Early to bed Sydney bucks the world trend

The new Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, last week announced the long-mooted beginning of 24-hour tube services in London.

While public transport evangelism is hardly novel for those of a certain political persuasion, what is interesting about Khan’s pursuit of the venture is the reason he gives for doing so. Specifically, he speaks of his “plans to support and grow London’s night-time economy — creating more jobs and opportunities.”

Jobs and opportunities! If only the people in charge of the Emerald City had such a firm grasp of free market economics as a Fabian socialist like Khan.

For all her other faults, the Mayor of the City of Sydney, Clover Moore, at least pays lip service to these ideas. It just happens her idea of ‘support’ almost exclusively involves ratepayers’ money being spent on the deeply weird and frankly baffling.

Anti-lockout campaign group Keep Sydney Open has supported following in the footsteps of other major world cities like Amsterdam, Paris and Zurich and creating a ‘Night Mayor’, who can bridge the gap between homebody bureaucrats and a vibrant night market.

But truth be told, this one’s on the state government. The economic problems in the heart of the city — perhaps best exemplified by the state of commercial property values — all come back to the hand-wringers up the road from us in Macquarie St. The government’s lockout laws have contributed to declines in foot traffic and a per-capita increase in violence.

Fun thou shalt not have; back to Baird thou shalt go.

On the other hand, while state government regulations are relatively easy to find and the ministers responsible easy to track down and berate, the same is not true of local councils that enforce all sorts of barmy restrictions, as a hapless Oporto in Bondi recently discovered.

Trading restrictions imposed at the local level can shift demographic changes in foot traffic which can give social license to exactly the kinds of anti-social behaviour the lockouts are intended to stop. Indeed, that is exactly the kind of policy night mayors are tasked with enacting.

If our state government and local councils could just get together and decide to set the market free, we might just find that the problem largely takes care of itself. But why let commerce run its course when the government could just meddle some more?