King Street was "full of zombies staggering in the middle of the road". This was not a scene from creative students' short film entry, but a statement from a local taxi driver of their recent experience in the CBD at 1am on a Saturday morning.
This is the reality of dangerously high levels of intoxication of younger patrons in our biggest crowded pubs, clubs and on our streets, before the commencement of removing and weakening Newcastle's alcohol harm controls.
I suggest a root cause of this conspicuous levels of intoxication is failed Responsible Service of Alcohol (RSA) by licensed premises and related compliance system. This helps explain why our rate of reported non-domestic assaults remains nearly five times higher than the equivalent NSW average rate.
We must avoid the old 2008 alcohol lobby tactic of blame-shifting and accusing our vulnerable young people of a "lack of individual responsibility". This is just a small part of the profit driven alcohol harm equation. Nor should we accept excuses of "illicit" drugs, lack of police, taxis, public transport, CCTVs, out of towners, preloading on cheap booze and rogue operators - a label placed on the former Silk hotel, and the list goes on.
This list of excuses is likely being rehearsed by spin doctors in anticipation of the deadly inevitable consequences of ignoring local health and police recommendations. They advised against increasing pub closing times, removing the curfew, increasing drink strengths and shots and, reintroducing the service of alcohol in glass after midnight.
This is the real horror movie likely to confront the rapidly expanding number of inner-city families, concerned parents and emergency workers.
Our elected leaders provide bipartisan support for the AHA argument against "one size fits all" solutions like the Newcastle conditions. In the same breath, they echo the AHA mantra that Newcastle's alcohol controls must match those of Sydney. This is not rational thinking.
Epidemiological evidence suggests increasing the time of alcohol service can increase the crime. This is rejected as "flawed" by our elected leaders and most Newcastle council representatives.
My concluding university research on NSW's alcohol laws has established intensifying undue influence or "capture" by the alcohol lobby of the law-making and crucial industry compliance and enforcement process. This is a critical factor bearing on the reliability of the trial of removing the Newcastle conditions.
Despite the graphic evidence just mentioned, RSA legal obligations have become notoriously difficult to enforce and ultimately secure any penalty as a form of deterrence. NSW Liquor and Gaming have been unable to provide records for the last five years of numbers of working licensing inspectors suspected of being in significant decline.
January 2021 alcohol law "reforms" substantially reduced the risks of large pubs and clubs to ever receive a sanction/penalty or, have the same quickly removed. They can now rely upon their "size", number of patrons and a lack of the "seriousness" of any injury to excuse the imposition of a penalty.
Imagine a large employer like our former BHP and coal mines successfully relying upon similar excuses for the death or injury of a worker.
It is understood that most harmful alcohol related incidents linked to failed RSA are not violence related. For example, young intoxicated pub patrons being struck by cars and killed or maimed whilst staggering down the middle of King Street at 1am or 4am on a Wednesday "uni night" or weekend morning. Pub owners are not usually held accountable for these predictable harms.
Secondly, the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research found in Sydney that most criminal violent incidents linked with failed RSA, occur outside a pub within a 200m radius. Again, the alcohol laws operate to exonerate most pub owners from any responsibility once an intoxicated patron leaves a licensed premise despite profiting from the many who drink to get drunk over extended trading hours.
The big pub trial dominated by industry interests including the AHA, is unlikely to take these factors into account. If the concluded low risk small bar trial is any form guide, the big pubs' result is likely to be an expensive cover-up, whitewash and suppression of all sound advice contrary to what the powerful alcohol lobby demands. Alcohol violence in our CBD is running off the rails.
I bring this evidence to readers to emphasise lethal flaws in the process to legitimate a foregone political conclusion of removing Newcastle's and Hamilton's alcohol controls for pubs and clubs. The likely result being failed governance and insufficient emergency department, ambulance and police resources.
Tony Brown is a PhD (Law) candidate and Conjoint Fellow School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle.
- A meeting of community members who support the retention and strengthening of the Newcastle liquor licensing conditions including guest speakers, is being held 5.50pm, April 22, 2021 St John's Church Hall Cooks Hill. RSVP required ncgnetwork2020@gmail.com
