City of Melbourne touts cleaner streets as graffiti crackdown ramps up

The City of Melbourne says its intensified approach to graffiti management is delivering tangible results, with stronger partnerships, improved reporting systems and a renewed focus on cost recovery forming the backbone of its strategy.

A detailed progress report was considered by councillors at the February 17 Future Melbourne Committee meeting, outlining actions taken since a February 2025 council resolution calling for improved graffiti management outcomes.

Presenting the report, the council’s director of waste and recycling Vince Macolino said advocacy and partnerships would remain central to the city’s approach.

“In addition to the actions and outcomes achieved as part of this resolution, we will continue to monitor the top taggers, with relevant data provided to Victoria Police,” he said.

We’ll seek to recover the cost of graffiti removal and report on this through the annual plan and budget process. We’ll continue to have regular meetings with Victoria Police to identify upcoming graffiti-related cases where council can supply evidence or victim impact statements.

Mr Macolino said the council would also “work closely with Corrections Victoria to prioritise graffiti offenders to undertake their corrections orders within the municipality of Melbourne, look to establish new agreements and memorandums of understanding with third-party asset owners and stakeholders, and issue unsightly premises notices in accordance with the local law requirements.”

The report highlights several key agreements already in place, including memorandums of understanding with the City of Yarra and VicRoads, as well as an agreement with the Department of Justice and Community Safety to prioritise graffiti offenders completing community corrections orders within Melbourne.

Under this arrangement, offenders can be directed to undertake work within the municipality, reinforcing the council’s “You Spray, You Pay” principle.

Mr Macolino also pointed to the rollout of the Snap Send Solve reporting app, which has reduced duplicated work orders by more than 40 per cent.

“In addition to that, we’ve seen our customer service satisfaction rating go up by over 10 per cent, which is now at 88 per cent and our customer service score at 4.7 out of five, which is excellent,” he said.

Lord Mayor Nick Reece praised the progress.

“When I think about the things that we’ve made real progress on as a council in this term, this sits right at the top of the list,” Cr Reece said.

“The city is looking cleaner. And that hasn’t happened by chance. It hasn’t happened by magic. It’s because there’s a lot of hard work, effort and focus that is going into lifting standards here at the city.”

He acknowledged more work was needed but said the council was “definitely on the right trajectory”, singling out the one-hour removal policy for racist and hateful material as a “great initiative”.

Community representatives welcomed the strategic partnerships but urged the council to maintain focus on on-the-ground performance. Southbank Residents’ Association president Tony Penna said residents continued to experience “persistent tagging in high foot traffic areas” and “slow response times to non-offensive graffiti”.

The report notes council currently spends more than $200,000 a year servicing third-party assets but has recovered $79,000 through new arrangements and trials . Civil proceedings against offenders remain an option, though the report cautions they can be resource-intensive.

With new victim impact statement guidelines now published online and ongoing monitoring of repeat offenders, councillors resolved to note the report and continue strengthening Melbourne’s graffiti management framework. •