Update: there’s a rally organised for this week outside of NSW Parliament for when the legislation is tabled.

Shooters and Fishers MP Robert Borsak has called out NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro and moved to scrap lockout laws, up for debate next week.

He’s come out swinging in a lengthy Facebook post taking aim at the lockouts and the impact it’s had on Sydney’s nightlife and its culture.

This comes after the Deputy Premier announced his plan to try and scrap lockouts to coincide with the completion of the light rail, but Borsak believes that it’s not good enough stating

“The Deputy Premier has two options: put up, or shut up. He can either support my bill, or stop paying lip-service to proposals he has no intention of really supporting.”

The key arguments made by Borsak are:

• The light rail has been a disaster
• Small businesses are suffering
• The laws obviously aren’t meaningful otherwise they’d have affected the casino
• John Barilaro had no intention of trying to get support behind his motions to scrap lockouts
• Sydney deserves better

You can read the whole statement below made by the MP, so give it a read and tell us what you think, has he hit the mark with this one?

“The 1:30am lock-outs across the Sydney CBD are killing our city. No other international city of similar standing to Sydney has such a law striking at the heart of its nightlife. 

I’ve lost count of the number of small business owners, residents, and young people who have contacted my office to register their anger at this situation.

It is time that the Liberal Party and the National Party stopped interfering in people’s lives under false pretenses. If they were fair dinkum, the original laws would not have exempted The Star Sydney from the lock-outs.

In the last month, National Party Leader and Deputy Premier John Barilaro called for the lock-outs to be repealed. Since Barilaro has no pulling-power in Cabinet to get this off the ground, I’m doing it for him. 

Every single Member of Parliament will have the chance to have their say on these lock-out laws and it will be up to them to explain their position to their constituents and Sydney’s small business owners.

The Deputy Premier has two options: put up, or shut up. He can either support my bill, or stop paying lip-service to proposals he has no intention of really supporting.

It wasn’t enough for the Liberal Party and the National Party to grind Sydney to a halt with light rail that nobody wants and that goes to nowhere: they had to kill the nightlife in our city as well. They seem to want all Sydneysiders tucked-in bed early, or to travel to Melbourne to have a good time.

Sydney deserves better. “