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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 3 Hansard (26 March) . . Page.. 619 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

I know that it is a problem; I have seen it. But we also have to have some liaison between the department and school principals and school boards about their experience in order to sharpen up the appropriate educative response, because I think that is a most important issue in the education system. We have to talk to people early about the effects of graffiti vandalism on the community.

For all of those issues, placed against the background of providing identifiable places for the practice of street art, I think we can come up with a solution; but it is not going to go away. Every time somebody feels that they need to protest about an issue, we are likely to see forms of protest that will result in graffiti. What we have to do is work out a means by which casual vandalism, if I can call it that, is prevented and discouraged. It does affect our city, it does affect the people who live in it, and I think it affects the view of this place of people from outside our Territory. I commend the report and I am happy to have participated in the process.

MR KAINE (11.58): I found this one of the more interesting studies I have been involved in in my time in the Assembly. At first glance, it is just a matter of kids squirting spray paint everywhere and defacing things; but, when you get deeper into the subject and listen to people who are out there where the kids are, you discover that it is a different subject altogether. We had a number of witnesses put to us that the kids who engage in this mostly are people who feel excluded from the society they live in. The one way they can protest is by spray painting things. Some of them think that what they do is productive street art. Some of them do not necessarily think that way at all, but it is certainly a way of expressing their viewpoint. I am convinced that there is a great deal to that. If we merely set about producing a report that said, "Increase penalties, put them in gaol, put them away for the rest of their lives", you would have no impact on the problem at all.

As I drive down Tuggeranong Parkway going home at night, just opposite the Kambah Village shopping centre there is a small cricket ground and soccer ground, and there is a building there which a few weeks ago was covered from one end to the other. Obviously, some of the kids had used it as a blank wall on which they could practise their street art; others had just come along and sprayed over it. Just recently, that building was painted a lovely beige colour; it was very pretty. I drove past one day and there it was, pristine, and I thought, "That is lovely". The very next day there was an example of street art on it. In fact, it is quite well done. It is black and blue and white on this lovely beige background. But it is what it says that is significant. It says, "Nuts". I think a street artist is giving us his opinion of the fact that we painted over all the street art there, and he not only painted a new piece of artwork but also expressed his feelings quite forcefully. As you drive past now, that is all you see on the building, and I wonder how long it will be there unaccompanied by other street art.

That, to me, was the strong point that came out during this hearing and that is why, if you read our recommendations carefully, almost without exception they are aimed at dealing with the subject in a productive way - not penalising, not making examples of the kids, but treating them as though they do belong to this community, as though they are valued members of it, saying that there are ways of directing their creativity, and perhaps we can help them in that. Out of all the recommendations, there is only one where we suggest that the penalties for defacing directional signs, traffic signs, be reviewed in order

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