Page 528 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 17 February 2016
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recognised that minimising the impact of graffiti was important to maintain the amenity of commercial and residential neighbourhoods. The minister was correct.
It is very important to minimise this graffiti, as it does impact on Canberra suburbs. However, it is clear that the Labor-Greens government has failed to address and minimise suburban graffiti vandalism on residential fences facing onto territory land all across Canberra. You only have to drive along Hindmarsh Drive in my area to see the impact that this graffiti vandalism has on the look and feel of an area.
The Labor Party have now been in power for nearly 15 years and it has become clear that in this time they do not care about solving this problem. The then minister kept assuring Canberrans that they took unwanted graffiti seriously. However, it just is not true. For too long now in Canberra the government have been ignoring suburban graffiti vandalism and have instead tried to twist and change the focus into urban art and graffiti artists. I would not be surprised if the minister stands up today to say that I just do not understand graffiti art and attempt to hijack the motion and turn it into a discussion about graffiti art. I need to help the minister understand that I have a great respect for talented artists who use their skills in legal spaces to beautify our city. However, no-one thinks that the suburban graffiti vandalism along Hindmarsh Drive and other major roads falls into the category of legal street art. It is vandalism, pure and simple.
Great inner city art spaces are being focused on at the expense of our suburbs, and residents know. They see it, and they are unhappy, and they report it to me when I do my regular shopping centre visits. While many suburbs inside and outside my electorate fall victim to vandals with a spray can, the Chief Minister is announcing $250,000 in additional funding, most of which will go towards coordinating new sites for legal graffiti and street art, not to solving the crime of vandalism.
The then Minister for Territory and Municipal Services in a media release on 27 May 2015, in the out-of-touch approach that the Labor Party and the Greens have towards this suburban graffiti vandalism, said that graffiti management forms part of the ACT budget and that the focus of such graffiti management was on street art and legal graffiti sites rather than addressing vandalism all across our suburbs.
In this media release it is stated that legal street art sites are a valuable alternative approach as they provide artists with an opportunity to develop their skills and to reduce unwanted graffiti. The trouble is that it does not reduce the graffiti on Hindmarsh Drive. It does not reduce the graffiti in Tuggeranong. It does not reduce the graffiti in Belconnen. They are totally separate people who are vandalising versus those who are skilled and engaging in art.
But the link is flawed and simplistic. If providing these artists with the opportunity to graffiti legally reduced unwanted graffiti elsewhere, then we would have seen a decrease as the arts spaces were increased. But we have not. So I do not think it is responsible for the government to link the two as if one is directly impacting on the other.
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