Victoria leaves the Victorian Era

[old man emu]

The Victoria Government has announced that it will decriminalise being drunk in a public place by the end of 2023. Welcome, Victoria, to the late 20th Century. NSW introduced the Intoxicated Persons Act in 1979 that decriminalised drunkenness in public. But the big problem that Victoria created was that it did not do what NSW did and legislate the ways that police, who have to deal with intoxicated people, could ensure the safety of these people who could not look after themselves.

 

Let's get one thing straight. Excess alcohol is a poison. It can kill you. If you are shitfaced, then you need medical attention, and/or a safe place to go to metabolise the alcohol and return o a degree of normality. The NSW Act provided for police to take intoxicated persons to a hospital, or to an intoxicated persons centre where they could be watched over by trained workers, or last, and worst of all, taken into protective custody in a police station.

 

It doesn't take a genius to quickly realise that no hospital is going to spare staff to look after a drunk, especially when drunks mostly turn up between Friday night and Sunday morning when casualty wards are full of people wounded in drunken brawls. There were never enough intoxicated persons centres  - usually run by the Salvos or Vinnies - or places within them to take care of more than one or two per night. Therefore, the drunks ended up in police cells which at that time in NSW were still typical of 19th Century gaols. Any constables who brought a drunk into the police station under the Intox Persons Act, was a popular with the Sergeant as a pork chop at a Jewish bar-b-que. That's because, being detained on police premises brought the person under the purview of the  Deaths in Custody Commission.

 

So be careful when anti-police types cry out against granting police powers to deal with detained non-offenders who need to be protected, just remember that without proper places to care for poisoned people, the risks of deaths rises. And besides, convicting a person for being drunk will never prevent that person from getting drunk again.

[Jerry_Atrick]

8 hours ago, old man emu said:

Welcome, Victoria, to the late 20th Century.

Yes.. where are those lockout laws from Sydney that drove Melbourne's explosive growth! How very quaint were those laws.. I do believe a throwback to Victorian England (where these laws still exist).

 

Melbourne is a little more relaxed than Sydney and as I recall, Melbourne's hospitals do (or did) make time for the drunk needing medical attention.

 

Now, as someone who was Melbourne born and bred, but only started sampling the imbibement fuel from about 26, I can recall many evenings where many of us were quite intoxicated in public places, and nary a policeman bothered us. I think it is one of those laws that is only used when things get serious, but there are so many other laws the police can use to assert required authority in a situation - public affray, the myriad of anti-social laws, and good old assault.

 

In reality, it is a law that is not strictly enforced, and the police deal with the anti-social behaviour anyway. But, I agree with your sentiment.. but why is it always up to charities to provide resources such as intoxicated persons centres? I am sure Dan won't mind them being set up in Vic.

 

 

Edited January 20, 2023 by Jerry_Atrick

[old man emu]

Lock-out laws were simply amendments to the Liquor Act, and applied to the operators of licensed premises. They did not give police, generally, any further powers, and what enforcement would have been undertaken would have been by something like the old Liquor Squad, but that was probably disbanded long before the lock-out laws to enable those in the squad to dry out.

 

The lock-out laws were introduced not to enable the detention of intoxicated persons - the Intoxicated Persons Act had been in in operation for many year before lock-outs. The laws were introduced in an attempt to reduce alcohol fuelled violence that has as an instigating factor the failure of operators of licensed premises to stop selling alcohol to obviously intoxicated persons, a practice that is prohibited by the Liquor Act.

[facthunter]

Most of the concern was around King's Cross wasn't it?   Nev

[Bruce Tuncks]

An old classmate of mine finished up at the Royal Adelaide Hospital in charge of the emergency dept. He resigned in anger about how they brought drunks in but wouldn't take them out again.

Apparently, an emergency dept is the worst possible place to have ex-drunks in gurneys in the corridors. They get wakened by a new arrival, and they think they are about to be murdered, so they try to defend themselves. This often means that they attack the people who are trying to help the new inmates.

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

3 hours ago, old man emu said:

Lock-out laws were simply amendments to the Liquor Act, and applied to the operators of licensed premises.

Yes, I am aware. .these are more or less the same laws that are still in place in England after being introduced in Victorian times. Admittedly, over here, the times are a lot earlier than Sydney.

[onetrack]

The emergency depts are the worst place to be - full stop. Not only full of drunks, but full of injured people who have usually done something unbelievably stupid to injure themselves - and a large number of the injuries are incurred by fighting.

 

Then you have the druggies who have injured themselves - usually by trying to get away from the police. So the place is full of angry, quite often violent, and abusive people - who are in pain, and are readily prepared to abuse or hit anyone trying to help them. The level of abuse towards the nurses in ED's is incredible, they call them all the names under the sun, throw things at them, and even physically assault them.

 

The missus has a very capable senior nurse friend who worked in the ED - and threw it in, she just couldn't stand the crap she had to deal with on a daily basis, any more.

[nomadpete]

OneT, I had a nurse mother, sister and first wife.

Nobody liked weekends.

They have to deal with all those PFD injuries (pyssd fell down) and more recently recreational drugged injuries, and angry ungrateful people.

 

Staff get burnout and just fed up with it. Like the average copper, they get fed up with what they see as 'average' humans - but actually see the worst humans on their bad day.

