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Safe Injecting Facilities
April 05, 2005
What Did Happen to that Policy of the Labor Government?’
A Chronicle of the Bracks Government’s Attempt to Introduce a Safe Injecting Facility in Melbourne’s Central Business District.
This thesis, written by Urban Seed staff member Brent Lyons-Lee, examines the debate that took place regarding Safe Injecting Facilities between 1997 and 2002, at the peak of Melbourne’s heroin epidemic. It gives the perspectives of a number of policy actors including Urban Seed’s role in the debate. The thesis argues that there was no real clear reason why the proposal to have medically supervised injecting facilities was rejected considering there was support from most health professional bodies. The reasons given for the failure of SIFs as a policy option came down to political pragmatism from the Brack’s Government and the ‘moral panic’ that was created from conservative tabloids such as the Herald Sun.
click here to download the thesis
