Barry O’Farrell and the Draconian Laws

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22/01/2014 by jcje833

Scenes like this are becoming worryingly frequent in the Cross

As most people reading this are probably aware, Sydney has recently suffered a string of highly publicised acts of violence in the city’s night life Mecca – Kings Cross – in which people are now being killed because of king hits by roided up dickheads seemingly only going out to cause trouble for innocent party goers. Naturally there has been a huge public outcry over each fatal incident, and rightly so, and the government has been implored to do something to curb the random acts of violence. It came as no surprise then when earlier this week, NSW premier Barry O’Farrell announced a raft of tough laws to try and combat the problem. In brief, said laws would impose lockouts from 1:30am for clubs in the Cross, as well as bans on serving alcohol after 3am.

Unfortunately, what also isn’t surprising is the instant and rage fueled backlash on social media, with many deeming the new laws proposed by O’Farrell as ‘Draconian’ in nature. Petitions have already been organised and club owners have taken little time to fall into the innocent and helpless victim role if the new laws go into effect.

Now while I agree with some of the sentiment that lockouts and alcohol cut offs might not make a huge difference – particularly as the two fatal incidents which have occurred so far happened before midnight – I think it is a bit of stretch to call said laws Draconian. Also, I applaud the premier for at least trying to do something about such a serious and dangerous problem before it gets any worse.

And yet take a glance at social media juggernauts Twitter or Facebook and he’s suddenly worse than Hitler. But to all those who are outraged by the proposals, what were you expecting? While it is of course a minority ruining it for the majority, that minority are now FREAKING KILLING PEOPLE. And honestly, if you’re that upset about not being able to get a drink after 3am then I’m sorry but I’m not going to be able to take any argument, informed or otherwise, seriously.

So what do we do from here? As I mentioned earlier, I don’t completely agree with the proposed laws, but will gladly accept them if no over alternatives are offered. So instead of raging about how you’re not going to be able to keep your buzz or risk having to go home if you get kicked out of the club after 1:30am, start a real discussion about possible alternatives. Until we can stamp out the section of our society that thinks it’s ok to go out and act like an asshole though, we’re just going to have to get used to such devastatingly ‘Draconian’ laws.