Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore has penned another opinion piece slamming the New South Wales Government’s lockout laws, renewing calls for a safer, more balanced nightlife while also calling for 24-hour transport on weekends in Sydney.
Earlier this year Moore came out swinging against Mike Baird’s “once-size-fits-all” lockout laws, advocating for increased transport options and advocating for well-behaved venues to be exempt from the 3am last drinks law.
Now, after news emerged earlier this month that the NSW Government was considering trialing more late-night transport – Moore has said that Sydney should be adopting a model similar to that used in London; which is in the middle of implementing 24-hour transport on weekends.
“What we’ve seen in Sydney is that the problems start when transport options don’t exist and crowds are left stranded out on the streets,” Moore wrote in her piece for The Guardian Australia. “With buses parked for the night and train stations inexplicably shut, nights out in Sydney have traditionally descended into pitched battle for cabs or long walks home.”
“We’ve been urging successive state governments to run trains 24-hours for nearly a decade. But in Sydney, it’s the state government, not the City Council, that has power to make the key changes.”
Moore says that the solution lies in having more options for people at night, not locking them out. Improved facilities including lighting and toilets, small bars and live music venues will help to keep Sydney a “global city.”
She reiterated some key changes that need to happen for Sydney to keep running 24/7. These changes include 24-hour public transport on weekends, the removal of lifetime liquor licenses in favour of renewable licences, and new measures to manage venue concentration including the introduction of “saturation zone” rules that limit the number of licensed premises in one spot.
The NSW Government’s Liquor Law Review is due out any day now, so it seems like we’ll have a better idea of the direction that Sydney will be moving in sooner rather than later.
