“The Place Is A Morgue”: Alan Jones Just Scorched Sydney’s Lockout Laws

Proving that a broken clock really is right twice a day, notorious shock jock and all-around douchebag Alan Jones has unloaded on Sydney’s lockout laws.

Jones, whose views have always hovered somewhere between upsetting and genuinely horrific, took particular issue with the toll that the laws have had on small businesses.

“These laws have crippled business and crippled Sydney as an international city,” Jones argued on his morning radio show on 2GB. “Its reputation has been damaged. They should be abandoned. Open up the city.”

“The lockout laws were typically a knee-jerk reaction to the tragic death of a young man.” Alan Jones has let rip at Sydney’s lockout laws in a scathing on-air rant. https://t.co/zNPCyh73EG

— news.com.au (@newscomauHQ) May 28, 2019

More surprisingly still, Jones demonstrated an understanding of the key problem with the lockout laws — that extra legislation and police presence is no way to solve most, if any, contemporary social issues. “You dopes,” Jones railed against the government. “Of course [violence] has declined. There’s no one there to be violent towards. The place is a morgue.”

Jones’ comments were inspired by news that the government is looking to “relax” the lockout laws. Premier Gladys Berejiklian, who inherited the draconian laws from her predecessor Mike Baird (who in turn inherited them from Barry O’Farrell) has announced that it is finally time to “take stock” of the effect that the legislation has had on business and on crime, and will launch a parliamentary committee to examine how they might be loosened.

“We have always sought to strike a balance between limiting alcohol-related violence and maintaining a vibrant night-time economy,” Berejiklian announced to the media in a statement.

Good news, cracks are appearing in the government’s position. These heavy handed laws need to be repealed not just relaxed. Time for all politicians to start listening and stop lecturing musicians and music lovers https://t.co/hMofNNbR2u

— Darcy Byrne (@MayorDarcy) May 28, 2019

Clearly, that balance has not been struck. As Jones rightly pointed out, local businesses have been decimated across the CBD, and a flood of the worst kind of precious, anti-culture high rise resident has filled the void. Live music has suffered; culture and entertainment have come under attack; and Sydney has irreversibly changed.

Let us just hope that this “relaxing” of the laws is a proper review and overturning of the legislation that has strangled one of Australia’s once most vibrant cities, rather than a tokenistic, throwaway line from a famously philistinic politician.