FDS Insight Newsletter Oct-Dec 2020

12 the public ownership of the site, would be a condition of any new tenancy. ‘We will be pressing the government to ensure that any revenue flowing from the lease does not end up in Treasury coffers, but will flow back into Callan Park itself, which is in dire need of investment to protect heritage buildings from further decay,’ Mr Greenland said. Inner West mayor Darcy Byrne previously said Kirkbride would be ideal for the arts community, which has been financially crippled by the effects of the pandemic. A public school taking over the site was another option that had been discussed, he said. Drug overdoses killing Indigenous people at three times the rate of other Australians Keira Jenkins, NITV News (31/8/20) boriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are dying from drug overdoses at three times the rate of non-Indigenous Australians, according to Australia’s Annual Overdose report. The report, published by drug and alcohol research centre, the Pennington Institute, showed that 473 Indigenous people died of unintentional overdoses between 2014 to 2018. In 2018, there were 17.3 unintentional overdose deaths per 100,000 Indigenous Australians. This rate had almost doubled since 2009 and compared to 6.0 unintentional overdose deaths per 100,000 among non- Indigenous Australians in 2018. Aboriginal Drug and Alcohol Council of South Australia (ADAC) CEO Scott Wilson told NITV News this is the fifth year in a row the report has shown that Indigenous people are dying from overdose at three times the rate of other Australians. He called on government to ‘take some serious action’ on the disparity in drug overdoses, and pointed out that they involved the use of pharmaceutical drugs as well as illicit substances. Mr Wilson also said low availability of services, particularly in rural and regional areas, could be contributing to the high rates of overdose deaths. ‘The further you get from an urban centre, the likelihood of you getting services are getting less and less,’ he said. ‘Unless there’s more services in rural and regional Australia that address drug and alcohol issues we’re A