Page 2268 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 15 September 1992
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MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (3.55): We need to be very careful, in responding to this MPI, that we do not send the wrong message, which is that graffiti is a good thing to do and we want people to be out doing more of it. I was a little concerned at some encouraging remarks Ms Szuty made about people admiring some of the work that is done in Sydney on the train lines. While some of it may be colourful, the fact is that a number of young people have been killed doing it. It is an extremely dangerous practice. As well as young people being killed, police are at risk as they try to stop the young people doing it.
Graffiti, in its place and properly directed, can provide all the positive benefits Ms Szuty referred to. But graffiti wrongly directed, in the wrong place, apart from being unsightly, untidy and irritating - Mr Humphries has made some remarks in the media about that from time to time and may well make some remarks this afternoon - can be simply dangerous. Graffiti on some of the road signs around Canberra has caused me concern. This is the national capital and tourism is an important issue. We are all familiar with interstate plated cars, with drivers going slowly, peering around for road signs. Graffiti painted over road signs in Canberra can present traffic hazards. Graffiti on "stop", "give way" or "hazard ahead" signs can lead directly to accidents.
While we can say that graffiti in its place - I would prefer to say public art in its place - is a good thing, graffiti as vandalism is unacceptable. There were some questions from Mr Stevenson, I think, earlier this year on this subject, asking what the cost was and what we were doing about graffiti. I had to say that, whilst it was costing the Government a considerable amount of money to deal with graffiti, with Urban Services cleaning up the city, at the end of the day it really was not something that government as a body could handle; it was a community problem.
We need to get some awareness in the community that graffiti can be a dangerous and destructive activity. We need parents to ask a few questions when their teenage children are running out with paint cans. We know that spray paint cans are widely sold in Canberra shopping centres to young people. Obviously, a lot of those cans are used for vandalism and graffiti-ing public facilities. From my experience of using spray paint cans to do the odd bit of handyperson work at home, I always get paint all over me when I try to do anything with them, and I suspect that young people are the same. Parents must be seeing their kids coming home with paint on their clothes and over themselves. We really need a community response to deal with this sort of public vandalism.
I should say at the outset that the Government will not be supporting the suspension of standing orders to move a motion on this issue. I think it is a matter that can properly be dealt with in discussion on the MPI and is not sufficient to warrant suspension of standing orders for a motion. I guess that it can always be dealt with in private members business later on, if necessary.
In respect of graffiti art, a lot of the things Ms Szuty was saying we should be doing we really are doing. The ACT in this area is probably in front of a lot of other parts of Australia. The ACTION bus system has for many years and over successive governments been promoting the use of public art - call it graffiti work, if you like - by young persons. At the Woden bus interchange there has been a major mural for about two years. That is currently being replaced by young people doing that public work.
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