Tuesday, 4 February 2025

Ministers statements: pill testing

Ingrid STITT (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (13:38): I rise to update the house on the Allan Labor government’s pill-testing trial. Over the new year our mobile services kicked off at Beyond the Valley festival with huge success. More than 700 young Victorians accessed the service during the festival, and that is the largest number of tests of any event in Australia. For 70 per cent of those who used the service, it was the first time that they had had a conversation with a health professional about their drug use. Forty per cent said that they would consume a smaller amount of the drugs, and one in six intended to discard their drugs altogether at the conclusion of them getting their test results. That is what pill testing is all about; it is about giving people the facts that they are asking for so they can make safer and more informed choices.

Off the back of this success, I confirmed last week the next four events to host this life-saving service this festival season, starting with Hardmission this Saturday at Werribee Racecourse, a festival that tragically saw a number of really bad overdoses last year; Pitch Music & Arts festival, a multiday festival across the Labour Day weekend near Moyston in the Grampians; Ultra, a single-day event on 12 April at Flemington Racecourse; and the Warehouse Project, a single-day event on 25 April at Port Melbourne Industrial Centre for the Arts.

These events allow us to test the delivery of pill testing services in a variety of settings to make sure we get the model right for Victoria. They cover metro, regional, small and large events and single-day and multi-day events, and the most important thing here is that the events are where we know that they will help to reduce harm, because that is what drug testing is all about. Pill testing is about saving lives and giving Victorians the information that they want.