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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 10 Hansard (24 September) . . Page.. 3580 ..

MR CORNWELL (continuing):

The government has indicated that between $750,000 and $800,000 is allocated for graffiti removal in this territory each year. That is a very large amount of money and I submit that it is an unnecessary expense for the territory.

Unfortunately, to date, the banning of the sale of spray cans to minors-who are regarded as the main offenders in terms of graffiti attacks, although they are by no means all responsible-has only applied in South Australia. In fact, the Minister for Urban Services, Mr Wood, wrote to me on 6 January this year, when I suggested to him that this ban should be applied in the ACT, and pointed out that the legislative provisions restricting the sale of graffiti implements are not supported by other Australian jurisdictions, with the exception of South Australia, because they are costly to implement and place undue restrictions on business.

That situation, Mr Speaker, has now changed because, effective from 1 September, New South Wales has moved to ban the sale of spray cans to people under the age of 18. I submit that we are almost compelled here in the ACT to follow New South Wales's example, otherwise we will have a situation of border hopping, whereby people from New South Wales-from Queanbeyan and Yass-will come across here, buy the spray cans and presumably take them back to carry on their moronic pursuits.

It will not eradicate graffiti vandalism in the ACT but it will reduce the incidence of it if people under the age of 18 cannot get hold of this type of spray can. I ask members to consider the amount of graffiti that we see all over this, the national capital, on public and private buildings, on electricity substations, on bus shelters and walls obviously, virtually anywhere these pathetic specimens can place a tag. Their literacy presumably extends only to these rather primitive signs. Anywhere that they can do this, you will see it in public.

Unfortunately, the problem has been increasing because we now find that they are not only attacking public and private activities here in the ACT, but they are now also having a go at the tourists. A couple of weeks ago, two tourist buses in Lyneham were graffitied. I have written to the Chief Minister to suggest that the $20,000 it will cost to clean up those buses should be paid by this territory and that a letter of apology should be spent to the mayor of Kempsey, from whence the buses came, apologising for this attack.

If we are not prepared to do that, then perhaps the Tourist Commission would change the promotions around Australia to "Come to Canberra, the national graffiti capital". We are spending $14.5 million on tourism here, to promote Canberra. I do not think it would be terribly well received in Kempsey from now on, unless we do something positive. It seems to me that we do need to take some very firm action and, thanks to New South Wales, the opportunity has presented itself.

I do not believe that it will be a major problem for business. Mr Wood, as I say, earlier this year told me that it would place undue restrictions on business. I do not believe that is the case at all. I believe that most businesses are good corporate citizens; they will be happy to go along with this limitation. I stress it is only a limitation: it means you cannot sell to people under the age of 18, but it does not stop you selling spray cans. In fact, in a rather rich irony, it would seem to me that these businesses that sell the spray cans may well very well end up being targets themselves. I do not see a problem so far as business is concerned.

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