we need to go further than that”.

“I don’t think it comes as a secret to anyone that I think these lifesaving facilities should be available to as many citizens who need it,” she told the Herald Sun.

Inside the drug injecting room in Richmond. Picture: Supplied

The state government has announced a second injecting centre will be built near the Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne, but Ms Patten said: “we need to go further than that”.

The highly contentious North Richmond facilityis next to Richmond WestPrimary School and is currently the state’s only operating centre.

“I know this is controversial but despite what some of the opponents say, we know that we are saving lives in North Richmond,” she said.

“The government has seen the evidence and we know it works. We know there are less people injecting in public places when that centre is open.

“It’s time to expand the program. This is not only a way to save lives, but it will also put people on the path to treatment and recovery and from speaking to health centres, there is a real need for this.”

But Jonathan Lowe, a member of the North Richmond resident’s action group, said the centre’s detrimental effects on locals was “enormous”.

A suspected drug overdose at Richmonds Safe Injecting Room in November 2019. Picture: Jason Edwards

Richmond Injecting Rooms

Mr Lowe said the location of any new injecting room was “vitally important”.

“It’s really acted as a honey pot for people outside Melbourne to come here because they know there will be traffickers and dealers here,” he explained.

“We’ve seen an increase in crime, street injecting, anti-social behaviour and ambulances.”

Drug use and possession across Richmond and Abbottsford increased by 39 per cent in the two years after the injecting room opened, according to Crime Statistics Agency figures.

Robberies rose by 60 per cent, while stalking, harassment and threatening behaviour was up 37 per cent.

Ms Patten said the proposed new sites should be smaller and more discreet than the Richmond facility.

“We would be led by evidence, but I think we can probably do these centres slightly differently, fundamentally though you must put them where they’re needed, otherwise they won’t be used,” she said.

“We know people are injecting drugs in St Kilda and we know people are dying there, so I recognise this as a harm minimisation practice.”

She added the rollout of more injecting rooms wouldn’t add to Melbourne’s current drug crisis.

“I am very confident that these centres do not encourage someone to start using heroin,” she said.

“That is not how this happens, but what we do know is that people are using drugs, and as a society it’s our obligation to help those people who, 90 per cent of them, will be some of the most disadvantaged people in our society.”

Opposition Health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier said: “Why would Labor, the Greens and Fiona Patten consider further injecting rooms when they haven’t got the first one right?”

Ms Patten will address New Zealand’s parliament, currently considering drug injecting rooms, on Wednesday.

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