11/02/2019
NSW government insisted Mountain Sounds Festival organisers pay $200k for extra police for their festival. $184,000 more than last year.
Why? Why should they just fork it out?
How? Charge every person an extra $20?
What? What does this achieve?
NSW is sick of feeling like we have helicopter parents in Government always looking out for “our safety”.
Dear Australia,
It breaks our heart to say the NSW Government has well and truly crossed the line.
Now it’s truly personal, they’ve decided to bin something extremely special to us. Something loved dearly by almost every person on the entire Central Coast of NSW and abroad.
By introducing a $200,000 “police and safety” fee, an extortionate 1250% increase in which last year was only $16,000 just ONE WEEK out from the festival doors open, NSW Gov. has decided to kill Mountain Sounds Festival. 😪 Gladys Berejiklian says she wants festivals to continue and to grow, how exactly do they grow with a $184,000 increase in police costs? Forcing festivals to pay these costs even though out of 15,000 attendees last year there were only 49 drug detections. 49. There were no drug deaths, no drug violcence, nothing to justify an increase in police costs.
If you don’t care for enjoyment of people at least appreciate the economic impact of this. Hundreds of festivals workers livelihoods are gone now, from the people behind the scenes setting it up, artists and punters who had booked flights, accommodation etc all the way to the faces you see at Nan’s taco shack and dad’s hat stall.
Gladys get your head out of the sand, your policies and viewpoints need a reality check. We don’t force roads to close because of road fatalities, we don’t ban alcohol due to (much higher) deaths from alcohol, we don’t shut down casino’s because of the trauma and grief they cause to the addicted. So why are you targeting music festivals like this? Why are you targeting the events that give so much back to the community?
If music, creativity, culture, economy and enjoyment of life itself is important to you, then please on March 23rd from now DO NOT vote Liberal. They started with killing our venues and now they are setting fire to our festivals.
When there’s no music left it’ll be too late to say something.
Vote. Gladys & Liberal. Out.