[old man emu]

No First Responder, except maybe Firies, likes afternoon/night shift on weekends. Wednesday night back in the day when people got paid weekly, used to be the best one for nightwork. Everyone was broke by then and stayed at home. 

[Jerry_Atrick]

I had to return to accident and emergency to get a plaster cast loosened as they were worried I might develop compression syndrome, which is not a very nice thing. While I was waiting in a bed, the stuff I witnessed was eye opening as to the work these people do under pressure. I admitted to the nurses and docs, after a their second refusal of my attempt to help, I would have just said, "go on, die in a gutter". I think it shoud be every health and police/justice minister and PM/premier spend a night in the busy wards and streets and see what these people actually do. Hopefullly that would open their eyes and funding at the cost of petty projects would open up.

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

Well, this is as good as any thread to pop this perler of a YT video... Looks like Victoria is ebbing back towards the Victorian era with public health..  (and i peeves me that NSW is better at publicc health than Vic):

 

 

[edit].. Alsop, at around 19:08, "The Victorian IBAC is so hamstrung as to when it can hold public hearings.... "

Edited February 2, 2023 by Jerry_Atrick

[old man emu]

The one thing that jumped out at me from the story was that the Labor Health Minister consulted Big Business before going against the Government's Chief Health Officer's advice. When I heard that I immediately thought that the Liberals were in power in Victoria as that sort of action would have been typical of the Conservatives.

 

On another point, I'd hate to be a Treasurer. Just imagine trying to balance your Party's political philosophy with the reality of organising the financial administration of your State or Federation. I see three streams existing in the financial administration landscape:

1.  Facilitating the administration of records required by various Acts - vehicle registration/driver licensing; other income sources from taxes and fees; land ownership records; the various branches of law enforcement, and so on.
2.  Providing support services for the society - education, health, transport infrastructure.
3.  Then there are those subsequent calls on government monies like The Arts, sport and all those things that a society can engage in once the survival needs of the people have been met. 

It would be a very brave political party that gained Office and introduced a regime where, after dealing with Stream 1, ignore completely Stream 3 and apply the rest to Stream 2. But maybe biting the bullet like that for a short time could produce less calls on finances in the long term.

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

6 minutes ago, old man emu said:

The one thing that jumped out at me from the story was that the Labor Health Minister consulted Big Business before going against the Government's Chief Health Officer's advice.

Yes.. I thought, hmmm... DA is really lucky the Vic Liberals are the basket case of the Libs basket case.

 

Also, the spending spree he has gone on with big public works (like reducing level crossings when he should have invested in much better public transport) has probably left him with a relatively low kitty to fix the health system.

 

Interestingly, at least in commonwaelth countries, public health is starting to wobble badly...

 

[nomadpete]

Thanks for winding me up Jerry. The health/ambulance/hospital crisis seems to be ina all states and universally ignored by governments.

On monday night I was in serious pain, my wife called 000 at midnight and was told 'We are a bit busy, the ambo will take a while'. After several follow-up calls back and forth, the asked 'Do you think you can drive him in yourself?' So we set out on the 50 min drive at 3 a.m.

At least there was no traffic. Half way in I had to stop as the motion of the car was making me lose consciousness and I was vomiting from pain. I didn't like the idea of 'what next?'.

Stopped on the roadside, we called 000 again and raised the priority and about 10 min later an ambo pulled up and saved us. Morphine is my friend.

Ironically by then we had seen 4 ambulances go past us, so they were indeed busy.

So it took 4 hours to get to the door of a hospital and late the following night a surgeon removed a kidney stone.

 

1. Emergency staff were all polite and efficient.

 

2. The ambo was super in all aspects of his work.

 

3. The surgeon who assessed me in the morning was still doing operations at 10pm.

 

Summary - all staff involved were great - but the system is under funded. I paid dearly to get into the private hospital to avoid a repeat of disasterous care at the public hospital.

Edited February 2, 2023 by nomadpete

[nomadpete]

PS

We are blessed with a 'Liberal' government down here. So a third sport stadium for $750 million is more important than a functioning hospital.

Aaaaaagh!

[Jerry_Atrick]

Well, if more people did sport, ess would be in hosptial, right.. I am sure that is the rationale?

 

[facthunter]

The Level Crossings in Victoria were a constant cause of injury/ death and also slowed traffic down. A lot of Melbourne is flat and the fix was costly but VERY necessary especially as train frequencies increased and the backed up traffic affected other intersections. HAD to be done.  Nev

[old man emu]

3 hours ago, facthunter said:

The Level Crossings in Victoria were a constant cause of injury/ death and also slowed traffic down.

Wherever there is a rail/road crossing, you have a conflict situation. The problem really didn't exist before the introduction of motor vehicles. It is never wise to take a horse near a railway. The problem is, that for rail safety, trains have to be separated by at least one "block" of track, which means that there is not a flow of rail traffic. It is more like spurts. It is the motor vehicle traffic that flows. Who deserves right-of-way? Democratically, one would say those vehicles in the majority, but practically trains cannot yield right-of-way without destroying what efficiencies of motion they possess. With crowded metropolitan roads, the economic effects of delaying motor vehicle traffic soon exceed the costs of eliminating level crossings.