James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will begin by thanking Senator Leyonhjelm for putting this important issue—restrictions on the sale and service of alcohol at licensed venues—on the Senate's agenda today. It is one that I welcome the opportunity to discuss, and it is one on which I recognise the senator's very principled advocacy for many years—in particular, in the most recent parliament, the excellent initiative of a Senate inquiry into personal choice and the way in which modern governments tend to favour paternalism as a way of limiting it. So, I thank Senator Leyonhjelm for putting this on the record and I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate today.

Although I am a Liberal, I have to say that I have great concerns about the New South Wales government's lockout policies. Of course, the federal government does not have the capacity to regulate trading hours or liquor licensing, and nor should we. But that does not stop us from having a healthy interest in the night-time economy of Australia and the freedoms of our constituents to enjoy that night-time economy. I am proud to be speaking on this topic as a Victorian Liberal, as we opposed and successfully defeated the then Victorian Labor government's disastrous 2008 trial of a 2 am lockout in the Melbourne CBD. One notable campaigner against the lockout was our new colleague in the lower house, the member for Goldstein, Tim Wilson, from his position then at the Institute of Public Affairs. That campaign culminated in a public protest attended by 10,000 Victorians in May 2008. That was the first and will probably be the last time the member for Goldstein will be spotted at the head of a protest rally with a megaphone.

The Melbourne 2 am lockout was rightly abandoned after it spectacularly failed during a three-month trial. It did nothing to prevent late-night violence in the Melbourne CBD and it hurt many innocent law-abiding Victorians. Opponents of lockouts have made very good points about why that lockout would not succeed, and they were proven right. Firstly, they argued that it was wrong to punish all citizens for the crimes of a few. The vast majority of young or even old people who like to go out in the city late at night do so completely lawfully and without harming anyone else. A small percentage of offenders do cause problems, and they deserve to be firmly dealt with for doing so. But collective punishment of all people is not right.

Secondly, law-abiding businesses were and will be hurt by these types of laws. Some licensed venues may not have complied with the conditions of their licence. They may have even served intoxicated patrons more drinks. But that is a problem of enforcement of an existing law. Failure to enforce a law does not justify shutting down all legitimate businesses, most of which do comply with the law. Thirdly, geographic lockout zones typically just push the activity—and often also the violence—elsewhere. Fourthly, exemptions were, and typically are, unfairly granted to some areas and some businesses over others. I do not blame these businesses for seeking an exemption; any business in its right mind would not want to be bound by these laws. But it is not right for some to suffer while others prosper under these laws.

Finally, the international reputation of our cities suffers when we fail to provide a decent, safe late-night entertainment offering to tourists and international visitors. The great cities of the world are, in part, defined by their round-the-clock entertainment and service. Unless we actually want Australia to be a sleepy backwater, we cannot keep these sorts of absurd restrictions.

I am sorry that the New South Wales government evidently has not learned from the failure of the Victorian government in this area. They have persisted with their own lockouts, and we are now very clearly seeing again the flaws of this approach.

One person who deserves a great deal of credit for powerfully demonstrating the failings of this policy is a Sydney businessman, Matt Barrie.    He wrote a searing critique of the policy, and it is well worth reading for all policymakers. Published on LinkedIn in February 2016, Mr Barrie wrote:

A special little person has decided that there is a certain time at night when we are all allowed to go out, and there is a certain time that we are allowed into an establishment and a certain time that we are all supposed to be tucked into bed. There is a certain time we are allowed to buy some drinks, and over the course of the night the amount of drinks we are allowed to buy will change. The drinks we buy must be in a special cup made of a special material, and that special material will change over the course of the night at certain times. The cup has to be a certain size. It cannot be too big, because someone might die. Over the course of the night, this special little person will tell you what you can and cannot put into your cup because someone might die.

He goes on to point out:

It is now illegal to buy a bottle of wine after 10pm in the City of Sydney because not a single one of us is to be trusted with any level of personal responsibility. Apparently there is an epidemic of people being bashed to death over dinner with a bottle of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc that we have all been blissfully unaware of.

Mr Barrie is absolutely right.

The City of Sydney itself found, in a report in September 2015, that foot traffic and, therefore, also patronage in the Kings Cross area had been smashed by the introduction of these laws. Measured at 11 pm, between 2012 and 2015, it fell by 58 per cent. Measured at l am, it fell by 84 per cent. This has had the entirely predictable result on the businesses in the area.

I will return to Mr Barrie and his very vivid description of the effect it has had on some businesses. I do not know the venues which he talks about, but I trust his judgement on what is a good and a bad late-night venue in Sydney. He writes:

Hugo's Lounge closing, which was the swankiest bar in Sydney for fifteen years and voted Australia's best nightclub five years running, was the last nail in the coffin for the area.

The venue also housed the 130-seat Hugo's Pizza, which had not just won Best Pizza Restaurant in Australia at the Australian Restaurant & Catering Awards, but was also named the World's Best Pizza in the American Pizza Challenge in New York.

…   …   …

Down the road, Jimmy Liks, an upmarket and seductively lit Southeast Asian eatery, wine bar and cocktail bar is likewise bust. A sign hangs out the front "Thank you Sydney for an amazing 14 year journey. NSW Lockout Laws cost good people their jobs and decimated a once great and vibrant suburb!"

Hours have been cut. Staff have been let go. Businesses have closed their doors. People's livelihoods have been destroyed. According to the Kings Cross Liquor Accord, 16 licensed venues have closed since 2014, and 35 shops in the area have also shut their doors. There has been a 40 per cent drop in revenue for Sydney live performance venues alone.

Defenders of the law point out that violence has fallen too. As Senator Leyonhjelm and I have acknowledged, that is true. But it has fallen far less than patronage has. If we reduced foot traffic even further to nothing then of course violence would fall to nothing as well. But this does not justify the policy. Locking everyone in their homes might stop violence, but it should never be acceptable in a free and open society.

A report for the New South Wales government which was released today by the former High Court Justice Ian Callinan recommends that the New South Wales government water down the lockout law modestly. He has proposed, for example, extending some of the times of the lockouts and a few other modifications of some of the restrictions. I think they are modest, sensible recommendations and, at the very least, the New South Wales government should take up these very modest, sensible suggestions.

But my preference, of course, is that they go much further. This sort of nanny state, one-size-fits-all approach is wrong, and it comes at too high a cost. Instead of this nanny state approach, which unfairly punishes law-abiding citizens and businesses, we should instead deal firmly with those who are directly responsible for the violence with sufficient police resources, tough laws for offenders and punishment of rogue venues that flout the law and cause the problems. They are the ones who deserve to be punished, not law-abiding people who choose to go out and have a good night out and not law-abiding businesses who just want to employ people and prosper. They do not deserve to be punished for this. It is the individual perpetrators of these crimes who deserve to be punished. Unfortunately, that is not the approach that was taken by the New South Wales government.

I hope that this report is an opportunity for them to reconsider their policies, because it is having a terrible effect on people's lives. It has had a terrible effect already on the livelihood of these small business operators, which my party, the Liberal Party, says they—and they truly should—always stand up for. We should not be there to give any advantage to bigger businesses, more established businesses, who have the opportunity to lobby for exemptions to the law. We should be there to stand up for these small business people who want to do nothing other than run their late-night venues.