Flight Facilities, Nina Las Vegas And More Slam Mike Baird About His Stance On The Lockouts

9 February 2016 | 4:18 pm | Staff Writer

"I can't work within the lockout zones and am continually explaining to international visitors WHY our city is no longer somewhere you would want to perform."

Flight Facilities, Nina Las Vegas

Flight Facilities, Nina Las Vegas

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Penning a piece on Facebook earlier today about the controversial lockout laws that are "so clearly improving our city", Premier Mike Baird has been met with the resounding echoes of people protesting how "out of touch" and "ignorant" his rhetoric is.

Baird wrote, "The main complaints seem to be that you can’t drink till dawn any more and you can’t impulse-buy a bottle of white after 10pm.

"I understand that this presents an inconvenience. Some say this makes us an international embarrassment. Except, assaults are down by 42.2 per cent."

With Baird starting to comment back to some people, here are some prominent people weighing in in the post's comments.

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Matt Barrie, author of the infamous LinkedIn article that went viral last week, wrote, "I am glad you finally found your social media logins. Here's a statistic for you Mike: 927,000 reads of my article, #1 on LinkenIn [sic] Globally, #1 for reddit/r/sydney, and of 950 comments, 84.9% agreed that you you have destroyed the city's reputation, small businesses, jobs or Sydney's social & cultural fabric, 8.7% were neutral or had no comment, and only 6.4% agreed with you."

Flight Facilities wrote, "How about you let the public vote on the issue instead of an out of touch group of suits? If you were elected represent a majority, perhaps you should find out if they agree with you."

Keep Sydney Open, a 20,000 strong community of people advocating for the removal of lockout laws, wrote, "Mr Baird, this statement has clearly been made by someone that has very little engagement with the inner-city of Sydney. That anyone would need a report to make a decision on nightlife in Sydney is very telling. If you walked around the streets at midnight you would get a sense of how eerie parts of the city now are, and how once-vibrant areas are now soulless."

Ex-triple j House Party host and DJ Nina Las Vegas said, "As a Kings Cross resident, I feel unsafe to walk home as there is literally NO ONE around, including police officers. As a nightclub DJ and promoter, I can't work within the lockout zones and am continually explaining to international visitors WHY our city is no longer somewhere you would want to perform. I've seen too many businesses close, empty cabs, lost night shifts and closed venues to believe that Sydney is 'more vibrant than ever'. It's heartbreaking."

With many showcasing their own statistics and arguments to rival Baird's, others noted the obvious detail that less people out on the streets would result in less violence.

"One more thing - if you're so against deaths and so pro moralising, focus on ladders. Ladders caused 2.5 times the number of deaths than assaults in the CBD over a 10 year period."

"Less people out, should result in less assaults. A percentage of assaults comparative to the number of people going out would be a more relevant stat."

"I'd love to see a list of all the women who've made statements that they 'feel safer walking home at night'. Coming from someone who is in fact a woman and works in the late night music industry, there is absolutely NO WAY I feel safer with the sparse amount of foot traffic on the streets. You are an absolute, out of touch, armchair politician who has no idea what you're talking about let alone the repercussions of your idiotic actions."