Wednesday, 8 March 2023

Statements on tabled papers and petitions

Department of Health

Review of the Medically Supervised Injecting Room

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (17:16): I want to raise the issue around the report by Mr Ryan that was mentioned yesterday, Review of the Medically Supervised Injecting Room: Final Report – Key Findings and Recommendations, February 2023. It is in relation to the North Richmond injecting room. That report that was released is 25 pages long. I think it is an absolute disgrace that a report on an issue that has caused so many concerns and so many issues which has taken years to put together is 25 pages long. That is all – 25 pages.

I note that in this there are some comments around the residents, and I want to speak to them. The report itself, or this review, covered the period from July 2020 to December 2022. That is not an insignificant amount of time. It is quite a period of time, and you would think that through that time of the panel conducting the review there would be significantly more examples of just what is going wrong at the North Richmond injecting room. During that time we have had, as has been highlighted, many very serious issues with the Richmond West Primary School. Children have had to witness sexual activity on the school grounds and drug-affected individuals wielding machetes. They have had to step over overdosed bodies. They have had to walk past, tragically and sadly, fatalities from overdose. The syringes that are around the area have gone from 6000 per month to 18,000. That is a threefold increase in syringes being found around the injecting room. Of course we had employees within the precinct dealing drugs. The whole thing is an absolute sham. It will be Daniel Andrews’s legacy that he has allowed an injecting room to be established next to a primary school.

The suitability of the location was not in the scope of the review. It did not even go to the suitability of the location. That is what the issues have largely been about. Many of those residents who have lived in the area for a long, long time understood the issues around drug use, and they were supportive of measures to support drug addicts getting care and support. But they have had to live with an increase in criminal behaviour, an increase in drug dealing and an increase in antisocial behaviour. The fact that they have to come and find people defecating and urinating in their front gardens is just a disgrace. This is not an uncommon occurrence, let alone children having to see drug deals or all sorts of other unsavoury activity going on where kids play in their street in this residential area. This injecting room is in the wrong site, and this government is making that injecting room be permanently in North Richmond.

Meanwhile, you have heard the Premier say, ‘Well, drug use is changing, and we’re looking at what is happening in the CBD.’ Despite the fact that they bought a property for $40 million, the Yooralla building, it has been sitting there empty, doing nothing for months on end. That is a good use of taxpayers money – I suggest not. I mean, this government is extraordinary. This Premier is extraordinary. You cannot believe a word he says. He did not believe in injecting rooms, and then he said he did. Then he said, ‘I don’t believe in ice being used in injecting rooms,’ and then there is ice. Now, you have got to understand what the true outcomes are of this injecting room. What are the real outcomes? The real outcome is how many people on these heinous drugs actually get rehabilitated. Where are those figures? Nowhere in this report. This report is an absolute farce. It does not talk about the location. It does not talk about outcomes for those people that need the support and who need to get off these terrible drugs. I will have more to say on this. I have said it for the last five years, and I will continue to argue against an injecting room next to a primary school.