FOUR MORE YEARS FOR HEROIN CENTRE TRIAL

THE heroin-injecting centre in Kings Cross will be allowed to remain
open for four more years - but may be shut down if client visits
decline by more than a quarter.

The Health Minister, Reba Meagher, told Parliament yesterday she
would introduce legislation to extend the trial of the centre until
October 2011.

It is the third extension for the trial - two of those extensions
have come shortly after an election win. The injecting centre was set
up by the former premier, Bob Carr, in 2001 in an attempt to halt
drug use in public places and stop deaths by overdose.

Ms Meagher later said the centre could not be made permanent because
she received legal advice that if it was not regarded as a part-time
medical trial, it could be challenged in the High Court using two
United Nations anti-drug conventions that Australia had signed.

"We have sought legal advice from numerous sources, mostly from the
Crown Solicitor's [office]," Ms Meagher said. "It [extending the
trial] is the safest way to continue the operation of the centre
without exposing ourselves to perhaps quite costly and lengthy litigation."

Ms Meagher's proposal passed through cabinet without opposition
yesterday but three MPs - the member for Blacktown, Paul Gibson, the
member for Mount Druitt, Richard Amery, and Greg Donnelly in the
upper house - expressed reservations in caucus.

In particular, the MPs questioned if the centre was working when only
11 per cent of people attending were being referred for drug treatment.

However, caucus passed the proposal, meaning Labor MPs will not have
a conscience vote on the legislation, virtually assuring its passage
through both houses of parliament.

The Opposition Leader, Barry O'Farrell, later said Liberal and
National MPs would be allowed a conscience vote. He would not declare
how he would vote.

Unexpected in Ms Meagher's announcement was the provision that if the
number of people attending the centre fell "below 75 per cent of
current daily levels (208 clients a day), a formal review will be
triggered into the economic viability and need for the centre".

The idea came from the minister's office and is understood to be
intended as a sign from the Government that it is serious about
reducing drug use and wants to eventually shut the centre, once
heroin use declines.

The medical director of the centre, Ingrid Van Beek, and the
licensing operator, the executive director of Uniting Care, Harry
Herbert, welcomed the Government's decision to extend the centre yesterday.

Dr Van Beek said lives had been saved by the centre, with more than
2100 drug overdoses occurring there without death or serious brain
injury since its inception.

"There's no doubt that if some of those cases had occurred in less
safe [situations] that some of those cases would have resulted in
death," Dr Van Beek said.

Over six years, 10,000 addicts have used the centre - mostly for
heroin - with about 6 per cent now using it for methamphetamine
injection including ice. Ms Meagher said there was no consideration
of establishing an injecting centre in any other part of Sydney,
since Kings Cross, with its sex workers, had its own peculiar drug problems.

One of the MPs who will vote against the bill is the former
opposition leader Peter Debnam, who had said before the March 24
election that he would oppose it if he won office.

Mr Debnam said yesterday: "I won't be supporting it. It's a bad idea,
it's bad for the community and it should be closed."