My first reaction was, I can't believe Mike Baird is losing his electoral mojo over something as ridiculous as a passionate defence of semi-prohibition on social media.
Social media is the one place where people that are anti-lockout laws congregate! Save your argument for populist reactionary laws for like, literally anywhere else, where it will play well.
Up until now Mike Baird was the golden child of Australian politics, in that people thought he might not be completely evil like everyone else in politics.
And now he's #casinomike.
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The hashtag happened because people made the obvious point that the geography of the lockout area is a strange shape that conveniently excludes Star City Casino, as well as Barangaroo, site of Packer's future casino.
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| Restricted fun area highlighted |
That's because gambling has never had any association with crime and social disorder.
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I'm so happy I'm old and boring now and these laws don't really affect me.
The kids these days will, for example, never experience the surreal disorientation of coming out of a dark venue into broad daylight, reeking of sweat, booze and regret that you didn't bring sunglasses. Also, regret that you have written off the next two days of your life.
But everything else about these laws is terrible.
It must be the worst for the youth that just got through further education and/or entry level employment, finally got a real job and some serious coin, then - boom! - lockout laws. So now instead of having fun on weekends carelessly wasting their disposable income, they are probably do boring stuff like playing X-Box, or saving for a house deposit.
What an awful way to spend your early-to-mid 20s.
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Mike Baird's Facebook rant was written from the perspective of someone who watched Footloose and mistakenly thought Kevin Bacon's character was the villain.
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There have been a lot of arguments about statistics. The numbers seem to vary, probably because you can come up with statistics to prove anything. Forty percent of all people know that.
But all the numbers seem to indicate that the decline in assaults is a lower number than the decline in people visiting Kings Cross. It is possibly less safe to walk down the street there now than before.
Another number: 2am.
That's when the lockouts happen, and it is later than almost all the most publicised one-punch assaults.
There has also been no effort to address the underlying causes to drunken violence in Australia. It isn't booze being available around the clock causing assaults, because there are plenty of places globally where it is and there aren't many.
The current approach is to reduce assaults only through destroying businesses (that aren't casinos), culture and tourism.
It's like treating a headache through decapitation.
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