‘Radio silence’ for charity that could host Melbourne’s next injecting room

The Victorian opposition will renew attempts to force the Allan government to make public a report into a possible safe injecting room in the CBD after Labor shunned an order from the upper house to table the document by Wednesday.

The government has sat on the report – first commissioned in 2020 from former police chief commissioner Ken Lay – since it was finally handed over after COVID-19 delays in May last year, and is yet to come to a position on whether and where the state could open a second injecting facility.

The Salvation Army building on Bourke Street has been floated as the possible site of a second safe injecting room.Credit: Joe Armao

Salvation Army commanding officer Brendan Nottle told The Age there had since been “total radio silence” from the government recently after the charity was floated as a potential host of the injecting room.

“We’re hearing nothing,” Nottle said. “It’s their decision. But while they delay that decision, there are people still dying on the streets of our city in 2024. It’s urgent.”

In addition to a safe injecting room, Nottle said the vulnerable community needed wraparound services such as dental, legal and housing outreach work.

Crossbench and opposition MPs in the upper house last month teamed up to force the government to table the document by Wednesday.

But Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes, the leader of the government in the upper house, refused based on legal advice that the report was protected by executive privilege as a document prepared for cabinet deliberations that are yet to be finalised.

The opposition on Wednesday threatened to suspend Symes for breaching an order of the parliament, but will again attempt to get the report released through the upper house.

The government recommitted to releasing the report this year, once its response has been finalised.

“We’ll have more to say very soon,” Mental Health Minister Ingrid Stitt said.

The government in 2020 announced it planned to open a second safe injecting room in the CBD to ease heroin-related overdoses in the City of Melbourne – which reached 24 in 2022, according to the latest coronial data – and to take pressure off the North Richmond facility.

Cohealth City Centre on Victoria Street, near the Queen Victoria Market, was named as the preferred location before the government turned its attention to the former Yoorralla building on Flinders Street, and then lastly to the Salvation Army headquarters on Bourke Street, after well-organised local campaigns against each of them.

A counter-campaign of CBD residents, businesses and workers, Keep Our City Alive, has since been launched to advocate for the government to open the facility.

Liberal MP David Davis will introduce a motion on Thursday seeking to appoint an independent legal arbiter to determine whether the government’s claim of executive privilege is justified. That motion would then be debated during the next sitting week in a fortnight.

“We don’t believe the report does satisfy requirements for executive privilege,” he said. “The government is obviously treating the parliament and the people of Victoria with contempt.”

Crossbench MPs were yet to decide whether to provide the opposition with the necessary support to pass the motion.

Legalise Cannabis MP David Ettershank, who supports a second safe injecting room and the wraparound services it could provide, introduced the motion last month to get answers on the Lay report after months of waiting.

He was disappointed the government failed to provide it on Wednesday but believed Victorians were equally keen to get a considered response from the government.

Ettershank said the minor party was seeking advice on the opposition’s new motion and whether “procedurally, it is, in fact, able to be done, because we’re not interested in doing this simply for the purposes of theatre”.

According to the standing orders, it would be up to Ettershank as the mover of the original motion to dispute the government’s claim of executive privilege.

Dr Catherine Williams, executive director of the Centre for Public Integrity, said Victoria had a concerning history of disregarding previous orders to appoint an arbiter.

“Whilst the standing orders provide for the appointment of an independent arbiter to determine a contested claim of executive privilege, Victorian governments to date have frustrated the intent of those orders by refusing to hand over the relevant documents to the arbiter,” Williams said.

“Equivalent provisions exist in NSW, where they work. In Victoria, they don’t.”

Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes.Credit: Joe Armao

In the same motion, to be introduced on Thursday, Davis named seven other unrelated documents the government has failed to table.

The opposition said it would attempt to have Symes suspended from the parliament for three days if those remained unpublished by April 30, which would also require majority support of the upper house.

Premier Jacinta Allan on Wednesday said the government was considering the Lay report as well as other advice, and accused the opposition of political stunts.

“This is a complex, complex matter,” Allan said. “We are not going to play politics with this issue.”

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