Millions of dollars are spent trying to tackle Brisbane’s continuing graffiti problem, but in 2017 council workers were still left scrubbing off or painting over more than 73,000 tags.
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Brisbane City Council will launch its annual campaign to crack down on graffiti on Tuesday.
Lord mayor Graham Quirk admitted ratepayers were paying more than $4 million a year to remove tags – the nickname graffiti artists use to identify themselves - and repair vandalism damaged infrastructure.
“While the number of tags identified in 2017 has reduced compared with the year before council is still forced to spend millions of ratepayer funds which could be better spent on other initiatives to benefit ratepayers,” he said.
The top suburbs for graffiti in 2017 were West End, Brisbane City, Greenslopes, South Brisbane and Woolloongabba.
Cr Quirk’s objective is to make vandals pay for their crimes.
“Last year, 104 vandals were charged with 3498 charges and council continues to record tags that are used as evidence by police,” he said.
“We are a city that embraces street art and public murals, but we are committed to putting a stop to graffiti painted on private or public property without approval.
The council has 11 graffiti management teams who work across Brisbane every day and use tip-off from residents to remove graffiti.
