Let’s not pop the champagne over lockout laws just yet

The winding back of Sydney’s lockout laws may be cause for celebration if you’re a pub or club, but what about the parents out there just wanting their kids to come home safely after a night out, asks Louise Roberts.

There’s plenty in the nightclub and alcohol industry who are fizzing Champagne-style with delight at the prospect of Sydney’s lockout laws being wound back five years after they were introduced.

To them, the overwhelming stats, the obvious benefit that booze-fuelled violence has declined as a result and therefore our kids are safer during a night out is not enough.

State Government wowsers have skewered our reputation as a global city, they fume. The club and pub industry is crucified and we’re ridiculed by bewildered tourists who demand a beer before dawn but find the barrel turned off, so the narrative goes.

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So as a parent observing this ra-ra campaign to “reinvigorate Sydney”, I am filled with dread. As the mum of a teen son who will be making that “night in the city” pilgrimage soon enough the only thing that matters is his safety and that of his peers.

But there is no hard data or even a workable alternative from the anti-drink reform campaigners. Protecting our kids as a priority? They’ve got nothing.

The priority of lockout laws should be protecting our young from the damage alcohol can do. Picture: iStock

You can’t deny our culture of violence when booze and violence pair up.

You can’t deny the message from emergency department staff on the frontline who used to spend nights mopping up shredded cheekbones, nose breaks and knife wounds or explaining a son or daughter’s permanent brain injury to devastated parents in a hospital waiting room.

Meanwhile, a Life Education Survey this week says modern parents think kids have a harder time in 2019 than we did as children because of more bullying, obesity, the internet and overscheduling.

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No one deserves to be bullied and, correct, we didn’t have social media and the internet as kids but much of the fragility around children is the consequence of our behaviour as parents.

We don’t put in the hard yards teaching resilience. I wonder how many of these surveyed 1000 Aussie mums and dads ever use the word No or enforce boundaries and consequences?

Some Sydneysiders may be raising their glasses at the news, but others are terrified. Picture: iStock

There were challenges when I grew up. We were taught if you wanted something you had to earn it or make do with what you had.

So when we have a law to protect our kids and reduce the chance of them falling victim to alcohol-fuelled violence, being coward punched and cracking their skull on a footpath, why on earth do we want to water it down or bin it all together?

The Director of Trauma at St Vincent’s Hospital Anthony Grabs cut straight through to parents when he said recently: “The evidence is irrefutable: the longer you extend alcohol trading hours and the more accessible you make alcohol — be it at bottle shops, bars, pubs or clubs — the more you increase the number of alcohol-related assaults and other injuries.”

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He attests to the decline in the number of alcohol-related injuries at St Vincent’s, in particular a 60 per cent reduction in serious facial fractures. There have also been no alcohol-related deaths at the hospital since the measures were introduced.

So teach your kids not to binge drink, keep the communication lines open, agree a curfew and enforce consequence. But you can’t legislate for other idiots out there, as Thomas Kelly’s parents know only too well.

Emergency workers don’t want to go back to the days before lockout laws were introduced. Picture: iStock

A new joint select parliamentary committee will consider whether they’re fit for purpose. Review them, sure, even though in September 2016 Justice Ian Callinan did just that.

But we need to look culturally as well. One of my friends has older teenagers than mine. Since they came of age and were legally able to get into pubs and nightclubs, they have largely circumvented high cover charges and expensive drinks by loading up on alcohol before they go out.

“I have seen some of them drink an entire bottle of vodka before heading out for the night,” she tells me.

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“They want to go to these places and dance and meet their friends and have a good time but they can’t afford the prices so they drink too much before they go out. “

If we are to re-open the discussion about lockout laws, why can’t we extend it to include some of the other social problems that have emerged, like binge drinking and alcohol-fuelled violence in homes?

If the laws are reversed parents are going to have to step up their at-home education efforts even more so than before. Picture: iStock

My guess there will be some parents who want to put their heads in the sand and take the “It doesn’t apply to my child, he/she doesn’t behave like that” or “Oh that’s normal behaviour, I drank myself stupid as a youngster. It’s a rite of passage.”

It’s disingenuous to suggest there isn’t a financial motive behind the most vocal opponents of lock out laws.

Here’s an idea: Go out and have a great night before the current the 3.30am last drinks time.

If you’re young, you want to stay out until your eyeballs feel like sandpaper. I get it. I used to do it.

But as a parent I would applaud more 24/7 venues where alcohol is not the centrepiece. America is way ahead of us on this with their all-night diners and family focus.

Thank goodness Premier Gladys Berejiklian didn’t buckle to pressure to introduce pill testing, another anathema working against parents.

All lock out laws are on the table to revive the city’s night-life. Let’s hope parents are critical to any changes to this.

@whatlouthinks