Are the Sydney Lockouts Pushing Violence from Kings Cross to Newtown?

Overview

Could the violence of Kings Cross be jumping ship over to Newtown? Could this be a direct result of the lockouts? Are LGBTQI Sydneysiders losing their safe haven of diversity? Transgender musician Stephanie McCarthy has reason to believe in all of the above, fronting a 300-strong rally on Monday after she was brutally bashed at Newtown's Town Hall Hotel on Friday night.

Hundreds of supporters rallied in Newtown on Monday, against alcohol-fuelled violence, transphobia, prejudice and discrimination against transgender people, after McCarthy was allegedly attacked by four men before her own show at the Townie on Friday night. According to McCarthy's statement, her hair was pulled, she was called a 'f****t' and was left bloody and bruised with a black eye.

"I know that the physical scars will heal, but this is going to take so long to heal," McCarthy told the Sydney Morning Herald. "This isn't the first time I've been assaulted and sadly I know it won't be the last ... I'm just one in a long line of people who've been assaulted in Newtown in the last few years, for no reason at all, just for who you are." McCarthy directly blames the lockout laws for the rise in assaults in Newtown.

“I’ve heard stories of gay bashings, racist attacks, women getting hit,” she said. “I personally believe it's down to the lockout. There are people coming out on Friday and Saturday nights that never used to go out in Newtown, and they’re just here to bash people ... They’re just here to get loaded on drinks and drugs and fight.

"This used to be one of the best places in Australia for all kinds of people. The diversity was special and now we have people who prey on that. This area is getting destroyed." 

So has the level of violence in Newtown risen since the lockout laws were instated in February 2014? Police are yet to deliver official statistics, but McCarthy is sure the incidence of violent assaults in the suburb has gone up since the lockouts, telling Fairfax that she and her LGBTQI friends had experienced significantly more attacks and abuse in the last year.

The last numbers we've seen are in this review by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, done in April 2015. The report found that the number of non-domestic violence related assaults in Sydney's central areas (Kings Cross, Oxford Street, George Street and The Rocks in particular) had gone down since the lockouts. It didn't record a rise in assaults in surrounding, non-lockout suburbs like Surry Hills, Pyrmont, Bondi and Newtown. But if incidents are indeed rising as McCarthy and her friends suggest, this could possibly be attributed to a lack of reported incidents — a tendency with many LGBTQI people who've been harassed — or it could be that incidents have indeed gone unchanged.

McCarthy's not just pointing fingers, she's seen the effect of lockout laws on surrounding suburbs firsthand — she grew up in Newcastle, where the same happened to fringe suburbs after lockouts were rolled out. McCarthy says she moved to Newtown because it was a safe space for LGBTQI people, celebrating diversity without threat or judgement. Now, McCarthy's not so optimistic for the future of the suburb. "It’s just so upsetting knowing that this special area is getting destroyed, because of a law that’s meant to protect people from violence. It might well make Kings Cross safer, but it’s destroying Newtown."

Via SMH.

Top image: Paul McCarthy, Wikimedia Commons.