FRED NILE CRITICISED FOR HEROIN INJECTING STANCE

New South Wale's Upper House MP Fred Nile has come under attack over
claims the Uniting Church will face the same problems as did the
Catholic Church over the issue of a safe heroin injecting room.

The Reverend Harry Herbert, who is the executive director of the
Uniting Church Board of Social Responsibility, offered to operate the
country's first legal heroin injecting room in Sydney, after the
Vatican ordered Catholic nuns to end their involvement.

Mr Herbert says Mr Nile needs to understand the differences between
the two faiths.

"I think the question in the Uniting Church is that we operate in a
different way to which the Catholic Church operates," Mr Herbert said.

"We don't have to have everybody's agreement for one part of the
Church to do certain things.

"So I think it's a different scenario to the one that existed in the
Catholic Church but as you saw there, there were many people in the
Catholic Church, indeed the very Sisters of Charity who run St
Vincent's, who believed it was the right thing to do."