GRAFFITI CONTROL (CARRYING GRAFFITI IMPLEMENTS) AMENDMENT BILL

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (10:32): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Graffiti Control Act 2001. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. R.B. SUCH (Fisher) (10:32): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Members will recall that the house was not willing to support the earlier bills relating to graffiti. One bill involved the clean-off provisions, which could require offenders to clean off graffiti (not necessarily their own) under supervision; and the other one was to restrict the sale of graffiti implements even further than the current law provides.

We consulted with police in various parts of Australia, and the recommendation that they put forward—which I think is a very innovative and sensible one, and is reflected in this bill—is that, if a person is carrying graffiti implements between the hours of 10pm and 6am in areas that are prescribed by the bill, then they are guilty of an offence.

The areas that are prescribed mean the grounds of a primary or secondary school and the area within 20 metres of the boundary of the school, or an area prescribed by regulation (that would be up to the minister), and it also includes the area within 20 metres of an electricity substation, railway tracks, tramway tracks or the O-Bahn, a bridge, viaduct, overpass or underpass, or tanks or other infrastructure maintained by SA Water and situated above the ground.

Then, involving a shorter distance—because we do not want to turn the state into one where there is unnecessary policing—it includes an area within 10 metres of a postbox maintained by Australia Post or any structure indicating the name of a suburb, namely, the entrances often indicating subdivisions and perhaps made out of brick or rendered. The other category involves a person being within a stormwater culvert. We do not want to have this measure applying unnecessarily to people who are just walking down the street and who pass a culvert: it relates to a person who is actually in the culvert—and that obviously means a big culvert.

The purpose of this measure is to target those who are involved in graffiti activities. Therefore, with the time set (10pm to 6am), if someone, for example, legitimately bought a spray can or a felt pen and were going home, they would have enough time to be home from shopping at, say, the close of shopping at 9pm. This bill gets around the complicated aspect of trying to deal with the key issue, rather than unnecessarily restricting people who might have a legitimate need to purchase a spray can or a wide felt-tip pen.

Another very important aspect of this bill is, as I have stated to the house previously in relation to other bills, that many of the people convicted of graffiti offences end up with no penalty—no penalty whatsoever. This bill provides, for the first time, an expiation fee of $160 and still allows the court options. It means that a police officer—and only a police officer—can issue that expiation penalty. This gives the police some real teeth in terms of dealing with people who are carrying graffiti implements between 10pm and 6am and who are found in areas where they are likely to commit graffiti-type offences.

So, there are two key aspects of this bill: it provides the expiation option, which I think will help get around the issue of courts not taking this matter as seriously as they should; and it pins down the scope of activity to specific areas of public infrastructure. This provision does not apply to people on private property, so it does not relate to people who have spray cans in their shed or felt-tip pens in their office at home. It deals only with areas which are in the public domain and which are essentially the target of graffiti vandals.

Some people say, 'What about fences on properties?' This bill will not deal with that aspect, unless it comes within the ambit of within 20 metres of a railway track, a bridge and so on. I think that you must take a reasonable approach, and the main focus of vandals is public property. I think that this is a very innovative approach and that it will bring about a real change. I think that it overcomes the concerns expressed before by the government and others that restricting sale is cumbersome and difficult and that supervising clean-off is costly. The bill addresses those issues, gets to the nub of the problem and will, in my view, help reduce the current $15 million to $20 million cost to ratepayers and taxpayers in this state.

I urge members to give this matter their earnest consideration, as they normally do. I believe that the bill has been carefully drafted, as is the usual standard of parliamentary counsel. As I say, it is based on advice from police around Australia, who believe that this is the best way of tackling this costly scourge on our community. I commend the bill to the house, and I trust that members will give it due consideration.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mrs Geraghty.