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I'm an outsider to Sydney and Australia, and I'm a regular visitor. This article rings of an insider perspective, full of "we" statements. It has a vibe of per

I'm an outsider to Sydney and Australia, and I'm a regular visitor. This article rings of an insider perspective, full of "we" statements. It has a vibe of personal anger and personal overreaction. What I'm genuinely curious about is the events that lead to the formation of these laws. Again, as an outsider, the main thing to do in Sydney is drink. A lot. The main thing my friends want to do after work in Sydney is drink. This isn't out of line for a city, and there's nothing inherently bad about drinking. Sydney's youth just seems to be focused on it more than other cities I've visited. These laws were likely passed as reactionary safeguards. What are they reacting against? This article only comments on the laws mockingly and with satire, including linking to random blogs as sources. Can anyone comment on possible events that lead to these laws? My only opinion is that Sydney enjoys drinking more than the average city, and I'm curious if these "lockout" laws are an overreaction, or justified in some way.

sqldba 11y ago
Innocent people kept getting murdered on King St (a popular bar and night life destination, as well as prostitution or at least erotic joints, and possibly some drug use.) A few years back there was a spate of "King Hits" which is when one person hits another person in the head and immediately knocks them unconscious, usually through random chance rather than any kind of skill, but meaning that person then bears the full force as their head hits the concrete and likely dies in the process. There were a whole bunch of unprovoked attacks on that street one after the other on completely random innocent people at night time. It was a national disgrace, one minute you're just Joe Blow walking with your fiancee down the street and the next you're dead. This didn't happen just once, but week after week after week and a bunch of people were dead, and the newspapers were eating it up. So the government put these laws in place to stop it, and to be fair it seems to have worked as I haven't seen anyone talk about dying on that street in the news lately. Overall though I have split feelings. On the one hand we need to get together as a society and start putting an end to people who are overly aggressive and posing a risk to the rest of us. Sorry but that's the damned truth. If you're invading homes or punching absolutely random people in the street then you're just not going to fit in with the rest of us and it's time to go. It's us or them and I don't want to be a statistic. On the other hand it's a shame that as we're all too shy to implement that kind of thing, we get laws that put innocent people in the crossfire and suck the joy out of life for the rest of us. But at least you get to feel comfortable having all those dangerous people still on the street simmering away waiting to have one drink too many and kill others... yay for liberty.
- sydneysider 11y ago
  This is a bit over the top, completely playing into the media hysteria. A few people got killed because some drunken, uneducated cowards hit them. This wasn't night after night. I'm also amused at the fact that the premier and all his buddies are devout christians, don't get me wrong,I have no issue with religion or the liberals, I'm long time lib voter, but I'm going to reconsider my vote in the future now though based on this new knowledge I have. What this really reeks of is corruption. The two big casino's in town (the star, and the one at barrangaroo which hasn't been built yet) are allowed to stay open 24/7, I'm 99% sure there is some preferential treatment going on, money talks, bullsh*t walks.
  - dicemoose 11y ago
    `'One-punch'' assaults have cost 90 Australian lives since 2000, most in booze-fuelled bashings, a study has found.` ... `NSW had the highest number of king-hits (28), followed by Victoria and Queensland (24 cases each).` So not night after night at all, but more than a couple (this article is from 2013. http://www.smh.com.au/national/90-killed-in-singlepunch-assaults-since-2000-20131201-2yjtr.html http://www.smh.com.au/national/90-killed-in-singlepunch-assa...
    - SyneRyder 11y ago
      That's one-punch deaths, but not one-punch assaults. There's even more of those. Tucked away further in the article is a quote that says it is an occurrence every club night: "St Vincent Hospital's emergency department director, Gordian Fulde, treats four or five ''absolutely obvious'' king-hits while working at the hospital every Friday or Saturday night."
      - sydneysider 11y ago
