LIBERALS BAULK AT NEW HEROIN PLAN

The Victorian Opposition has announced it will bring forward its
decision on supervised heroin injecting facilities, but has warned
that recent action by the Bracks Government has "made it difficult"
for the Liberals to support the proposed legislation.

Opposition health spokesman Robert Doyle told The Age yesterday that
Liberal and National Party MPs would make a formal decision on whether
to support the proposal before Parliament resumed in August.

"I think we can make a decision before we go back in spring," he said.
"I think the onus is on us to make that decision as quickly as possible."

In its latest bid to win coalition support for supervised injecting
rooms, the government has proposed a two-stage process, initially
seeking in-principle approval for the facilities in August.

Detailed plans for individual facilities would then be subject to a
second parliamentary vote, probably next year.

But Mr Doyle said yesterday the staggered process had "made it hard"
for the Liberals to allow passage of the legislation through the upper
house, where the coalition controls the numbers.

"My argument is it's hard to make a sensible decision about a
principle until you have these details worked out," he said.

He said public opposition to the facilities had hardened because "the
questions have not been answered".

"At first, it was a focus on the problem and how appalling the problem
is," he said. "It's visible and it's everywhere.

"As that debate has got more sophisticated, as that conversation has
broadened out from there, people started focusing on the legal aspects
of it, on the law and order aspects of prevention, on alternatives,"
Mr Doyle said. "Unless these questions are answered, I think people
will be loathe to proceed with it."

While about 30 per cent of Opposition MPs were either firmly against
or in support of the facilities, the remaining 70 per cent had to be
persuaded before they would back them.

"I think some of my colleagues are running out of patience, and they
want to know these things before they are asked to decide."

Mr Doyle's statement came amid increasing local controversy in the
five municipalities chosen as locations for the trial facilities,
where heroin users would be able to inject in a medically supervised
environment.

Premier Steve Bracks, meanwhile, yesterday denied that the Melbourne
City Council's rejection of Wesley City Mission's proposed injecting
room was a setback for the government's plans to establish five
metropolitan facilities.

"It's no setback at all," he said. "In fact, the city council's
position is consistent with what the state government has said, that
we will not allow any supervised injecting facility to establish
before the legislation is passed and in place. It's (un)lawful, it's
illegal until that happens."

Mr Bracks criticised Wesley for "jumping the gun" and called on the
mission to work with the government, the community and the police to
develop legislation and get public support before establishing facilities.