Lockout laws: What good is Sydney without its soul?

HAVE officials from the Lord Mayor all the way up to the Premier gone too far in ­protecting us from a good time, all in the name of public safety?

FOR the past week Sydney has debated a question that has been burbling under the surface for months if not years: Namely, have officials from the Lord Mayor all the way up to the Premier gone too far in ­protecting us from a good time, all in the name of public safety?

It’s an important discussion. Somehow the line has become widely accepted that there is something in the air in the Sydney Basin that makes people raving, violent two-pot screamers in need of a security regime that in comparison makes boarding an El Al flight with a Yemeni passport seem pleasant.

The fact we are even having this discussion really should raise questions beyond what time bars should close.

Given that the current regime of lockouts — along with rules on what time you are no longer trusted with an actual grown-up glass and need a plastic sippy cup, and restrictions on buying a bottle of wine after 10pm — started under Barry O’Farrell and have been strengthened under Mike Baird, it is fair to ask just how “liberal” is the present NSW Liberal-National government.

Certainly the Baird government is keen to point to its record of fiscal management and is proud of fixing the state’s books, as well as holding on to that shiny AAA ­credit rating.

But most Liberal voters, it can safely be assumed, vote on more than just the state’s pocketbook.

They also expect a Coalition government will stand for the rights of individuals to make their own choices, even if they are not always wise, and to provide a regulatory light touch which allows businesses of all size to compete equally.

That is why the present debate over just how much power the state should exercise over nightlife is both important and dangerous for the government, even if at the moment there is nothing like a credible opposition.

It highlights the gap between a party whose core values are all about less government and more personal choice and a government that has chosen to enforce a particular morality on the city and the state.

But questions of morals often give way to money.

Voters quickly become cynical about how much lockouts and other restrictions are “for their own good” when both the casino at Star City and Jamie Packer’s pleasure palace at Barangaroo keep falling just outside Sydney’s lockout zones.

Like the move to force E10 petrol, at great expense, on independent service station owners whose customers don’t want a drop of it, it is reasonable to ask, is this what a Liberal government is about?

The fact we are even having this discussion really should raise questions beyond what time bars should close / Picture: Chris McKeen

On the subject of casinos, given the havoc gambling wreaks on the lives of so many Australians — including driving some to suicide — it is ironic that so many advocates of shutting down a vibrant if sometimes seedy street scene as a harm-reduction measure see no problem with telling would-be revellers to hit the tables instead.

Similarly, continuing reports of properties in the once-thriving Kings Cross area being sold off to property developers further raise the question that lawyers put front and centre in any controversy: Who benefits?

There is no doubt that Labor made a hash of the state the last time and should not be let near the levers of power for a generation.

But Baird should take the recent debate as a warning that he cannot take the electorate for granted.

Nor can he blame the situation entirely on Lord Mayor Clover Moore.

She may run opportunistically hot and cold on Sydney city nightlife, but her limited jurisdiction suggests that she is only a small part of the problem.

All of this opens up a gap of which the Coalition must be aware.

While the Liberal Democrats have so far done yeoman’s work on the federal stage with their own nanny state inquiry, at some point some other party will rush in on the state level with a platform suggesting adults should be treated as such and that a city with pretences to being an international destination should act like it.

Because at the end of the day, what does it profit a city if it keeps its good credit rating but loses its soul?