A night curfew, taped-off playgrounds and worker permits will return to Melbourne as Victoria seeks to avoid NSW’s plight of hundreds of new cases a day.
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Melbourneâs second safe-injecting room on Flinders Street is likely to be modelled on Sydneyâs smaller, discreet facility and, along with measures to win over local traders, will include community health services.
Lord mayor Sally Capp gave her qualified support to the proposed facility, which would be near Flinders Street Station and the entrance to Degraves Street, saying medically supervised injecting rooms saved lives.
The former Yooralla building on Flinders Street.
Credit:Wayne Taylor
However, she said âmany peopleâ had raised legitimate concerns with the Flinders Street site.
âWe are all concerned for the people shooting up and dying on our city streets. Combating addiction is incredibly complex but reducing drug use on our streets would benefit local residents, businesses and visitors to our city,â Cr Capp said on Wednesday.
âImportantly, what the Victorian government is saying is this is not coming to replace hotel quarantine. This would be there to supplement hotel quarantine. So they see it very much as these two things coming together.
âWeâll keep working together with the Victorian government and when weâre in a position to say more we will.â
However, Mr Pallas contradicted Mr Morrison and said one of the issues the state and federal governments were working through was whether Victoriaâs purpose-built facility would eventually replace CBD hotels.
âWe would say in the long term that would mean shutting down city hotels,â he said. âThe Commonwealth says this is in addition, not in substitution to that service. Thatâs one of the issues we are still trying to work through.â
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