NSW Premier Mike Baird slammed on social media after firing back at viral Sydney lockout laws rant
NSW Premier Mike Baird has come under renewed fire after his fierce response to scathing criticism that Sydney's lockout laws are killing the city's nightlife.
Last week an essay by tech entrepreneur and Sydneysider Matt Barrie described the city as having lost its soul since the introduction of lockout laws in 2013, which many say have placed unnecessarily crippling restrictions on people and businesses.
Mr Baird, who has been identified as Australia's most popular politician, on Tuesday took to Facebook to defend recent tirades against the laws that force central Sydney venues to close to entrants at 1:30am and serve last drinks by 3am.
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"Let’s start with a statistic about Sydney’s nightlife that matters: alcohol related assaults have decreased by 42.2 per cent in the CBD since we introduced the 'lock-out laws'," Mr Baird said in his non-apologetic post on Facebook.
“But … didn’t we achieve this by shutting down the whole city and killing its night-life?
“Well, one last statistic: the number of small bars in Sydney has more than doubled in the same time period."
Mr Baird responded to "growing hysteria" about the nightlife in Sydney and hit out at that "you can’t drink till dawn any more and you can’t impulse-buy a bottle of white after 10pm".
"I understand that this presents an inconvenience. Some say this makes us an international embarrassment," Mr Baird said.
"Except, assaults are down by 42.2 per cent. And there is nothing embarrassing about that."
But Mr Baird's response hasn't been as well received as he may have anticipated, immediately copping the brunt from Matt Barrie - the Sydney businessman whose 8000-word rant about lockout laws went viral last week.
“I am glad you finally found your social media logins,” he replied.
“Here’s a statistic for you … 927,000 reads of my article, and of 950 comments, 84.9 per cent agreed that you have destroyed the city’s reputation, small business, jobs or Sydney’s social and cultural fabric, 8.75 were neutral and only 6.4 per cent agreed with you.”
For the second time in as many weeks, Facebook users sided with Mr Barrie and claimed Mr Baird was selective in his use of statistics and hypocritical in his exemption of casinos from the lockout laws.
“You have destroyed our city. Businesses cannot survive because there is literally no one on the streets after midnight. International tourist are being refused entry into bars because they are accused of being intoxicated. Bars are constantly being harassed by the police to comply with unreasonable service of alcohol laws,” said one user.
“I like you a lot as a premier, but you’re just flat out NOT telling the truth. Of course confining people to their homes reduces violence. But violence per capita is up, it’s increased according to BOSCAR in surrounding suburbs and violence at the Star Casino is also up. You’re also ignoring the fact that violence was trending downwards anyway,” said another.
Keep Sydney Open, an organisation that campaigns to soften the laws, also accused Mr Baird of ignoring the reduction across Kings Cross foot traffic in his reference to crime figures in his response.
“The picture being painted about the success of the lockout laws isn’t quite as black and white as supporters would have it appear,” said spokesperson Tyson Koh.
“While assaults may be down 40 per cent in Kings Cross, there has been an even bigger decline in total foot traffic — which means proportionally the area may be worse than ever.
“Our investigations of the effects put at 600 the direct number of jobs lost, and at losses reaching into the tens of millions financially.
“While nobody disagrees that the city’s streets should be safer, we disagree that this is the way to do this.
“We want an approach to preventing assaults which examines transport, CCTV, tougher sentencing, density and diversity of licensed premises, venue management, culture as a placating tool and the tendency towards violence among certain groups of individuals.”
You can read Mr Baird's full Facebook post here.
Morning news break - February 9
