Massive improvement from Energy Australia

I've written some very unkind things about Energy Australia in the past.  Their responsiveness and their lack of care in regard to graffiti could be quite astonishing at times.

However, based on their performance of late, all is forgiven.  I reported 11 vandalised kiosks on the 5th of January, and found that by yesterday, every one that I went past had been cleaned.  That is an astounding improvement.  

I just hope they can keep it up.  I have a few more to report this week.

My wish for 2009 is that Energy Australia, and the other infrastructure authorities like Sydney Water, Australia Post and Telstra, start pushing the idea internally that the majority of reports of vandalism should come from their own staff, not members of the public.  I blogged last year about stopping and having a chat with staff from these companies, and finding that none of them had a clue how to report vandalism, and none of them saw it as their job to do so.

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On a separate note, I had an email recently from a compadre who is doing the same thing as me, but a bit further west.  He's hit on an idea that I had last month, but unlike me, he's actually done something about it.  He's written to the Attorney General's department to see if he can extract some information on the NSW anti graffiti team.  When I first started looking at how to report graffiti, that was the first web site that I went to.  I was intrigued by the fact that they have a committee that is made up of all the infrastructure authorities, like RailCorp, Energy Australia and so on.  As time went by though, I started to wonder whether this team had ever met since being formed in 2006, and if so, what they discussed.

Here is the email:

I have a couple of queries in relation to the NSW Government Graffiti website:

1) Could you please provide me with a status update on the review of all graffiti-related legislation (as outlined here: http://www.graffiti.nsw.gov.au/lawlink/cpd/ll_graffiti.nsf/pages/graffiti_graffiti_law_review)

2) The website makes mention of an "Anti-Graffiti Team" (http://www.graffiti.nsw.gov.au/lawlink/cpd/ll_graffiti.nsf/pages/graffiti_agat) with a list of members. Could you please advise me if this team meets on a regular basis and if records of meetings are maintained/documented? The reason I ask is that I notice Telstra are apparently a member of the team, yet complaints I have made to Telstra recently about graffiti on their telephone exchange buildings has yielded a response that graffiti removal is not a priority for them, and unless the graffiti is in a strategic location, it will not be removed unless a building is being upgraded. I would therefore be keen to ascertain who represents Telstra on this team, and what contribution they have made to date.

I'm looking forward to a response. I have been thinking about doing an FOI application for the minutes of these meetings.