Rainbow Serpent Organisers Defend Festival's Safety Record Following Death

Organisers of Victoria's Rainbow Serpent festivals have defended the event's safety and hit out out police reports following the death of one of its punters last weekend.

As well as the death, police also reported two sexual assaults, more than 30 drug-driving offences and six drug trafficking charges.

"The Melbourne Cup had nine arrests, five rushed to hospital and 78 people evicted in one day and when roadside operations detected one in three drivers in some suburbs with illicit substances in their system on Grand Final day in 2015, police praised the crowd for their good behaviour," festival director, Tim Harvey, said in a statement.

"We run for six days and have close to 20,000 exceptionally well behaved people attend but just like any other community of 20,000 people, a small minority unfortunately do the wrong thing.

Harvey continued, "Last year, one in 20 drivers outside Rainbow tested positive compared to the annual state average of one in 15 and while we believe one positive test is too many, it's been made abundantly clear that music festivals are just easy headlines for senior police officers with political agendas.

"The statistics used by police this year are preliminary and based on a targeted sample of 100 drivers to make the worst inference possible when the reality is over 7,000 vehicles travelled safely, legally and responsibly to and from the event.

"Additionally, police are well aware that statistics show a large percentage of positive, preliminary roadside tests will return negative when analysed by the laboratory.

"They are making statements with full knowledge the small sample size of targeted, rather than random, selections is not based on statistical evidence and nor is it a fair or accurate reflection of their overall results."

Emergency medical specialist, Dr David Caldicott, has thrown his support behind the festival after the family of the punter who died said organisers were not providing a "safe environment".

"Hands down, there is not another festival in the Southern Hemisphere that provides this level of safety and medical support for patrons," Caldicott said.

"They even have some of Melbourne’s best emergency department doctors on site."