Daniel Christie’s death is a horrible, horrible outcome.
The community’s deepest sympathy goes out to Daniel’s family and friends.
It also extends to the families and friends of the four to five young Australians who die each week from primarily preventable alcohol-related incidents and the many more left permanently impaired or disfigured.
Now is not the time for talk of recriminations or retribution.
We must all focus on proven alcohol-related harm prevention measures.
In these dark time when families and communities search for ‘answers’, now more than ever before we need our political leaders to display courageous statesmanship.
To adopt proven harm prevention measures that may be unpopular with industry but are for the greater public good.
To follow in the footsteps of John Howard’s response to the Port Arthur massacre who successfully reduced both the availability and supply of firearms and associated senseless gun crimes.
Newcastle’s internationally unprecedented reduction in alcohol-related harm by a modest reduction in late trading hours and a sensible package of other control measures, provides both our premier and prime minister with an immediate proven circuit breaker to end this meaningless cycle of senseless alcohol-related harms and blame and cost shifting.
Tony Brown, Newcastle
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
