Advocates call for mature conversation around city injecting room

Almost 80 organisations have teamed up in an emotional plea for Premier Daniel Andrews to follow through with his promise to open a second safe-injecting room in Melbourne’s CBD.

Concerned with delays in opening the facility, 78 chief executives and leaders from community health organisations, churches, the drug and alcohol sector, housing and legal services have written a joint letter to the premier calling on him to push ahead with the plan despite some criticism from business owners and residents about potential sites.

The Salvation Army’s Brendan Nottle.Credit: Justin McManus

Salvation Army’s Major Brendan Nottle, speaking from Rainbow Alley where Melbourne father and roof tiler Danial Korver overdosed last June, said he worked closely with many of the users who’ve recently died in the city. “Friends of mine,” Nottle said at a joint press conference.

Labor announced on Tuesday the North Richmond facility would become permanent — with additional wraparound services and outreach programs to improve the amenity on neighbouring streets — because it had saved an estimated 63 lives and safely managed 6000 overdoses.

But more than two years after announcing a second safe-injecting room would open in the City of Melbourne, Andrews this week said its future was not guaranteed and depended on a postponed review by former police commissioner Ken Lay.

Traders on Degraves Street near one possible site, on Flinders Street, have been frustrated with the uncertainty and worry a facility would tarnish the area’s standing among customers and tourists.

Nottle called on the government to “have a mature, adult conversation” with businesses and the sector to work together to address concerns.

Andrews justified the delays, with Lay now due to hand down his report in the middle of the year, on changing drug patterns and visitation to the CBD because of COVID-19.

Ambulance callouts for heroin-related incidents in the City of Melbourne overtook those in the City of Yarra for the first time in 2021-22.

The number of ambulance callouts in the City of Melbourne was 390, up from 305 the previous year but below the 2019-20 high of 423. In the City of Yarra, heroin-related ambulance callouts in 2021-22 were down to 317, from a high of 682 in 2018-19.

Statewide heroin-related deaths were also on the rise in the last two quarters, according to the Coroner’s Court.

The organisations behind the letter — including the Australian Medical Association, Australian Services Union, the Australian Nursing & Midwifery Federation, the Father Bob Maguire Foundation, Salvation Army, Anglicare, cohealth and Launch Housing — said the facility should be small and discreet with mental health, housing, legal, sexual health and oral health services.

“These deaths are unnecessary,” the organisations said in the letter led by the Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association.

Wayne Gatt, secretary of the Police Association, said police resources would have to be diverted to improve the local amenity if another safe-injecting room opened.

A report into the existing site at North Richmond, by John Ryan, encouraged Victoria Police to give “special consideration to tasking foot and mobile patrols in the North Richmond neighbourhood”.

Gatt said: “What I don’t want, is in three years time another report from the government that says, ‘we’ve got a problem with amenity in the CBD, it’s killing off trade and what we need is more policing, more foot patrols to fix it’. We’re saying, don’t create it, don’t make it in the first place.”

He accepted it might reduce some pressure on ambulances and save some lives, but said it had the potential to cause more harm at the same time.

Reverend Margaret Mayman from the St Michael’s Uniting Church on Collins Street, said people were often found sleeping on the church steps for shelter.

“We hope that the people that we are coming close to talk to are just asleep, and not unconscious because of an overdose, or worse, that they have died,” Mayman said.

“We’re not a health service. We can’t directly help people, but we can advocate.”

Katrina Korver, the mother of 38-year-old Danial who died on Rainbow Alley last June, said her son would be alive if a safe-injecting room was open in the city.

“He shouldn’t have died that day.”

Announcing on Tuesday the North Richmond facility would become permanent, Andrews acknowledged it was imperfect and said more would be done to improve the local amenity, by reaching out to users still injecting heroin and discarding needles in the residential streets.

The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.