        Instead of destroying small business and bringing in laws which detrimentally affect everyone, the state government should create examples of the offenders (the idiots that thing its cool to knock someone out), throw the book at them. strengthen the laws in a way that limits the potential for misuse, but sends a strong message to the drunken yobs, "if you do this, you're toast". These lockout laws don't fix anything, they just move the problem elsewhere, Newtown and Enmore residents are seeing more and more violence at nights now. It's an example of shifty moral knee-jerk-reaction law making, 'lets pass these heavy handed laws that give us more power, but lets frame it in a way that if you oppose it, you can be painted as supporting murders on the streets'. I completely agree with the author that NSW becoming more and more of a nanny state, i.e: not allowed to have a BBQ (which god forbid, might make a bit of smoke) if you are in a strata property, or that un-named council that has banned kites (probably because a kite could take down a plane), I know restaurant owners who follow the rules and are still terrorized by the prospect of the office of gaming and liquor deciding to shut them down. Hopefully with Malcolm leading the federal libs now, he will exert some pressure on the NSW libs to wake up and stop sabotaging the NSW economy. Australian politics (and politics in general) are just pathetically depressing.
predakanga 11y ago
Over the past few years, there have been a number of deaths caused by unprovoked one-punch attacks ("king-hits", or now "coward punches"), possibly the highest profile being the death of Daniel Christie[0] after being attacked in Kings Cross, a hotspot for nightlife. In the wake of these attacks, a number of new regulations and laws have been passed, with the stated aim of reducing alcohol-related violence. These regulations had been tested previously in Newcastle, the aforementioned deaths being an opportunity to pass them swiftly in Sydney. Despite the supposed good intentions, there are a number of things that people question about the new laws, such as that the new regime is overcomplicated and often just silly (see anecdotes in this thread), or the rather suspect exemption of the local casinos from the laws, despite suffering the same problems[1]. Additionally, some people would argue that the response has been disproportionate to the actual problem - this infographic[2] from a violence support group[3] claims that there were only 20 deaths attributable to this kind of attack between 2007 and 2012. Personally, I'm somewhat of a homebody and haven't been directly affected by the changes in the law, but I do consider them an overreaction and lament the effect they've had on Sydney's nightlife in general. Having read the article in it's original location[4], where the author provides more figures to support their allegations, I was left feeling rather bitter about the whole situation, though I do agree that it was written extremely emotively and was intended to elicit that response. On behalf of the other side, though, I would offer this[5] video clip - it's from this week, showing the Senior Australian of the Year Gordian Fulde responding to a question about the lockout laws, for which he was a strong advocate. [0]: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/daniel-christie-dies-following-kinghit-punch-20140111-30ndv.html http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/daniel-christie-dies-following-kin... [1]: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/star-casino-may-be-the-most-violent-venue-but-exempt-from-restrictions-20150420-1morb6.html http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/star-casino-may-be-the-most-violen... [2]: http://opck.qhvsg.org.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/38/2014/09/opcksuckerpunch1.pdf http://opck.qhvsg.org.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/38/2014/09... [3]: http://opck.qhvsg.org.au/ http://opck.qhvsg.org.au/ [4]: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/would-last-person-sydney-please-turn-lights-out-matt-barrie https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/would-last-person-sydney-plea... [5]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDwoqkmZULI&t=40m55s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDwoqkmZULI&t=40m55s
- paganel 11y ago
jeromyevans 11y ago
I lived there at the time the lockout was introduced. There was a small number of alcohol-fuelled fights that resulted in the deaths of some young men by head trauma (punched or falling). They were very prominent. I'm not sure if there was really increasing trend in violence, but perception in the media was that of a crisis (as they do). The government reacted with little planning (as they do). For example, the "one punch" law was introduced to discourage people from punching others in the head. It seems ridiculous we needed a specific law for that [1]. The people that like a drink to socialise but aren't inclined to punch others go to new venues outside the lockout zone now. That brings another set of implications. [1] http://www.nsw.gov.au/onepunch http://www.nsw.gov.au/onepunch
- vacri 11y ago
  From your link, the law may be nicknamed 'one punch', but the details aren't actually specific to a single punch - instead they are simply more severe a penalty if the person dies as a result of the assault, with a bizarre minimum if the offender was intoxicated (apparently if you think clearly about it beforehand, you're not as bad...)
weeksie 11y ago
When I first immigrated to Australia I was shocked at the tone that journalists used, even in mainstream publications. Turns out it's just an Aussie thing. People can argue about the merits of that tone but that article fits pretty well with Aussie journal style, especially for an editorial.
- chris_wot 11y ago
  If you think that's bad, don't listen to what passes for debate in the House of Representatives! Although it's calmed down since Keating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEsN4-XLE2k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEsN4-XLE2k

