After he took to social media today to let us all know that “it’s going to take a lot for me to change my mind” on Sydney’s Lockout Laws, we’re not sure Mike Baird was expecting an almost unilaterally negative response from Sydney-siders online.
Baird’s post comes only days after Matt Barrie’s scathing article on the havoc the laws have wreaked on Sydney’s hospitality and nightlife industries, with many assuming this is his de facto rebuttal. Barrie wasn’t about to let that go uncontested though, chiming in with the comment below:
Rubbing salt in the wound, Barrie later posted to Twitter linking to a gofundme campaign aiming to raise $4,800 for a bottle of ’59 Grange for Baird, in reference of course to the instigator of the lockout laws Barry O’Farrell’s departure from politics, amid allegations of corruption.
Let’s send @mikebairdMP a ’59 Grange! https://t.co/A9YcAeqFFJ via @gofundme
— Matt Barrie (@matt_barrie) February 9, 2016
Punters as well as music and nightlife industry figures were also not scared of letting the Premier know how they felt about his reasoning. There were plenty of famous faces making their voices heard, everyone from Flight Facilities to Nina Las Vegas and even our favourite Bieber trolling DJ Levins getting involved.
Maybe if wine bars served communion wafers and had priests serve drinks from an altar Mike Baird would be down
— LEVINS (@levdawg) February 9, 2016
Yet some of the most insightful comments came for everyday people, and not all of them the usual suspects you’d expect to be condemning the laws.
“Mr Baird I may be in my fifties but I still know you have it wrong,” said Marree Saville, one of many voices speaking out against the premier’s statement. “Why punish 99% of the population for the lousy less than 1%. Why can’t our residents and visitors visit night clubs late at night, they love to dance and you can’t dance in your petty small wine bars. Why can’t adults purchase a bottle of wine after 10pm. Most people are law abiding but you are dumbing us all down and destroying our city. Shame.”
While there is a wealth of negative comments to choose from, and we really could go on forever about this, one man’s words of vitriol stood out to us here at camp Music Feeds as worth sharing in particular. The one man controversy factory that is The Meeting Tree and One Day crew’s Joyride.
His opening volley took aim at Baird’s hypocrisy, asking if “the catholic church’s involvement in child sexual abuse (so much that it caused a royal commission), how bout we close down all the catholic schools? Or is that too knee jerk? Is that punishing the masses for the crimes of of a few? U fucking rat.”
Not content to let it stop there however, he followed this one up by taking aim at NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione, asking them to “stop shaking the poorest of the poor by the ankles for a fucking second and own up to the atrocities you are causing in this once great state.”
However if the more reasoned and calm rebuttal of Baird’s lecture is more your speed, Keep Sydney Open summed things up pretty well with the below post (remember to like them on Facebook and sign the petition here, as well as email Mike Baird with any thoughts you want to share with him on the issue).
Here is Keep Sydney Open’s post with Joyride’s colourful contributions and some more we didn’t have room for above.
