Page 1804 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 4 May 2005
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your office, Mr Pratt, how many of those have you passed on to the hotline? I will wager none. You are quite happy to come in here and say, “I’ve had all of these people say there are crimes being committed out there.” Not once have you reported those on to the police. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Start doing it.
A community awareness involvement education campaign targeting various elements of the strategy is also being implemented. Residents, businesses and community groups such as Neighbourhood Watch are being encouraged to monitor and promptly report graffiti offenders to the crime stoppers hotline—1800 333000—and to remove illegible graffiti from their property as soon as it appears. That is graffiti that is not the responsibility of the government. If it is racist, if it depicts violence, grossly offensive or sexual in nature, we will do it within 24 hours.
Information about graffiti removal techniques, graffiti removal contractors and graffiti prevention strategies are provided to private leaseholders via the hotline. The ActewAGL is supporting this awareness campaign through informing the public of graffiti strategy in their quarterly magazine.
The government considers the current penalties for punishment of graffiti offenders to be adequate. There is a range of provisions dealing with damage to property in both the Crimes Act and the Criminal Code. The Criminal Code provides a maximum penalty of—wait for it—$10,000, that is, 1,000 penalty units, and/or 10 years imprisonment for damage to property, which includes defacing property. Sentencing options available include restorative justice, particularly for young offenders. This is a form of mediation, where the victim meets the offender to make them aware of the impact of the crime. Punishment often includes removal of graffiti by the offender or other community service. First time offenders are now being considered for participation in legal graffiti art workshop programs as a diversionary measure.
As we implement the graffiti strategy over the next 12 months, we will continue to work with the police, building owners, community youth groups and graffiti artists themselves to reduce the incidence of illegal graffiti and encourage graffitists to employ their artistic talents to enhance the vitality of our city, rather than defacing it. The graffiti management steering committee will play a key role in bringing government agencies, stakeholders and youth groups together to resolve the current graffiti problem. However, I should warn that there are unlikely to be instant solutions.
The graffiti management strategy came into place in August 2004 and the steering committee started work in February 2005. I suggest to members that the strategy in the former regime, in the pre-2001 period, was zip, nothing, absolutely nothing. There was a little bit of penalty in the Crimes Act. But was there any strategic approach to this? Was there anything in the way of saying, “How can we discourage people from doing this?” No. We have been told that there has been a huge upswing in all of this graffiti. That is rot, absolute rot. This guy is building up a straw man so he can he pull it down.
I am looking forward to seeing your response to the budget tomorrow to see how many millions of dollars you guys are going to put into it and what strategies you have got. I reckon it is going to be—
Mr Pratt interjecting—
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