sqldba 11y ago

Innocent people kept getting murdered on King St (a popular bar and night life destination, as well as prostitution or at least erotic joints, and possibly some drug use.) A few years back there was a spate of "King Hits" which is when one person hits another person in the head and immediately knocks them unconscious, usually through random chance rather than any kind of skill, but meaning that person then bears the full force as their head hits the concrete and likely dies in the process. There were a whole bunch of unprovoked attacks on that street one after the other on completely random innocent people at night time. It was a national disgrace, one minute you're just Joe Blow walking with your fiancee down the street and the next you're dead. This didn't happen just once, but week after week after week and a bunch of people were dead, and the newspapers were eating it up. So the government put these laws in place to stop it, and to be fair it seems to have worked as I haven't seen anyone talk about dying on that street in the news lately. Overall though I have split feelings. On the one hand we need to get together as a society and start putting an end to people who are overly aggressive and posing a risk to the rest of us. Sorry but that's the damned truth. If you're invading homes or punching absolutely random people in the street then you're just not going to fit in with the rest of us and it's time to go. It's us or them and I don't want to be a statistic. On the other hand it's a shame that as we're all too shy to implement that kind of thing, we get laws that put innocent people in the crossfire and suck the joy out of life for the rest of us. But at least you get to feel comfortable having all those dangerous people still on the street simmering away waiting to have one drink too many and kill others... yay for liberty.

sydneysider 11y ago
This is a bit over the top, completely playing into the media hysteria. A few people got killed because some drunken, uneducated cowards hit them. This wasn't night after night. I'm also amused at the fact that the premier and all his buddies are devout christians, don't get me wrong,I have no issue with religion or the liberals, I'm long time lib voter, but I'm going to reconsider my vote in the future now though based on this new knowledge I have. What this really reeks of is corruption. The two big casino's in town (the star, and the one at barrangaroo which hasn't been built yet) are allowed to stay open 24/7, I'm 99% sure there is some preferential treatment going on, money talks, bullsh*t walks.
- dicemoose 11y ago
  `'One-punch'' assaults have cost 90 Australian lives since 2000, most in booze-fuelled bashings, a study has found.` ... `NSW had the highest number of king-hits (28), followed by Victoria and Queensland (24 cases each).` So not night after night at all, but more than a couple (this article is from 2013. http://www.smh.com.au/national/90-killed-in-singlepunch-assaults-since-2000-20131201-2yjtr.html http://www.smh.com.au/national/90-killed-in-singlepunch-assa...
  - SyneRyder 11y ago
    That's one-punch deaths, but not one-punch assaults. There's even more of those. Tucked away further in the article is a quote that says it is an occurrence every club night: "St Vincent Hospital's emergency department director, Gordian Fulde, treats four or five ''absolutely obvious'' king-hits while working at the hospital every Friday or Saturday night."
    - sydneysider 11y ago
      Instead of destroying small business and bringing in laws which detrimentally affect everyone, the state government should create examples of the offenders (the idiots that thing its cool to knock someone out), throw the book at them. strengthen the laws in a way that limits the potential for misuse, but sends a strong message to the drunken yobs, "if you do this, you're toast". These lockout laws don't fix anything, they just move the problem elsewhere, Newtown and Enmore residents are seeing more and more violence at nights now. It's an example of shifty moral knee-jerk-reaction law making, 'lets pass these heavy handed laws that give us more power, but lets frame it in a way that if you oppose it, you can be painted as supporting murders on the streets'. I completely agree with the author that NSW becoming more and more of a nanny state, i.e: not allowed to have a BBQ (which god forbid, might make a bit of smoke) if you are in a strata property, or that un-named council that has banned kites (probably because a kite could take down a plane), I know restaurant owners who follow the rules and are still terrorized by the prospect of the office of gaming and liquor deciding to shut them down. Hopefully with Malcolm leading the federal libs now, he will exert some pressure on the NSW libs to wake up and stop sabotaging the NSW economy. Australian politics (and politics in general) are just pathetically depressing.

