The community demanded action and the Victorian Labor government and Coalition opposition raced to outdo each other in their policy response. In Victoria in 2008 it was the Coalition opposition that led the call for the lockout. In NSW in 2014 it was the Labor opposition. In both cases the media enthusiastically backed them and after a period of resistance the government embraced the lockout. In 2008, Brumby cited the ''Ballarat model'' as the basis for the lockout for inner-city Melbourne. The regional Victorian town was reported to have enjoyed a 40 per cent reduction in assaults and hospital admissions following the introduction of a lockout. In 2014, Premier Barry O'Farrell is introducing the ''Newcastle model'' for inner-city Sydney. The lockout in Newcastle is reported to have cut the night-time assault rate by 37 per cent. (A recent a study of 10 years of crime data from Ballarat found the lockout had no discernible long-term impact on alcohol-related emergency department attendances. It remains to be seen what a similar study will find in Newcastle.) Once the Melbourne lockout began, it quickly became apparent that night life operates very differently in a global city of more than 4 million people compared to a regional centre.

There are in total about 600,000 people ''out on the town'' in Melbourne and Sydney on a big Saturday night - more than the populations of Newcastle and Ballarat combined. While industry and patron groups kept their heads down during the ''moral panic'', they soon began to seriously mobilise against the lockout and find ways to hinder its implementation. Poor legal advice from the Victorian bureaucracy meant that about 20 per cent of venues were able to obtain exemptions, against the wishes of the government. Like Sydney, these exemptions ended up covering venues as diverse as small bars and mega venues like the casino. But in a potentially important difference, the Sydney lockout has systematically exempted smaller bars with capacity for fewer than 60 customers. Patrons started to complain that the whole city was being punished for the actions of a few violent idiots. Surely there were smarter ways to deal with the trouble-makers and still let everybody else have a good time. Thousands of people turned up to a high-profile protest at Parliament House. Photogenic and articulate young protest leaders hit the airwaves to campaign against the lockout. But most significant of all, the lockout did not lead to a decline in violent drunken behaviour. In fact, quite the opposite occurred.

Independent audit firm KPMG found the Melbourne lockout led to an increase in reported assaults between midnight and 2am and also between 2am and 4am. There were also more ambulance trips due to assaults between 8pm and midnight, compared to the three months before the lockout. There is a commonsense explanation for why this occurs: when tens of thousands of people - of different social milieu, gender and states of intoxication - surge onto the street around the time of the lockout, it creates a violent flashpoint. In Sydney this problem will arguably occur twice, once at the lockout at 1.30am and then at last drinks at 3am (the 3am swill). After three months the Victorian government dumped the lockout policy. But other measures announced at the time were found to be effective. These included giving the Liquor Licensing Board increased resources and powers to shut down venues and target problem areas. An innovative risk-based licensing scheme that imposes higher fees on higher risk venues with a poor compliance history provided a very strong incentive for venues to get serious about responsible serving of alcohol guidelines. There has also been a step up in late-night public transport services, and while it remains a topic of debate, extra police on the streets and better policing practices seems to have made a difference.

The good news for Sydney is that these and other proven measures from Victoria are in the new package that was introduced by the O'Farrell government. Overall, this appears to be a case of the states doing their job as the ''laboratories of democracy'' in our federation. Under this theory, if a good idea works in one state, it is quickly picked up by others. If a policy does not work, it is confined to a single jurisdiction and the harm is contained. It is such a pity, then, that the ''lockout'' measure is getting all the headlines and is the one part of the package that will not work, and will leave people shaking their heads about why states copy bad ideas from each other. The second bit of good news for Sydney that you rarely read about is that existing measures are actually working. As Don Weatherburn, from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, has observed, the rate of non-domestic assaults in Sydney is 21 per cent lower than in 2008. In terms of evidence-based policymaking, the next steps in this debate should focus on encouraging the consumption of mid-strength beer, the avoidance of a high density of venues in a single location and improved late night public transport. Most effective of all would be better compliance and enforcement of existing laws and regulations. While the NSW government is trying to shut down late-night Sydney, the Victorian government has just sponsored the White Night all-night party, which attracted more than 500,000 revellers to Melbourne's central business district on Saturday night.

Inner-city Melbourne continues to be a safe place that hundreds of thousands of people visit every weekend to eat, drink, and stay out late. From now even more of them will be visiting from Sydney. Nicholas Reece is a public policy fellow at the University of Melbourne. Paul Sheehan is on leave.