Page 2274 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 15 September 1992
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The council have now issued a discussion paper, among a whole range of such papers, and they are out there in the young community seeking opinions. We are out there seeking to support young people in their self-expression. I will not go through in detail the various ways in which the Government supports young people in their cultural expression. I am sure that in moving around the city members are well aware of the musical and theatre groups that pay particular attention to young people, organised and run by young people, often with guidance. The Chief Minister's Department, through its program of impact grants to young people, is helping them. Last year about $50,000 was expended on those grants. They are not all of a cultural nature; they cover a wide variety of issues. But culture is an important component.
I think the point is clearly made: Let us accept graffiti art. Let us give young people the opportunity to express themselves. Let us improve that quality of expression. Let us expand it from graffiti to graffiti art and through that to something else. Let us give them all the opportunities to do that. I am sure that doing that, and I have described the process of changing graffiti through those forms, will be the most effective way to rid the community of undesirable graffiti.
MR MOORE (4.24): Madam Speaker, I should like to begin by summarising in six words Gary Humphries's speech: Middle class, middle class, middle class.
Mr Cornwell: Hear, hear!
MR MOORE: Mr Cornwell gives me a "Hear, hear"; he is quite happy to recognise that that is all there was to the speech Mr Humphries made. Graffiti is not a problem. It is the symptom of a problem, and you will not resolve the symptom until you resolve the problem. That is really the kernel of what Ms Szuty has been trying to say.
Gary Humphries lauds the South Australian Labor Government for moving to ban spray-cans in public. That will give us an opportunity to see that they will make the situation worse. Once we have managed to ban spray-cans, what would be next? Those big texta colours will go next, for sure. As soon as we get rid of the big texta colours, people will get the smaller ones and we will have to ban those. We will have to ban them from schools, so you will not be able to use them there. To digress a little, there may be a very good reason for banning some of the spray-cans, but it has more to do with the ozone layer than it does with graffiti. Going back to the point, what do we ban next? There might be people carrying around cans of paint. We are going to have to ban those. Where will this stop?
What is the problem, if graffiti is the symptom of a problem? The problem is probably best summed up in terms of alienation. What Ms Szuty is really saying to this Assembly, to the people of Canberra, is that, if you are going to attempt to solve the problem of alienation, perhaps what you do is set aside more spots and say to people, "Okay, you are welcome to express your opinion in our society". If Garema Place is the spot and young people actually put some graffiti on a wall in Garema Place, it is quite likely that some very middle-class people will find that threatening. They do not like the look of the graffiti - a view they are entitled to - and they will express that opinion to their middle-class representatives, particularly Mr Humphries. They are welcome to do that. That is how our process should work.
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