The Queensland government may dump plans for a 1am lockout in city pubs and clubs if shorter trading hours and drink restrictions are shown to have reduced violence.
The government will consider whether its “one-way door” policy in entertainment precincts, due to be introduced in February, is unnecessary in light of a pending justice department review of data on late-night assaults.
It is weighing up whether a strengthened identification scanning and banning scheme run by licensed venues, as well as other options, are a viable alternative, the Courier-Mail reported.
This follows recent negotiations between the government and venue operators, amid an anti-lockout campaign by music scene advocates including the prominent construction company chief and live venue owner Scott Hutchinson.
The justice department is analysing assault numbers since the winding back of late-night trading hours from 5am to 3am and the banning of high-alcohol shots after midnight last July.
The deputy premier, Jackie Trad, said she understood it was a “passionate issue” but the government would “not preempt the research data” on the first six months of those changes, due in coming weeks.
Trad did not rule out scrapping the lockout.
“The government has honoured an election commitment by introducing laws that reduce the hours when alcohol can be served after midnight,” she said. “All the evidence in Australia and overseas shows that reducing the service of alocohol after midnight is the most effective measure to reduce alcohol-fuelled violence.”
Hutchinson, who had vowed to bankroll a campaign to trigger a youth vote backlash against the government in the next state election, said its newfound openness to alternatives to a lockout was “wonderful news”.
He said the lockout would kill the live music scene and he was aware of local musicians who had already moved to Melbourne in anticipation of its effect.
“If [the government is] able to admit their mistakes, it’s a good thing,” he said, adding he was among those who had held talks with the government in recent months.
“I think it’s certainly heading in the right direction [but] we just don’t know what they’re going to give us. Ultimately we’d like music to have the same rights as gambling, which is 24/7 at the casinos.
“But we’re making some progress, which is great to see.”
To protest against the social effects of a lockout, Hutchinson commissioned an artwork by Los Angeles-based Jonathan Zawada, Blackout in a Glasshouse, and installed it last month in the Brunswick Street mall, at the heart of Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley party precinct.
Hutchinson said Brisbane’s music scene was already under pressure from inner-city gentrification and the government should be following the lead of cities overseas like Berlin and Amsterdam and take steps to foster that local culture.
Acting opposition leader, Deb Frecklington, said speculation about the government scrapping a 1am lockout, if true, amounted to “a backflip of epic proportions”.
She called on Annastcaia Palasczuk to “come back from holidays, hose down the speculation and rule out the 1am lockout laws once and for all”.
“The 1 February start date has not yet been scrapped,” Frecklington said.
“What we have is the wannabe premier Jackie Trad trying to cash in on Annastacia Palaszczuk’s absence by grabbing a headline, all the while refusing to guarantee that the lockout will go.
“The LNP opposition has tirelessly pressured the Palaszczuk Government to scrap these bad laws. Laws that would punish the majority for the sins of a few. Laws that would have devastated the state’s hard-fought reputation as a world-class cultural and entertainment destination. Laws that would have cost thousands of jobs.
“For two years Queenslanders and licensed venues have been under a cloud of uncertainty with Labor’s nanny state lockout laws and all they’ve been handed today is more ambiguity and mixed messages.”
The Palaszczuk government, under pressure from Katter’s Australian party crossbenchers, had deferred the lockout, which was part of its platform to tackle drink-fuelled violence at the last election in response to a number of highly publicised fatal assaults.
The New South Wales premier, Mike Baird, last month announced a relaxation in that state’s lockout laws that would extend closing hours to 3.30am and the lockout to 2am if entertainment was provided.
Queensland venue operators have proposed the Palaszczuk government at least delay its introduction of a lockout for another 12 months in exchange for venues upgrading their scanning facilities, the Courier-Mail reported.
The government is still consulting on how a mandatory banning regime would work, including how venues – some of which have complained of a reluctance by magistrates courts to order bans on offenders – would enforce it.
