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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 08 Hansard (Tuesday, 3 August 2004) . . Page.. 3309 ..

is the national capital of Australia but fast becoming the national graffiti capital of Australia.

So I would suggest, Minister, that you have done the right thing by amending the law to give the government the option to remove graffiti. But I would urge you to take action at the other end of the spectrum because these people are not going to stop their filthy habits simply because the government will come along and clean up after them.

The legislation also deals with the removal of abandoned vehicles. As I said, the legislation reduces the time from seven days to two days for an abandoned vehicle to be removed by the owner. I understand that some 1,500 to 1,600 vehicles are reported as abandoned each year. About 600 of these annually require towing and the budgeted cost is about $50,000 per annum. I am not suggesting for a moment, of course, that the cost will go down if they are removed within two days rather than seven. But, I think there will be some advantages. First of all, you will not have an unsightly wreck, as is sometimes the case, sitting around. But more to the point, perhaps, you will not have an unsightly wreck, full stop, because I would think the chances of an abandoned vehicle being wrecked in seven days would be considerably greater than if it were abandoned for merely two days. Therefore, I think that this is a step in the right direction. I repeat, the opposition will support the legislation.

MS TUCKER (11.55): This bill deals with two issues—abandoned vehicles in public places and the removal of graffiti on private property that is visible from a public place. I know that Roslyn Dundas intends to circulate an amendment in respect of the graffiti question, and I will be supporting that amendment.

I will speak to the graffiti part of the legislation first. Basically, the legislation provides that graffiti removal work can be carried out without the agreement of the occupier and whether or not the occupier has been notified, if the graffiti is visible from a public place. The Democrats and I are concerned that there could be an issue in that the owner may not mind graffiti being placed on their property. We could have a situation where a person does not want graffiti art removed from private property. I understand that Ms Dundas is going to substitute the words “at least 24 hours” for “immediately” in proposed new section 14A (4), which states:

For subsection (3), an authorised person must, immediately before the graffiti removal work is to be carried out, take reasonable steps to notify the occupier that the work is to be carried out.

This still does not really properly deal with the issue because obviously it would be quite disturbing for someone to come back from holidays and find that the graffiti art that they like had been removed.

I heard Mr Cornwell talk about his concerns about graffiti in our community. He obviously speaks about this in quite a passionate way, and I understand his position. He has also said that he does not have a problem with graffiti art and that he sees that as something different. But I do not see in the legislation a definition that makes that distinction. If there is such a distinction, maybe someone could show me where it is. But at this point I have not been able to find a definition of graffiti, so there could be a concern there.

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