Safe Injecting Room: Greens amendments to allow children to safe injecting room

Underage children would be allowed to inject heroin in a safe injecting room under a radical plan proposed by the Greens.

Children would be safe to inject drugs at a controversial safe injection facility in Melbourne’s inner suburbs under amendments announced by the Greens.

A Bill to make the North Richmond safe injecting room permanent will be debated in Victorian Upper House this week.

Under the Greens’ proposed amendments to the government’s Bill, which passed the Legislative Assembly last week, access to the facility would be opened up to include pregnant women, people subject to a court order and children under the age of 18.

A Bill to make North Richmond’s controversial safe injecting room permanent is set to be debated this week. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Luis Enrique Ascui

They also want more injecting rooms to be opened across the state, which would require an amendment allowing multiple licences to operate at the same time.

The Greens’ drug harm reduction spokesman Aiv Puglielli said leaving people out in the open would lead to more “more deaths.”

“If the experts are calling for more safe injecting facilities in areas across the state where drug use is affecting communities and where people are dying, then the government should support them, not back away from expert health advice,” he said.

“People are using injectable drugs. Leaving people out in the open, without medical supervision, to use these substances will lead to more deaths and will put people and communities in harm’s way,” he said.

The Victorian Liberals and Nationals will seek to move their own amendments this week that aim at mirroring NSW legislation that requires safe injecting facilities to be 250m from schools.

The North Richmond facility is next door to Richmond West Primary School and has been a prominent source of concern among the local community.

In 2021, students were diverted after a body was found outside the school’s main entrance. 

Opposition mental health spokeswoman Emma Kealy said the amendments were “common sense.”

“Labor has stubbornly refused to listen to the local residents and school community,” she said.

“Instead of pushing ahead with a model that leaves locals behind, the Andrews government must support these commonsense amendments.