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Abstract
‘Lockout laws’ are not new in Australia – variants exist and have been trialled or continue to operate in Newcastle (since 2008), Melbourne (abandoned in 2008), and Adelaide (since 2013) and Darwin (since 2007). In February 2014, the New South Wales O’Farrell Coalition government introduced 1.30 am lockout and 3 am last drink laws for the Sydney CBD (Central Business District), among a series of other measures. The subsequent controversies about the ‘lockout laws’ in Sydney have provoked a curious and vivid set of debates encompassing crime, medical, moral, social, libertarian, cultural and industrial discourses. In this paper I wish to assess the new regulatory landscape within historical and contemporary perspectives of nightlife economies increasingly privileging cultural and entertainment city uses. Beyond unpacking the ‘lockout’ debate in terms of ‘liveability’ and ‘cultural city’ meanings as practised by Australian cities, this article will focus on the implications for Sydney’s ability to maintain its national and global status as a music city.
Notes
1. The emphasis on music is of course different, and dependent upon the cultural and industrial histories of cities. In this case, I argue that while governmental literature does not explicitly adopt the ‘music city’ rhetoric, the City of Sydney broadly shares the intentions of such strategies in practice and planning.
2. Public spaces (24 deaths) was the next highest, followed by ‘Residence’ (16), ‘Sporting venue’ (9), ‘Nightclub’ (8), Restaurant/café (4) and ‘Bar’ (1) (Pilgrim, Gerostamoulos, and Drummer Citation2014, 121).
3. Donnelly further states that ‘Whether concentration camps like Auschwitz, Stalin’s gulag or Pol Pot’s killing fields, the reality is that cruelty and barbarism are lurking just below the surface’ (Donnelly Citation2014). He also cited a Star Wars analogy of ‘some individuals who give themselves over to the “dark side”’ (ibid.)
4. In the Thomas Kelly case discussed in this article, Justice Campbell stated that as for an offence of manslaughter to have taken place, it needed to be shown that ‘the punching of the deceased was an act of the offender which caused the death of the deceased; that act was deliberate; and That act was both unlawful and dangerous’ (R v Loveridge [2013] NSWSC 1638, 8 November 2013, Campbell J; para 49).
5. Considerable international debate continues on the deliberative nature of one punch assaults/deaths; whether such acts are deemed foreseeable by the attacker; and whether manslaughter is the appropriate conviction (e.g. Hemming Citation2015; Mitchell Citation2008; Quilter Citation2014a).
6. O’Farrell resigned as Premier on 17 April 2014, after misleading ICAC (the Independent Commission Against Corruption) about gifts made to him by figures under investigation. O’Farrell had failed to declare a $3,000 bottle of Grange Hermitage wine received from an Australian Water Holdings executive.
7. Justice Ian Callinan (Citation2016, 149).
8. As a Live Taskforce member from Victoria (although having grown up in Sydney and played in Sydney bands in the 1980s), Mayor Clover Moore asked fellow Victorian member Kate Shaw and I if Sydney ‘had caught up with Melbourne yet’ in terms of cultural capital.
9. The author was a member of the Taskforce from 2013 to 2014.
10. Level classifications are based upon the previous 12 months’ alcohol-related incidents data compiled by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. The special licensing conditions imposed on offending venues comprised much of the new laws introduced in 2014, in effect making the CBD and surrounding precincts ‘special precincts’ subject to a wider management plan.
11. Between April 2014 and March 2015, the Star Casino at Pyrmont was related to 74 incidents of alcohol-related, non-domestic assaults, according to the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (Rooke Citation2016).
12. This has seen the ‘wet Liberal surfer persona’ (Cooke Citation2016) of Premier Baird forced to contend with a less appealing persona of ‘Casino Mike’.