Gold Coast graffiti: Mayor Tom Tate winning fight against vandals

Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate is winning his fight against grafitti five years after his infamous stoush with pop sensation Justin Bieber.

GRAFFITI on the Gold Coast is at an all-time low with council along with residents winning the war against vandalism.

The council estimates clean-up costs have been slashed by 40 percent in the past four years.

Mayor Tom Tate today said vigilant residents reporting graffiti via the City App had played a major role in driving down the incidents of graffiti.

“These graffiti vandals love seeing their tag on display. Residents have played a vital role in rapidly identifying the graffiti so we can get our crews out there to clean it up. I applaud every Gold Coaster who has uploaded to our app and reported graffiti,” he said.

Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate paints over grafitti on a park bench in Southport. Picture: Tertius Pickard.

Four years ago, graffiti vandalism was costing around $1 million annually. Last financial year, it was $594,000 — a reduction of almost 40 percent.

“Civic pride is alive and well on the Coast so my message to the vandals is: get a life,’’ Councillor Tate said.

“We have a zero tolerance approach and we work with police to seek prosecution.

“Our dedicated clean-up crews provide a quick response right across the city and we have over 500 CCTV cameras around to capture these vandals red-handed.’’

While he is anti-tags Cr Tate did say some could be kept as ‘street art’ such as the rainbow staircase.

“Due to public demand we recognised that as art,” he said.

The graffiti left behind at QT at Surfers Paradise by Justin Bieber.. Picture Glenn Hampson

“We should identify some wall or some artistic spot so artists can express themselves here.

“I appreciate people with creativity, there’s a lot of places you could go, look up our website and actually become an artist.

“Challenge youself and see if you can do another medium.”

However Cr Tate said those who tag aren’t artists.

“They’re pretenders,” he said.

“Bit like ‘look at me’- yes I look at you but you’ve got no talent so go do something else.”

Cr Tate’s war on graffiti began in 2013 with his row involving Justin Bieber who tagged the QT Hotel.

Cr Tate demanded its removal, even sending Bieber one of council’s free graffiti kits, but Bieber had already left the city, leaving the Mayor furious.

Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate with one of the councils graffiti kits he would have liked to see Justin Bieber use on his graffiti on the QT hotel in 2013.

Graffiti removal costs for the last three financial years were $594.000 in

2017-18, $949,140 in 2016-17 and $1,046,918 in 2015-16.

The number of graffiti jobs during last three financial years were 4732 in 2017-18, 7414 in 2016-17 and 7496 in 74142015-16.

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Reported graffiti is removed within five working days, with offensive graffiti removed within one working day of it being reported.

The City removes graffiti free of charge from private property as long as the graffiti is accessible from public land.

Report graffiti via the mobile app, graffiti hotline [phone]) or email [e-mail]