PRIME Minister Tony Abbott is speaking up on Sydney's alcohol-fuelled violence crisis because his state counterpart has been all too silent, the NSW opposition says.
Acting NSW Labor leader Linda Burney took aim at Mr Abbott on Friday after he wrote an opinion piece for News Corps Australia's Sydney tabloid, the Daily Telegraph, about the need to tackle a culture of binge-drinking and alcohol-related violence.
It follows a string of brutal assaults in Sydney nightspots and a debate over whether the so-called Newcastle model, licensing restrictions introduced there to curb alcohol-related attacks, could curb the violence.
The Newcastle model is supported by NSW Labor.
"I'm sick of the fact that alcohol-fuelled violence has turned places that should be entertainment precincts into 'no-go zones'," Mr Abbott wrote on Friday.
"It is well known that as a university student I played rugby and boxed.
"Boxing taught me many things, including the power of a single punch.
"If there's danger from a single punch in a boxing ring, it is multiplied exponentially when it's delivered to an unsuspecting or unprepared victim on a concrete footpath, or in a crowded pub or club."
Ms Burney said she was "baffled" as to why the federal coalition leader weighed in with rhetoric rather than federal policies that could cut down binge-drinking.
"[NSW Premier] Barry O'Farrell is completely absent on this issue of alcohol-fuelled violence, and the prime minister is now trying to paper over that vacancy," Ms Burney told reporters in Sydney on Friday afternoon.
"I read the prime minister's two-page open letter to the Telegraph this morning and it's 10 minutes of my life I'll never get back."
Mr O'Farrell has previously rejected NSW opposition calls for a blanket trial of the Newcastle model along George Street in the Sydney CBD and in Kings Cross, but has announced measures including ID scanners at pubs and clubs in the Cross.
"The prime minister is papering over the fact that the O'Farrell government has got no idea about where and how they're going to deal with alcohol-fuelled violence," Ms Burney said.
"What did the prime minister say that the federal government could do?
"He didn't talk about making alcohol more expensive through volumetric taxation, he didn't talk about advertising at all.
"These are the things that he could have spoken about. Instead he talked about his boxing career," Ms Burney said.
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