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NSW has overhauled a suite of legislation to kickstart the state’s night-time economy. Photograph: Maciej Dakowicz/Alamy
NSW has overhauled a suite of legislation to kickstart the state’s night-time economy. Photograph: Maciej Dakowicz/Alamy

'The changes really are monumental': live music industry celebrates huge overhaul of NSW laws

This article is more than 3 years old

Rules about music genres and bans on disco balls are just some of the archaic restrictions thrown out in sweeping regulatory revamp

For more than 30 years the South Dubbo Tavern has been operating under bizarre conditions of a liquor licence that permitted only small cover bands to perform in the venue.

The conditions meant the owner, Lee Green, could hire a trio of musicians performing Cold Chisel songs, but if Jimmy Barnes and his band were to show up at the Dubbo hotel, Green would be in breach of his licence if he allowed them to perform.

“It says I’m allowed solos, duos, cover bands and country music bands, but no rock bands,” Green told Guardian Australia.

“It doesn’t make much sense to me … but then this [licensing agreement] was written in 1989 … so yeah, you could say it’s a bit outdated.”

Meanwhile at the Longyard Hotel in Tamworth, live bands can only play outdoors facing a southerly direction. The staging restrictions give musicians no reprieve from the sweltering January sun during the Tamworth country music festival.

These are just two examples embedded in New South Wales’s antiquated liquor, planning, local government and building laws, that were effectively tossed out of state parliament on Tuesday night.

The live performance industry has described the overnight passage of the Liquor Amendment (24-hour Economy) Bill 2020 through the lower house of NSW state parliament as the biggest overhaul of legislation restricting the now Covid-19 ravaged industry in the state’s history.

“It’s a bucket list of a bucket list,” said John Wardle, the policy director for the Live Music Office.

“No longer can the bureaucracy dictate what genre of music a venue is allowed to play, how many musicians are allowed to play, how many and what kind of instruments are allowed to be played, and what direction they can play in. The changes really are monumental.”

The changes don’t only affect pubs. The state government’s 24-hour economy bill that brings in sweeping change to liquor legislation also means clothing stores can host fashion parades (with or without live music), bookstores can be converted into temporary performance spaces, and even a hairdressing salon can host a soiree if it so chooses.

Live entertainment prohibitions on suburban restaurants and small bars will be removed, and perhaps one of the more arcane bans – discos balls in venues not licensed as nightclubs – also becomes history.

In theory, the people of NSW can now dance wherever they choose, albeit in a Covid-safe way, for the time being.

Expect to see more disco balls in live music venues in NSW. Photograph: Alamy

“The NSW government has finally recognised the difference between people who go to live performance venues to listen to music, and people who go to beer barns to get smashed,” one industry insider told Guardian Australia.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime suite of changes,” said Kerri Glasscock, the director of the Sydney Fringe festival that relies heavily on the adaptive and temporary reuse of space, from shopfronts to warehouses to restaurants.

“It means we can essentially stage events anywhere that’s not a residential space,” Glasscock told Guardian Australia.

“This is a real game changer ... and as we move into the recovery phase of Covid, the timing couldn’t be better,” she said.

“NSW has for many years fallen short in supporting and clearing the way for cultural activity to be possible and it now leads the country in best practice so it’s very exciting … I think it will have a knock-on effect to other states in the future.”

The bill is the product of years of research and negotiation between the government and the industry, and has drawn upon the more liberal live performance and liquor legislation found in almost every other state and territory in Australia.

It has cherry-picked best-practice legislation from Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory, in everything from cutting red tape in planning and liquor licensing requirements for live performance venues, to protecting venues from overzealous local councils on issues of noise restrictions and public amenity.

The establishment of designated cultural precincts, adopted from Brisbane, means areas with established live music and cultural activities cannot be subsequently subject to noise restrictions as new residential developments encroach, and gives venues that offer live music to patrons extended trading hours and as much as an 80% discount on licensing fees – inspired by the Northern Territory model.

NSW minister for customer service Victor Dominello says the new laws will create a vibrant and safe 24-hour economy. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP

More than 600 pieces of legislation governing liquor licensing, council development consents and building codes have been overhauled, in what appears to be an extraordinary exercise in bipartisanship between the NSW Liberal government’s liquor and gaming minister, Victor Dominello, the tourism minister, Stuart Ayres, the Labor opposition and crossbenchers.

When the bill passed through the upper house last Thursday, Dominello said the new laws would create a vibrant and safe 24-hour economy, with risk-based liquor laws that supported business.

“The economy doesn’t go to sleep after dark and we need laws that cater for a 21st century economy,” he said.

Labor and the Greens negotiated more than 60 amendments to the bill.

The opposition spokesperson for music and the night-time economy, John Graham, said the amendments “drastically reshaped” the bill to “prosecute a pro-music, pro-venue agenda” that would provide incentives for those venues that opt for music, “rather than just relying on alcohol and pokie revenue”.

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