If we can remove Pam the Bird, why can’t we remove this?

Melbourne has recently been talking about graffiti again following the appearance of the now infamous Pam the Bird on the Bolte Bridge.

Whatever your views on graffiti, street art or Pam the Bird, one thing stood out: it was dealt with relatively quickly.

Importantly, it was Transurban, the private toll-road operator, that removed the graffiti from the bridge, not the state government.

But the broader point remains.

If graffiti on one of Melbourne’s most prominent pieces of infrastructure can be removed within weeks, why have tags around Flinders Street, the Banana Alley Vaults and Rebecca Walk remained in place for months – in some cases, more than a year?

These are not obscure locations hidden down forgotten laneways. They sit at one of the major gateways between the CBD and Southbank, passed by thousands of residents, workers and visitors every day.

And that is what makes the contrast so frustrating.

This is not simply a question of the City of Melbourne refusing to clean them. Many of these locations are state government assets, and the council has been trying to reach broader agreements that would allow it to remove graffiti from those assets and recover the cost.

At a recent council meeting, I raised the issue again.

What became clear is that the council does have arrangements covering some specific state-owned locations, but there is no blanket agreement allowing it to simply step in across the municipality. That is the problem.

The council knows where the graffiti is. It wants it removed. It is apparently prepared to do the work. Yet because responsibility is split between different agencies, prominent locations can remain covered for far too long.

From a resident’s perspective, that makes little sense.

People walking along Rebecca Walk do not care whether the wall beside them belongs to the City of Melbourne, the Department of Transport and Planning, VicTrack or anybody else. They simply see Melbourne.

And once graffiti is allowed to sit untouched, the problem tends to grow. That is particularly disappointing around Flinders Street, Banana Alley and Rebecca Walk.

This should be one of Melbourne’s great pedestrian connections, linking Flinders Street Station, the CBD, Southbank and the Arts Precinct.

Surely, we can present it better.

To the council’s credit, it has invested more in graffiti removal and has been working with state agencies to improve response times. The Lord Mayor also acknowledged that more needs to be done.

But perhaps the time has come to push harder for a municipality-wide arrangement.

If graffiti on a State-owned asset is not removed within a reasonable period, why shouldn’t the council be able to clean it and recover the cost?

The Pam the Bird example does not prove government can always act quickly – because in that case Transurban did the work.

But it does prove something equally important: difficult, high-profile graffiti can be removed when the responsible asset owner decides it should be.

That same urgency should apply across the city.

And perhaps that is an appropriate note on which to finish what, after almost 12 years, will be my final regular monthly column in these pages.

With Southbank News transitioning into the new citywide publication, The Melburnian, the regular Southbank Residents’ Association column as you have known it is also coming to an end.

For almost 12 years, I have used this space to talk about our neighbourhood – sometimes celebrating what makes Southbank such a great place to live, and sometimes highlighting where I believe we can do better.

To everyone who has read, responded, agreed, disagreed or stopped me in the street to discuss something I have written: thank you.

But don’t mistake this for me riding off into the sunset.

My advocacy for Southbank is not going anywhere. You will still hear from me through local stories and, from time to time, in these pages.

So, this is not really goodbye. It is simply the end of a monthly conversation we have been having for almost 12 years.

I’ll still be making noise. •