Parliament of Victoria | Legislative Council | Members Statements
26 August 2026
David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan Region):
Monday 31 August marks International Overdose Awareness Day, an initiative of the Penington Institute that raises awareness of overdose as a major public health issue and advocates for overdose prevention.
This year’s theme, ‘25 years on. Still needed’, is still, unfortunately and sadly, relevant. Accidental overdose deaths continue to outnumber our road toll by a wide margin. In 2022 there were 2356 overdose deaths recorded in Australia, with 80 per cent of them unintentional. In the same year there were 1182 road fatalities – around half the number of overdose deaths.
Every one of these deaths is a tragedy, yet overdose prevention does not receive anywhere near the same level of funding as road safety. Victoria’s statewide action plan to reduce drug harms includes important life-saving measures, including trials of naloxone vending machines, and we also commend the government’s continued support for Victoria’s pill-testing service.
However, it is profoundly disappointing that the government rejected Ken Lay’s recommendation to trial a supervised injecting room in Melbourne’s CBD, a service that certainly would have saved lives. Overdose deaths are preventable.
We can and we should do everything we can to avoid these entirely preventable tragedies.
