Antisocial Behaviour

Mr DULUK (Waite) (15:32): I rise to speak about antisocial behaviour in the community, but before I do can I also thank nurses and midwives for the role they play in our community. On behalf of the people of Waite, I thank them for their dedication, patience and service throughout South Australia.

Antisocial behaviour has no place in the streets of Adelaide and South Australia. We have seen a growing rise in antisocial behaviour in our nightspots, and once again on Hindley Street on Saturday night there was violence and antisocial behaviour that has no role in our community. Antisocial behaviour is conduct that causes harassment, alarm and distress. It can take the form of violence in the community after a rowdy Saturday night and in vandalism of public spaces. Recently, the War Memorial on North Terrace was desecrated. Antisocial behaviour includes graffiti and environmental damage, including littering, dumping of rubbish, abandonment of cars and inconsiderate or inappropriate use of vehicles.

Antisocial behaviour quite often has a negative impact on the community. It has quite an impact on volunteer organisations in our community that spend a lot of time trying to make our natural environment a more beautiful and aesthetically pleasing place. It threatens the establishment and maintenance of a safe and secure community, which is an important prerequisite for community wellbeing and cohesion as well as sound economic growth through continuing business activity and investment. Individuals who engage in antisocial behaviour risk becoming excluded from important support mechanisms, such as school, their family and service providers.

One particular part of antisocial behaviour that I have noticed is the increase in street graffiti in my electorate of Waite. Unfortunately, it is commonplace and becoming more common along the train corridor, the Belair line, particularly around the central business district of Blackwood. In a bid to combat this problem, I recently held a graffiti round table and invited South Australian police, local business owners and concerned community members to discuss this situation. I would like to thank the following representatives who attended this round table.

From SAPOL, there was Senior Constable Adrian Jones and his team; Blackwood Action Group members Geoff Bartlett and Brian Ferris; City of Mitcham councillors Darren Kruse and Lindy Taeuber; City of Mitcham staff; Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure staff; Karan Coombe-Smith from Rail Care, who does an absolutely fantastic job working with local volunteer groups to beautify train stations along our rail network; Peter Jeffrey, a local real estate agent from Harcourts Real Estate; Travis Fraser, the manager of Foodland, Blackwood; local business and property owner and manager, Steve Gruber; and Graham Dicker, a concerned resident, and his family.

It was a great chance to hear how graffiti affects different aspects of the community and how best to deal with this problem. While graffiti might not seem like the most heinous crime to the people who view it every day, for the community groups who clean it every week and the police—whose valuable time and resources are chewed up in monitoring known hotspots and trying to apprehend offenders—it can be a serious problem.

It was also raised at the round table that some of these vandals consider their tagging to be art. I cannot stress enough that graffiti tagging is not art: it is simply defacing community or private property. There is some fantastic street art, and some great street art in my community as well, and that is to be applauded and commended—and I love it—but a tag is not art. It devalues the property and it makes suburbs look degraded and unwelcoming.

Covering up graffiti is incredibly important to send a message to vandals that this type of behaviour is unacceptable. While a clean building or wall may seem to some a blank canvas, and an invitation to vandals to continue to deface this space, they are no Picasso, they are no Rembrandt, and I believe that we cannot just roll over, ignore the problem and leave graffiti on our streets. We must stand up to this kind of behaviour as a community.

I also want to commend the Blackwood Action Group for the work they do in ensuring that our community is beautiful. It is a group that regularly removes graffiti and works on making the streets as clean and tidy as they can be.