29 Aug 2016

Ah, the Sydney lockout laws. These laws are the reason you can’t go out in the city after 1.30am and you can’t get a beer after 3am. The laws were controversial from day one and most of us youngins would like nothing more than to see them torn up and thrown in the bin. We’ll go to bed when we feel like it, not when the Premier tells us to. At least, that’s what we thought most of us believed…

On Monday, Fairfax Media released a poll claiming that 54% of people aged between 18 and 35 actually support the lockout laws. It was shocking, but there it was, printed in the newspaper:

“Support for retaining a 1.30am closing time and 3am last drinks was highest within voters aged 18-34 demographic,” read the article in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Sure enough, there was a social media backlash from young people who wanted to make it explicitly clear they don’t support the lockout laws.

In a video that’s going pretty viral, the former mayor of Leichardt, Darcy Byrne suggested that the poll was flawed and said he would conduct his own poll on Facebook.

“I thought rather than relying on a poll that only rings landlines, which most young people don’t have, I would come directly to you and ask what you think.” Byrne says, “Let’s hear what young people actually think, rather than what they’re being told.”

He then asked the Facebook community to vote by clicking the angry emoticon if they oppose the lockouts or the heart if they support the laws.

Byrne’s video, had been shared 4,560 times at the time of writing, with more than 5.2K people expressing their opposition to the lockouts and a comparatively dismal 103 people in support of the laws. These numbers are just for Byrne’s original post, so they don’t include all the angry faces and hearts that have been clicked via separate links and shares.

While Byrne’s video is aimed at those who oppose the lockout laws, and therefore probably isn’t reliable data, it shows very different figures to the SMH poll.

In reality, neither poll is reliable, but it seems pretty unlikely that the majority of 18- to 35-year-olds actually support the lockouts.

But the whole incident reveals the polarising effect of the lockout debate. On one hand, venues are closing, the live music scene is struggling and Sydney’s nightlife has become pretty lame. On the other, alcohol-related violence has dropped. The movement against the lockout laws is strong, but the movement to keep them in place is led by more powerful figures.

But there’s little talk of alternative policies that could curb alcohol-related violence while still allowing people to have fun. Or if there is talk, it’s pushed under the rug, as evidenced in this Sydney Morning Herald report:

But those crying the loudest to stop the lock-out laws fail to provide an adequate alternative. Instead, they just say it’s not alcohol that is to blame.

Excuse you, but us oppositioners have provided plenty of alternatives, including 24-hour public transport options and increased police presence on Sydney streets. 

Here’s an idea

What if 100% of the blame was on the individuals who commit assault and the rest of us could just party in peace? This could work by toughening penalties for violent criminals and allowing the rest to stay out as late as they want.

People who are convicted of assault could be punished in a similar way to those who drink drive: by copping large fines and losing demerit points on a theoretical ‘drinking licence’.

When people get drunk and drive, they run out of demerit points and lose their licences. Alcohol-related violence could adopt a similar system: if a person got violent on multiple occasions, you’d run out of demerit points on your drinking licence and be prohibited from going out drinking for a few months.

After all, we don’t close the roads each time somebody gets drunk and drives their car. So why should we close the entire city just because of a few violent idiots who represent an unfortunate minority of Sydney’s party-goers.

But what do you think? Have your say down below to the straight up question: do you support the lockout laws?