As we’re sure you’ve already worked out, the implications of Sydney’s lockout laws are equally wide-reaching and emotive. Nobody wants to deal with drunken violence on the streets – seriously, nobody – but the suite of regulations brought in over the past five years has been blamed consistently for damaging the city’s culture and vibrancy.
If the latest all-encompassing write-up from Freelancer’s CEO Matt Barrie is anything to go by, that damage may just be irreparable.
Coming shortly after a report detailing a nosedive in night-time foot traffic, Would the last person in Sydney please turn the lights out? presents itself as the strongest rebuke to New South Wales‘ nightlife policies we might have read yet.
Seriously. It goes hard.
“The complete and utter destruction of Sydney’s nightlife is almost complete…Some bullshit statistics were concocted, cherry picked and distorted and you swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
Biased and misleading statistics and issues that were designed to alter the attitude of the population toward a political agenda in an effort to form a consensus to a standard set of belief patterns.
This is the very definition of propaganda.“
The piece touches on almost every major issue linked with lockouts, and how Barrie believes them to be harming the city’s livelihood:
“All these ridiculous rules started as an annoyance, became an inconvenience but are now not just gross infringements on our civil liberties, but incredibly damaging to the economy.When tourists used to visit Australia, they used to marvel at our easy go lucky attitude and laid back lifestyle. Now they go home and call us the “world’s dumbest nation”.
Not just anyone said that, those were the exact words that Tyler Brûlé, editor-in-chief of Monocle and columnist for the FT Weekend, used.You’ve got to think of the damage being done to the tourism and entertainment industries when the editor of one of the world’s greatest culture & style publications says that.”
From there, he digs deeper, discussing the apparent difficulties his firm has in attracting overseas talent, and the inverse effect of Australia’s brain-drain.
“The world is moving ahead, rapidly.Sydney is not just being left behind, it’s regressing into the dark ages.”
The piece closes with a slew of shuttered Sydney businesses, which Barrie, obviously, attributes to the state’s regressive laws.
Check it out here.
