A rally will be held in Footscray on Wednesday to protest against a proposed supervised injecting room in the suburb.
As reported by Star Weekly, key Victorian crossbench MP Fiona Patten has called for called for centres in Footscray, St Kilda and Dandenong, similar to that established in North Richmond.
The Reason Party leader last Wednesday raised the issue at a drug policy symposium in New Zealand’s federal parliament.
Speakers at Wednesday’s Footscray rally, in Nicholson Street Mall at 7pm, are expected to include Maribyrnong mayor Michael Clarke, Footscray Asian Business Association president Peter Nguyen and Western Metropolitan Region Upper House MP Bernie Finn.
Mr Nguyen said his organisation opposed an injecting room in Footscray’s central business district.
“This would bring down Footscray, like Richmond,“ he said.
“It would destroy another community in Footscray again, like it did to Richmond.
“We support the injection room but not in the central business district of Footscray.“
Cr Clarke said his position was clear: “We don’t want a safe injecting room in Footscray because it’s not warranted, quite simply“.
“There is not the demand there.
“We don’t have an IV drug problem in Footscray or the city of Maribyrnong that would warrant or vindicate a safe injecting room in Footscray – not at all.“
Mr Finn said he wanted to quash the proposal.
“We want to knock this on the head straight away,“ he said.
“We want to make it very, very clear to the government that if they intend on putting an injecting room in Footscray they’re gonna have a hell of a fight on their hands and we are certainly not going to give up easy on this one.“
Footscray Traders president Stuart Lucca-Pope said his association couldn’t comment at this stage as no formal proposal had been lodged.
Acting Premier James Merlino said the state government did not support a second supervised injecting room beyond Melbourne CBD.
