Food for thought

Every now and then, some puffed up windbag of a state politician stands up and declares war on graffiti, especially when the battles are being fought out on our train systems.

I've got to say that in comparison to the 1980's, when I first laid eyes on a Sydney train, the battle against graffiti is going a lot better these days than it was back then. Sure, the shitheads still spray crap here and there from time to time, but to my jaundiced eyes, there seems to be less of it.

Others may disagree; but that is my observation.

There's still too fucking much of it. I'd break their thumbs on the first offence - pretty hard to hold a spray can with a broken thumb I reckon. Second offence - break them again. I doubt many would need to be taught that lesson a third time.

So here is my food for thought for the day. Given how much effort is supposedly being put into combating graffiti on our rail systems, try this. Go to the website of each public transport operator around Australia and use their search field to search for "graffiti". You can also try typing in "vandalism" if you like.

The RailCorp website responds with 2 hits, both relating to position descriptions for cleaners. There is nothing about reporting graffiti, or where to get a hammer to break the thumbs of an offender if you happen to catch one.

QR wins with 9 hits, one of which is a link to a phone number that you can call to report graffiti.

Perth returns zero hits. None. Nada.

I couldn't even find a website for Adelaide or the mob in Melbourne.

Woops, I lied about that. After some searching, I managed to find the website for the Melbourne mob, and they returned 10 hits, along with some interesting info on their graffiti policies. (As an aside, the mob in Melbourne are privately run, and their web site shits all over the web sites of state owned operations).

So, how committed are our Labor governments to stamping out graffiti?

Not very, if this is any guide. Unless you happen to be the free entrerprise operation in Melbourne.