Victoria’s premier has defended pushing ahead with changes to public drunkenness laws on Melbourne Cup Day despite construction delays to a dedicated sobering up centre.
The government had intended for a 20-bed facility in Collingwood to be part of the health response when being drunk in public no longer becomes a crime on November 7.
Jacinta Allan said the facility’s expansion would now be completed by the end of November and there were already other responses in place to help people when the law changed.
“The vast majority of people who are out and about just need a bit of support to get home and that’s what will happen to the vast majority of instances,” Ms Allan told reporters on Tuesday.
“Whether it’s through police, whether it’s through ambulance services, those supports will be in place.”
The Victorian government committed to decriminalising public drunkenness at the start of the inquest into the 2017 death of Yorta Yorta woman Tanya Day.
She was arrested for being drunk in a public place and died after hitting her head in a concrete cell at Castlemaine Police Station.
A coroner found her death was preventable.
Ms Allan said people facing health or safety risks would be able to access existing supports through emergency services and others including Aboriginal health providers in regional and rural areas.
“We are not going to continue where we have laws in this state that disproportionately see Indigenous Victorians end up in jail cells and very seriously significant consequences come as a result of that,” the premier said.
Cohealth will continue to operate a six-bed trial site on Gertrude Street in Collingwood and mobile vans until the expanded site opens.
Brad Battin (left) has used a fake cohealth van to ridicule the scheme.
The opposition planned to move legislation in the lower house to repeal the bill on Tuesday.
Opposition police spokesman Brad Battin posed in front of an imitation cohealth van outside state parliament in a bid to demonstrate how drunk people could be misdirected.
He denied it was a political stunt.
“We’ve taught people about stranger danger and now we’re saying when you’re drunk it’s okay to get in a white van,” Mr Battin said.
Source: AAP
