Page 4368 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 8 December 1993
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It seems to me that the only essential ingredient which would entail some minimal expense on the part of government in this case is identifying what public assets might be available for this kind of program. That is the extent of the problem. Do Mr Connolly and his colleagues find it so difficult to take the time and to meet the minimal costs involved in somebody sitting down and saying, "This bus-shelter is available; that wall is available; this wall of the park is available"?
I really think that the Government finds itself a little short of imagination, a little unable to understand that in this community young people are not always going to do exactly what people want. They need the capacity to express themselves in these ways and we should be trying to control such activity in the way suggested by the motion rather than dealing with it in a way which is obviously much less acceptable to the community. Perhaps by allowing bus-shelters and walls in certain places to be used in this way we can avoid the walls of pharmacies, the windows of government buildings, people's private fences or whatever being used for that kind of purpose. That, of course, would be something all of us would welcome.
I recall my personal experience at the campus of the University of New England. There was a wall at the end of one of the campus buildings which was designated the graffiti wall, and the students association made available paint and paintbrushes for the use of anybody who wanted to go and put something up on that wall. As it happens, the wall was often decorated in a very interesting fashion. I meant to bring today in a photograph of one of those decorations on the wall, but I have not done so. As a result of that arrangement, the campus of the university was much less afflicted with graffiti than has been the case in other parts of the city of Armidale, which is likely to be favourably compared with parts of Civic in the ACT.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I think that there is merit in this proposal. I certainly stand here as an opponent of graffiti, and that is why I am prepared to see this kind of concept being supported. I implore the Government to exercise a modicum of imagination in this matter and accept that in this motion there just might be a solution to one of the serious problems plaguing our city. I ask them to think about whether they just might be able to have the wit to make this kind of thing happen, and happen in a way which will work.
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and Training, Minister for the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (11.34): Mr Deputy Speaker, this has been something of a mixed debate with some elements of seriousness and quite a number of elements of comedy. Basically, I think the motion is irresponsible. I am quite surprised to see such an irresponsible motion emerge today. Only in the last week of sitting Ms Szuty - let me isolate Ms Szuty at the moment; I do not know where Mr Moore stands on this - opposed the education budget. That is a typical approach by Independents, who need have no responsibility, who can promise everything and who, as Ms Szuty's speech clearly indicated, have no financial responsibility at all.
I listened to Ms Szuty's very long speech, and 95 per cent of it was good stuff. Ms Szuty had gone into it carefully; she had researched her subject; she had given it great thought. There is not too much of what she said that I disagree with. But then it fell down completely, as Mr Connolly pointed out. In one sentence at
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