On Tuesday Victoria will decriminalise public drunkenness, more than 30 years after the royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody urged for the offence to be abolished due to its disproportionate effect on Indigenous people.
The move to decriminalisation, which has also been recommended by several coronial inquests, including that into the 2017 death of a Yorta Yorta woman, Tanya Day, has already taken place in every other Australian jurisdiction except Queensland.
It was decriminalised New South Wales in 1979, in the Northern Territory in 1974 and in South Australia in 1984.
But unlike other states, Victoria is not replacing the offence with new move-on powers for police.
Instead there is a new “health-based response” that the mental health minister, Ingrid Stitt, says “prioritises services” for Aboriginal Victorians, in recognition of the disproportionate impact they have faced under public intoxication laws.
“Simply being intoxicated in public should not be a crime and from tomorrow, it will not be a crime,” Stitt said on Monday.
What changes?
Being intoxicated in public will be treated as a health issue rather than a crime. Outreach teams are set to patrol the streets and transport people to sobering-up facilities if required.
In most cases, outreach teams – nurses and alcohol and drug workers – will help intoxicated people contact their friends or family, provide food and water, charge their phones and arrange transport home, including by providing taxi or Uber vouchers.
When a person doesn’t want help, they can be left alone if it is safe. Those needing more acute care can be taken to a sobering-up facility.
A 24/7 phone service will triage calls for help and dispatch outreach teams, and is run by the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service.
Who will be doing all this work?
The community health organisation cohealth has four outreach vans, with plans for an additional six, as well as a six-bed sobering-up facility in Fitzroy. A 20-bed, 24/7 sobering-up centre in Collingwood was due to be completed by the start of November but has been delayed until the end of the month.
The community health provider has 40 staff across both its outreach teams and the sobering-up centre.
“We’re rolling out pink polos to distinguish our staff from the traditional navy of emergency services and making sure that on the streets to provide a safe environment for people that might otherwise have had really tough interactions with institutions,” says cohealth’s deputy chief executive, Chris Turner.
Aboriginal outreach services will be operated by Ngwala Willumbong Aboriginal Corporation across Melbourne, Frankston and Wyndham. They will support Aboriginal Victorians and, if needed, transport them to a six-bed dedicated sobering-up centre in St Kilda.
Ngwala’s chief executive, De-Joel Upkett, says his team has been running specialist alcohol and drug residential rehabilitation services for many years.
“It’s an extension of what we’re already been able to provide,” Upkett says.
“[People] will be given the opportunity to be able to sober up, rest, have some food in a safe and careful place, where we’re able to monitor the health and safety of our community. We will transport them to our property and also transport them back home so no one will be left walking out in the streets.”
The government anticipates most people will spend no longer than 12 hours at a sobering-up facility. An intoxicated person must consent to being taken to a facility and be able to walk on their own.
Where will the focus be?
When not responding to calls for help, the outreach teams will focus their attention on 16 “areas of high demand”.
They are: Brunswick Street (Fitzroy), Dandenong, Deer Park, Footscray, La Trobe University (in Bundoora), Melbourne’s central business district, Monash University (Clayton), Noble Park, Ringwood, Springvale, St Albans, St Kilda Road (Melbourne), Sunshine, Swan Street (Richmond), Sydney Road (Brunswick) and Victoria University (Sunshine).
The department has also identified two seperate groups who outreach teams will be working with, based on emergency service data. The vast majority are considered “low intensity” who under the old laws didn’t commit more than two offences within a year, but were likely to do so during special events, on popular nightlife strips and on weekends.
A “high intensity” cohort of people were likely to commit three or more offences within a year, representing more than a quarter of all public intoxication offences. This group are older – more than half are aged over 40 – and are often experiencing multiple complex needs, including homelessness, mental illness, substance misuse and family violence.
In regional Victoria, the health response will prioritise First Nations people in eight regions: Ballarat, Bendigo, East Gippsland, Geelong, Latrobe, Mildura, Shepparton and Swan Hill.
With the city services, the government says this will cover 98% of local government areas where public intoxication offences have historically occurred.
Regional outreach services will begin operating from Tuesday, though there is only one “place of safety” ready to go, located in Shepparton.
What if someone is a risk to themselves or others?
Victoria police and Ambulance Victoria will still be available if there are community safety concerns or health risks, and Stitt says people can continue to call triple zero if they are worried about an intoxicated person’s danger to themselves or others.
“People will no longer be arrested simply for being drunk in public,” she says. “But if there are other community safety issues at play, then those are matters for Victoria police to deal with.”
Outreach teams will be required to conduct a safety assessment before working with an intoxicated person. This can include a breath test.
Why are they doing this on Melbourne Cup day?
The reform was initially set to come into effect on 7 November 2022 but was delayed by a year. The delay, blamed on Covid-19, meant that instead of beginning on a Monday, it would start on Melbourne Cup day.
Despite being one of the busiest days in the state for drinking and frivolity, Stitt says the state is prepared for the change.
Victoria police says its members will continue to encourage drunk people to seek support and assistance from family or friends, or outreach teams.
“However, if they refuse and are not presenting a risk to others, there will no longer be a role for police,” a spokesperson said. “If a drunk person commits a criminal offence, they will be dealt with swiftly by police.”
