The people of Australia, especially those residing in NSW, are perennially finding themselves dismayed after asking the wrong people to make the right decisions. From the plebiscite to the Wesconnex, local council mergers and now the lockout laws, it should come as no surprise that when you ask conservative, old white men to think of the future that they find themselves inextricably locked in the past.
So it is with ex-Justice Callinan’s findings on the state of Sydney’s nightlife in the wake of a particularly punitive set of laws designed to tar many with the brush soaked by the blood of a few.
You have to have some sympathy for Callinan, who at nearly 80 years of age, is at least two whole generations removed from those most likely affected by his recommendations. And no, we don’t mean prospective Kings Cross property owners, or hysterical St Vincent’s staff who have decided that this is their moment in the sun. We mean young people.
As well as being out of touch physically, Callinan shares with Premier Mike Baird a clear sense of being out of touch generally. His findings, which largely say nothing of import and couch answers in deliberately vague language, manage to nonetheless maintain that ‘mechanically reproduced music’, or what we whippersnappers call DJing, does not constitute live music, or what Mike Baird calls Midnight Oil.
Callinan may not have heard of Flight Facilities, whose career began by playing mechanically reproduced music at Hugos in Kings Cross. But even the Premier would have noticed that this has taken them to the point where they’ve managed to pull up a fading art form – orchestral music – in front of a crowd of 15,000 people.
The overall sense one gets from Callinan, a Queensland-based judge who seems exasperated by the prospect of even looking at the 1800 submissions is that it’s all a bit too hard. 24-hour transport is a good idea, but it’s too expensive and too hard. Being more like Melbourne isn’t such a bad thing, but finding out why we aren’t is too hard. We could measure the economic impact of lockout laws on live entertainment precincts, music and culture, but hey, it’s just too hard.
What’s easy is reading one submission copied and pasted twenty times by everyone from the Cancer Council to St Vincent’s and NSW Police. The proponents of the lockout laws, like Mike Baird, know that justice is regularly served by old white men who simply cannot be fucked anymore, so making it easier for them by using the same messaging works wonders.
Callinan tries to be hip with the kids - you have to give him credit for that. He mentions digital disruption, which is pretty cool, except than he implies that this will save a music industry that basically needs ticket sales to survive.
He says we could have live sessions much earlier, you know, at the time your grandparents go to the Palace Verona to see a matinee. This sounds capital. You’ll just have to let work know that you need to be out the door at 4pm because otherwise you’ll miss Matt Corby’s entire set.
As they say in the business world, you get what you pay for. We asked a guy whose last foray into late night entertainment was probably the original staging of Hair and seem surprised that he didn’t get it.
The entire hoo-hah around trialling lockouts to 2am is a convenient way to make it look like Callinan is listening, when in actuality, he never had any intention of removing his cotton wool in the first place. It’s a joke, just like these findings.
But then again, Ian Callinan was born in Casino. And if Mike Baird has shown us nothing else, it’s that this is where all culture truly lives.
Jonathan Seidler is a journalist from Sydney. His work has appeared in SMH, The Guardian, Monocle and Broadsheet.
