By Andy Young
The young members of Mike Baird’s NSW Liberal Party have dealt the Premier another blow in his stance on the state’s controversial lockout laws.
At their annual general meeting earlier this month, more than 100 members of the NSW Young Liberals voted in favour of repealing the laws that were introduced into the state in 2014.
Young Liberals president Alex Dore said that the legislation was contrary to the Liberal Party's principles of individual freedom and responsibility.
"The motion was that the NSW Young Liberals calls on the state government to repeal the lockout laws," Dore told News Limited.
"A hallmark of our beliefs is individual freedom and individual responsibility and the lockout laws give us neither.
"The concern is they punish hardworking businesses, they restrict law-abiding citizens rather than the criminals who are causing the problem and the casualties in the end are the young people who work flexible hours in these bars which are closing down.
“We don’t accept you can fix every social ill with legislation on law-abiding people. It’s not what the party or the Young Liberals believe in.”
Despite the vote Dore did say that the Young Liberals still supported their Premier.
"This is the tradition; we refresh the debate with new ideas, which is not always to toe the line. The Premier has made a step in the right direction with the independent review,” he added.
Last week former High Court judge the Hon. Ian Callinan AC QC was appointed to head the review of the 2014 legislation.