The drugs problem in an inner Melbourne suburb has reached "crisis" levels, but a parliamentary inquiry charged with examining a safe injecting centre has failed to provide a path forward.
The Legal and Social Issues Committee has tabled its report into a bill by Sex Party MP Fiona Patten that attempted to create an 18-month medically supervised injecting Centre trial in North Richmond.
The report makes 11 findings, but not a single recommendation on the bill.
Among the findings are that drug use in North Richmond "has reached crisis levels and is a major concern".
It also found there was a shortage of outlets providing methadone in the area and an under supply of drug rehabilitation beds in Victoria.
Neither the government or the opposition have changed their position against a safe injecting room.
"We have no plans to introduce a safe injecting room," Mental Health Minister Martin Foley told reporters.
"This is fundamentally a public health issue that the report identifies, we know there is more to be done in alcohol and drug rehabilitation more generally."
He said the government was investing more in rehabilitation services.
Ms Patten was disappointed in the report, and said the centre was "urgently needed in North Richmond where we are seeing unprecedented deaths due to overdose as well as hundreds, of hundreds of call outs for emergency services".
The Greens have published a dissenting report due to the lack of recommendations.
"This report doesn't provide a path forward, and while the government buries its head in the sand people are dying," Greens MP and deputy chair of the committee Nina Springle said in a statement.