predakanga 11y ago

Over the past few years, there have been a number of deaths caused by unprovoked one-punch attacks ("king-hits", or now "coward punches"), possibly the highest profile being the death of Daniel Christie[0] after being attacked in Kings Cross, a hotspot for nightlife. In the wake of these attacks, a number of new regulations and laws have been passed, with the stated aim of reducing alcohol-related violence. These regulations had been tested previously in Newcastle, the aforementioned deaths being an opportunity to pass them swiftly in Sydney. Despite the supposed good intentions, there are a number of things that people question about the new laws, such as that the new regime is overcomplicated and often just silly (see anecdotes in this thread), or the rather suspect exemption of the local casinos from the laws, despite suffering the same problems[1]. Additionally, some people would argue that the response has been disproportionate to the actual problem - this infographic[2] from a violence support group[3] claims that there were only 20 deaths attributable to this kind of attack between 2007 and 2012. Personally, I'm somewhat of a homebody and haven't been directly affected by the changes in the law, but I do consider them an overreaction and lament the effect they've had on Sydney's nightlife in general. Having read the article in it's original location[4], where the author provides more figures to support their allegations, I was left feeling rather bitter about the whole situation, though I do agree that it was written extremely emotively and was intended to elicit that response. On behalf of the other side, though, I would offer this[5] video clip - it's from this week, showing the Senior Australian of the Year Gordian Fulde responding to a question about the lockout laws, for which he was a strong advocate. [0]: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/daniel-christie-dies-following-kinghit-punch-20140111-30ndv.html http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/daniel-christie-dies-following-kin... [1]: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/star-casino-may-be-the-most-violent-venue-but-exempt-from-restrictions-20150420-1morb6.html http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/star-casino-may-be-the-most-violen... [2]: http://opck.qhvsg.org.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/38/2014/09/opcksuckerpunch1.pdf http://opck.qhvsg.org.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/38/2014/09... [3]: http://opck.qhvsg.org.au/ http://opck.qhvsg.org.au/ [4]: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/would-last-person-sydney-please-turn-lights-out-matt-barrie https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/would-last-person-sydney-plea... [5]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDwoqkmZULI&t=40m55s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDwoqkmZULI&t=40m55s

paganel 11y ago

jeromyevans 11y ago

I lived there at the time the lockout was introduced. There was a small number of alcohol-fuelled fights that resulted in the deaths of some young men by head trauma (punched or falling). They were very prominent. I'm not sure if there was really increasing trend in violence, but perception in the media was that of a crisis (as they do). The government reacted with little planning (as they do). For example, the "one punch" law was introduced to discourage people from punching others in the head. It seems ridiculous we needed a specific law for that [1]. The people that like a drink to socialise but aren't inclined to punch others go to new venues outside the lockout zone now. That brings another set of implications. [1] http://www.nsw.gov.au/onepunch http://www.nsw.gov.au/onepunch

vacri 11y ago
From your link, the law may be nicknamed 'one punch', but the details aren't actually specific to a single punch - instead they are simply more severe a penalty if the person dies as a result of the assault, with a bizarre minimum if the offender was intoxicated (apparently if you think clearly about it beforehand, you're not as bad...)

weeksie 11y ago

When I first immigrated to Australia I was shocked at the tone that journalists used, even in mainstream publications. Turns out it's just an Aussie thing. People can argue about the merits of that tone but that article fits pretty well with Aussie journal style, especially for an editorial.

chris_wot 11y ago
If you think that's bad, don't listen to what passes for debate in the House of Representatives! Although it's calmed down since Keating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEsN4-XLE2k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEsN4-XLE2k