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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 3 Hansard (26 March) . . Page.. 621 ..

MS HORODNY (continuing):

I was particularly pleased with the more positive aspects of this report, for instance, the recommendations to provide appropriate areas for the practice and display of street art and also to provide funding for the youth arts outreach officer. There are great opportunities in Canberra to enhance the look of this city, particularly in shopping centres in certain areas. I think of Kippax, in my electorate, where in various workshops that have been conducted to look at ways of improving the shopping centre the overwhelming view of people attending has been that that shopping centre - and I think others would fit this category as well - is very grey and drab and could use a facelift. That is where the youth arts outreach officer comes into play. I do not know whether people here are familiar with the town of Sheffield in Tasmania. Sheffield is in the north of Tasmania. It is right near Cradle Mountain, and the artwork in that little town is absolutely wonderful.

Mr Stefaniak: Is it a very old little town - from about the 1830s?

MS HORODNY: It is an old town. There are huge artworks that tend to be on the walls around the centre of the town, and each of the artworks describes a piece of history that is important in that town. For instance, there is one that shows a rescue operation to Cradle Mountain 20 or 30 years ago, when locals were involved in rescuing a group of schoolchildren, one of whom perished. The point is that the locals are very proud of the artwork. It is a great tourist attraction; people come from far and wide to look at the artwork in Sheffield. I think it is a very good example of what could be done in the ACT, where we have problems with grey walls, which attract the sort of graffiti that people have been discussing in this committee. We have an opportunity to harness the energy and talent and enthusiasm in our community for this type of activity, and I think it is important that we look very positively at ways to reduce graffiti, rather than the punitive measures.

I believe that it is quite pointless to ban spray-cans and increase fines and put all these sorts of punitive measures in place, because I do not believe that they work very well. I do not believe that they are directed at the problem. We can do good things to ensure that the energy of the graffiti artists is directed elsewhere and at the same time enhance the look and the feel of this city. I think the most important recommendation in this report is the second one, which calls for funding for the youth arts outreach officer. I have seen where an arts officer has been employed on an IMPACT grant to coordinate some artwork, for instance, the Wilderness Society one and the Amnesty International ones on the Supabarn wall. They are wonderful works of art and they are not defaced, and the main reason why they are not defaced is that they were produced over a long period and included a lot of the youth who live around where the artwork is displayed.

The lack of billboard space, certainly in areas such as Belconnen, is a real issue. That is something we have covered in this report, and it needs to be looked at seriously. If people are concerned about the posters going up willy-nilly, particularly around election time, we need to provide space around shopping centres for posters and other community service announcements to go up.

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