Andrew Maher, pictured, was viciously beaten on the streets of Newcastle. Picture: Margaret Frost
JOE Frost knows all about the fight against lockout laws.
He and his cousin Andrew Maher became unwilling poster-boys for Newcastle’s curfew after they were beaten up on the streets at 2am as they walked home from the pub.
Then a 23-year-old bartender, Joe was horrified at being used to help push to restrict the city’s night-life in 2007, and began speaking out against the plans at town meetings and in the media.
But he failed. In 2014, Sydney was presented with the ‘Newcastle Solution’ by then-NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell, a successful policy that had massively reduced violence.
So Joe knows all about the Matt Barrie arguments that ignited the debate, and he knows why they won’t work.
“We were walking home from the pub one night and these guys hiding on the edge of Civic Park behind trees surrounded us,” the Conversant Media editor, who has written an open letter to Sydney on Techly, told news.com.au.
“One punched me and my cousin threw himself on top of me on to the ground, where they just kicked us. He had a black eye and gashes on his face.
“They didn’t take our wallets or phones, they were just looking for someone to beat up.”
Joe Frost became an unwilling poster-boy for the lockout laws after the attack on him and his cousin.
Joe was furious at what had happened. When other people told him he should have avoided that area at night, he felt he was being “victim blamed”. The park was right beside the town hall. “You should feel safe walking home,” he said.
The Newcastle Herald picked up the story and ran a photo of Andrew’s injuries with the headline, ‘Battered: the face of our city after dark’.
There was outrage. That same year, 88-year-old Lillie Wood had died at her home in a city suburb while being robbed by two people, one of whom was charged with manslaughter and admitted to having taken methamphetamine.
At around the same time, grocer Frank Newbery was stabbed to death in his store on a Monday afternoon. Everyone, including Joe, agreed something should be done about violence in the city.
The bartender took on the politicians, but his arguments against the curfew failed, and he’s worried the same will happen to Syndey campaigners.
What he hadn’t expected was the call for a midnight shutdown of city pubs, with a 10pm lockout. Joe was a bartender — under the new laws, if he finished work at 1am, he wouldn’t be able to go for a drink.
He decided to create the 2007 equivalent of Barrie’s viral LinkedIn post and tweet — he made a MySpace page, Save our Newcastle. With thousands of people signing up, Joe met with the city’s state and federal MPs, Lord Mayor and council, and organised a meeting between police and representatives of the hospitality industry. His arguments were much like the ones Sydney is hearing now. They didn’t work.
“The story that was pushed was that it was irresponsible pub owners,” said Joe. “It becomes the fault of the last place the person was.
“Everyone being bottled, glassed or beaten up wasn’t in a pub or club, they were on the street.
“The people we were beaten up by weren’t dressed up for a night out.”
Joe pointed out that Ms Wood was killed by someone who was using drugs, and Mr Newbery was killed in the middle of the day. He said that lockout laws would damage business for bars, the live music scene and the city’s popularity with visitors. He even showed that “concerned citizens” backing the idea were often “middle-aged people who lived near pubs” and were sick of the noise and mess on their streets.
Instead of curfews, he proposed street marshals, better public transport to remove people from the busiest areas, more CCTV and a greater police presence.
One of the most frustrating moments was when the officers told a group of bartenders he had gathered, for whom Friday and Saturday nights were their bread and butter: “Cops don’t want to work on weekends”.
The problem, Joe says, is that all the measures he suggested were costly and would take time, whereas having pubs, bars and bottle shops shut their doors has an immediate and dramatic effect in reducing violence.
Lockout is a fast, cheap and easy solution for NSW Premier Mike Baird.Source:News Corp Australia
“Lockout stops those migratory movements where people say, ‘let’s go on to a different pub’. The streets are safer if no one’s on them. If you shut all the roads, no one’s going to die in an automobile accident. It works, but it’s lazy.”
Since NSW Premier Mike Baird has come under attack, he has promised a review of the lockout laws, and invited business owners and other stakeholders to have their say.
But in an interview with Fitzy and Wippa on Nova FM this morning, he maintained his position, describing the hurt felt by relatives of Thomas Kelly, who was killed in an unprovoked attack in Kings Cross.
“I want people to have as much fun as possible,” he said. “It’s difficult, but potentially lives are being saved. We will have a thorough process, an expert group will look at it, make recommendations and we’ll listen. My encouragement to people is to be part of that.”
Mr Baird said doctors, nurses and paramedics would do anything not to return to the violence of two years ago, to save just one life — and he has the stats to back it up.
Dr Don Weatherburn, director of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, said Mr Baird was right in identifying a decline in assaults across Sydney’s CBD. But he said the laws had simply accelerated a downward trend that began back in 2008, with a 40 per cent drop in Kings Cross and 20 per cent drop in the CBD. He denied there had been an increase in assaults in areas outside the lockout zone, as has been claimed in Newtown.
Sydneysider Max Hardwick-Morris, who is in hospital awaiting a follow-up appointment after being “coward-punched” on Australia Day, is one of the many people backing up Joe’s comments.
He wrote an open letter to Mr Baird on Facebook to express “disdain” for the Premier using violent attacks “to further your political agenda”.
He said the fact the Star casino and Barangaroo were exempt raised questions over the government’s motivations, while calling Sydney “an absolute ghost town”.
“It’s become an international joke,” wrote Mr Hardwick-Morris. “Mr Baird, you’re killing Sydney’s economy, you’re killing small business, you’re killing Sydney’s music scene, you’re killing Sydney’s reputation, you’re killing the youth’s relationship with the government and you’re killing fun.
“I really hope you sit down and read these emails, the articles on the internet, the memes mocking your policies, use an actual independent source to review the laws and above all else, listen to the review and don’t reject it before you read it like you already seem to be doing.”
Joe believes campaigners will need to offer strong alternatives, rather than talking about lost jobs, lack of night-life and the problems with drugs.
“You’re not going to win fighting on these terms,” said Joe. “Politicians will say, ‘I’m going to do what’s right, not what’s popular’.
“You look for better options. If the streets are unsafe, here’s how we’re going to make them safe. That’s what you’ve got to bring.”
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