Well, well, well…unsurprisingly back lash to the lockout laws and Mike Baird’s Facebook post addressing the laws on Monday is really beginning to boil over. Opinions damning the lockout laws are going viral and hashtags like #casinomike and #unlocksydney are trending.
Adding to the fire is an open letter written by Max Hardwick-Morris, an actual victim of a ‘one-punch’ hit that occurred on Australia Day. The Sydney man was left hospitalised for five days, enduring various surgeries. The letter basically tears down Mike Baird’s policy, his statistics and reasoning that attempt to defend the laws.
In the letter he calls out Baird’s apparent favouritism, “I would have some mercy with your laws had you included the star casino (NSW’s most violent venue) and Barangaroo in the lockout zones.”
Morris also slammed Baird for skewing statistics, “The fact that you also ‘categorically’ lie to the public by forging statistics in favor of your policies and follow up by saying how Sydney has never been more ‘vibrant’ is disgusting.”
Don Weatherburn, the director of the NSW bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, said the statistics used in Baird’s post (“alcohol related assaults have decreased by 42.2 per cent in the CBD since we introduced the “lock-out laws”.”) were “misleading” because he compared the situation directly before and after the lockout laws were introduced in February 2014, but assaults had already been declining since 2008. When the existing downward trend is taken into account, the decrease since the lockout laws is closer to 45%. Take that Baird.
The letter calls NSW an “international joke” — a sentiment felt across the state by figures like Alice in Wonderland, Nina Las Vegas, Tina Arena and Matt Barrie, who recently wrote an 8000-word essay that summed up the ludicrous and embarrassing situation the laws have put NSW in.
People have been encouraged to write to Baird’s office in the hope that public opinions will be considered in the up-coming review of the laws. Unfortunately we have little hope of that happening after witnessing negative comments deleted from the Premier’s Facebook post. The Pedestrian reports that comments had mysteriously dropped from 11,500 to 5,000.
Reclaim The Streets Sydney has created another mobile protest for March 19 and we sure as hell will be there because Sydney isn’t not a real life Footloose!
