Sophie Wade, Greens Councillor, City of Yarra Council
4th November 2025
What can be done when important progress is reversed by a group of councillors?
Particularly when it affects the most vulnerable in our communities?
It’s a question I sadly find myself asking a lot these days, with good reason.
Last month, councillors at the City of Yarra suddenly, and without warning, announced a reversal to council’s long-standing support of the Medically Supervised Injecting Room (MSIR) in Richmond. Now, a lifesaving facility in Melbourne is at risk - and its users left without the future certainty they deserve.
To say I was shocked is an understatement, and the community needs to know what happened.
Reversing support for safe injecting facilities
In 2017, before my time on Council, in the face of an epidemic of overdoses in the Victoria St precinct, the then councillors moved to support the establishment of a safe injecting facility (also known as an overdose prevention centre) in the area. This was something the community had pushed for, Coroners had pushed for, and a concept that was working in other places around the world (including in Kings Cross in Sydney).
Reports on the impact of safe injecting facilities around the world are clear: they reduce deaths by overdose, reduce the risk of disease transmission, and also increase the uptake of addiction support services. Studies show safe injecting facilities result in a 61% decrease in public injections and stronger community safety outcomes.
The state government established the medically supervised injecting room (MSIR) in its current location in North Richmond in 2018, and has supported it ever since. The centre has also benefitted from consistent council support, including my own since I was elected in 2020.
There are still issues in the neighbourhood - it has long been known as a site where drug dealing occurs (this is why it was chosen in the first place) - but it is working. Lives are quite literally being saved. And improvements to the surrounding areas are happening all the time (in part, because of funding related to and workers from the MSIR).
Importantly, the safe injecting room was put in that location because that is where the drug trade was. Unlike some drugs, heroin is typically used immediately and close to where it is purchased (unlike pills that people might bring to a pill testing centre before using at another point in time). This is well known, and is why the site in North Richmond (which is also right next to a community health centre) was chosen.
Over the last few weeks, since the meeting, I have had people reaching out to me, telling me how much worse the streets of North Richmond were before this facility was opened. And/or how it has saved their life, or the life of someone they love. And how upset they are by Council overturning their longstanding support (without even giving them a chance to have their say).
How did this happen?
Years of the MSIR’s important work were undermined suddenly - without warning or consultation. I received a proposal at 6pm - just half an hour before the council meeting - seeking a major change to a fairly benign item on Council’s agenda (the adoption of uncontroversial 2026 advocacy priorities for the state election, which had been workshopped over the prior months).
The last minute proposal was to amend those priorities to include a very controversial item - a policy position to “move” the MSIR. With no alternative location proposed, this is effectively amounted to a call to close it.
While it’s fairly normal for councillors to propose or debate changes or tweaks to agenda items being voted on at meetings, the idea is that colleagues let each other and the community know about their plans, and don’t make major changes without consultation.
In this instance, it was an agenda item that had been subject to significant Councillor input already. And the concept of moving the MSIR had, over a period of months, not been floated.
When the meeting began it became apparent that nine people, who had registered to speak more than 24 hours earlier, were at the meeting to oppose the MSIR. They all seemed to know this amendment was coming. Perhaps unsurprisingly, no supporters of the MSIR had been clued in. As the item wasn’t on the agenda, they couldn’t have known to attend.
So, apart from my fellow Greens Councillor Edward Crossland and I, there was no one to speak in support of this life saving facility, despite the fact that supporters include locals, medical professionals, injecting drug users (groups that are of course not mutually exclusive), and other members of our community (most of us) who understand that harm reduction is a good thing. Who want lives to be saved.
In the debate itself, I was embarrassed by the failure of empathy my colleagues showed towards members of our community who use drugs.
After this “surprise” motion was raised, I moved a counter-proposal to request the new “policy” of getting rid of the MSIR in Richmond be (at least!) consulted on, to ensure those most affected (users, staff, medical professionals, locals) would have the chance to be heard on the issue. This was met with a loud “NO”.
Ed’s attempt to reaffirm support for the independent Ryan Review into the work of the facility was also met with another loud “NO”.
Pushing to move a longstanding facility really feels like the definition of a NIMBY: “oh, sure yeah, it can exist, but not in my backyard.” Without forming a position on where it should move to, these sorts of statements are slippery at best, but more likely downright disingenuous. By denigrating Victoria’s only safe injecting room without an alternative, proponents to “move” it are in practice advocating for its closure.
After the end of the (long) meeting, I did something I have not done before: I used a council procedure known as a “recission motion” to try to overturn the decision, on the grounds that due process had been ignored, and to give key stakeholders and community members a chance to be heard.
For this rescission motion to be considered at a Council meeting, I needed two Councillors to support it. Two Councillors to support the MSIR and its life saving work.
Two Councillors to say that our drug using community, local residents who fought for the facility, medical practitioners who have seen what happens without these facilities, matter, and that they should have their voices heard.
I received the support from Councillor Crossland. Community members backed my call.
Unfortunately, no other Councillors supported this call for the decision to be overturned.
Speaking out to save lives
Soon after Yarra Council threw out its longstanding support for the Richmond MSIR, the City of Melbourne followed suit, expressing similar outrage about safe injecting facilities and overturning their own long-standing support for a local facility (the site of which was never finalised). This isn’t coming out of nowhere - Yarra, a once progressive council, is setting the tone.
The state government has spoken in support of the MSIR, which I appreciate. But we know the impact of Yarra Council’s decision reaches further than the MSIR itself: stigmatisation and othering of people who deserve good healthcare and support. Scapegoating the MSIR to explain wider structural problems isn’t going to work - and that’s the fact.
Injecting drug users are members of our community and should be treated with dignity, and in recent weeks, the City of Yarra and City of Melbourne have both failed to do so.
If you support harm reduction, the MSIR and feel frustrated by this, I’m here to listen, and will never stop fighting for evidence based and harm reduction measures that literally save lives.
