Graffiti Laws
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At the stroke of midnight tonight the State Government will have delivered another blow to graffiti vandalism in Western Australian communities with its tough new graffiti laws coming into force.
Geraldton MLA Ian Blayney said the Liberal-National Government had delivered another key election commitment by creating a stand-alone graffiti offence which carried significant maximum penalties of a $24,000 fine and two years behind bars.
“This sends a clear message to those people who have a complete disregard for someone else’s property, that they are committing a serious offence and will pay a high price,” Mr Blayney said.
The Graffiti Vandalism Bill would also include:
- mandatory clean-up orders for convicted vandals
- confiscation of property, like smart phones and laptops, used to record and transmit graffiti vandalism
- strengthened Public Transport Authority (PTA) powers to ban serial offenders from buses, trains and stations
- strengthened local government powers to enter private property to remove graffiti
- an offence for possession of a graffiti tool or implement.
“These new laws support local councils and many home and business owners who know the grind of cleaning up graffiti vandalism,” Mr Blayney said. “Now offenders will understand the effort it takes to clean and plenty of time to rethink their unacceptable behaviour,” Mr Blayney said.
“The laws strengthened what the Liberal National Government was already doing to combat graffiti vandalism, which costs WA about $8 million a year to remove.
“We endeavour to clean graffiti vandalism within 24 hours and now we will remove the ability for the vandal to broadcast it. If it isn’t already, now graffiti vandalism will truly be the most pointless past-time in WA,” Mr Blayney said.
