Jack Medcraft succeeds in anti-vandalism motion to Hume City Council

A radical plan has been supported to bring an end to the graffiti scourge and “public disobedience” plaguing Sunbury which costs ratepayers a fortune.

Jack Medcraft wants to put an end to vandalism in Sunbury. Picture: Rob Leeson.

A radical plan to crackdown on graffiti tagging and vandalism has been supported by a Melbourne council after after the staggering cost to ratepayers was revealed.

Under a proposed bylaw, customers buying paint spray cans would be forced to provide identification and have their purchase recorded while shops would maintain a register of spray can sales and customers.

At the meeting it was revealed Hume City Council spends $120,000 a year on graffiti removal from its public property and from May 2022 to last month, over 750 graffiti removal requests were received by the council.

The motion was carried unanimously at the meeting with mayor Joseph Haweil delivering a strong statement to the area’s vandals.

“That is one of the top complaints we see from residents every day in fact, about the destruction of our built environment by people who I think are being very selfish,” he said.

“[They] are going out there and graffiting buildings and destroying people’s property and indeed public property.

“Anything we can do to get on top of that is a step in the right direction.”

It comes after Hume councillor Jack Medcraft noticed an increase in properties and public spaces being “tagged” in Sunbury, with the town’s famous fountain repeatedly damaged by people standing on the jets.

“I have the social elite, latte sippers who call it art, well it is not art it‘s just vandalism and if you go down the freeway it’s just disgraceful,” he said.

“This is public disobedience, that’s more what it is and they can just go out and tag anything.

“If a teenager comes in to buy cans of spray paint, you’d have to think he’s not going to paint a Rembrandt.”

Cr Medcraft believes most of Sunbury’s problems stem from one man but wants to see the council and police take a stronger stand on vandalism.

Residents and council workers have reportedly seen the man, believed to be in his 30s, riding around between 1am and 5am tagging properties in Sunbury with ‘3KG’.

The issue is a growing concern for inner-city councils, with data from Snap Send Solve showing residents in Melbourne’s northern suburbs considered graffiti and vandalism as one of their biggest issues.

There were calls on the Mornington Peninsula to build legal graffiti walls in order to stop an “explosion” of tagging last year.

“We’ve got that area looking fantastic and then some meat-headed turkey comes along and damages it,” Cr Medcraft said.

“I’ve asked them to put measures in place to reinforce the jets and stop the vandalism.

“[Both issues] are costing us money … it’s a massive amount of money we spend on doing that.”