Graffiti in EnergyAustralia’s sights

The title of this post comes from a press release that Energy Australia sent me back in April.

Energy Australia cleans up about 40 instances of graffiti per week, and graffiti reports are up by 50% since 2007. It costs Energy Australia (and energy consumers) $500,000 a year to remove graffiti. From the press release:

“Residents in suburbs with high reports of graffiti are doing the right thing in alerting us to the problem so our crews can remove the graffiti quickly.

“We’ve found that the quicker we remove graffiti from our equipment the more of a deterrent it is to other vandals.

“Graffiti vandalism is not only a blight on neighbourhoods but it’s a safety risk and most importantly, it’s a crime.

“That’s why we’ve doubled our efforts and appealed to the community to report graffiti to help us keep the network clean and safe.”

The table below is from the press release. Between 2008 and April 2010, there were 194 graffiti reports in Canada Bay. About 100 of those reports were from me, so it's nice to know there are others out there lodging reports. I've noticed that over the last two years, Energy Australia's turn around time has improved dramatically. They now sometimes remove graffiti only a few days after its been reported - which is great to see.

New graffiti advice on Energy Australia website

Energy Australia has put a link on their homepage to combatting graffiti. The downside of the new page is that they want all graffiti reports to be phoned in, which in my experience, is a pain in the backside. I can enter a report via their "contact us" web page in less than 30 seconds. It usually takes 5-10 minutes to do it over the phone (once you find their number, ring it, press this and that to get through all the prompts and then wait for an operator. On top of that, the hours of their call centre are limited - I generally find myself reporting graffiti at 10pm or later, and the call centre is closed at that time - and it's shut on Sunday.


I'm going to continue with using the web page, and see how things go.

Keeping track of things

As the Democrats used to say, you need to keep the bastards honest. Every time you log a graffiti incident on the Energy Australia website, they should reply with an email giving you the job number for cleaning it up. Here's a sample:

A month ago, I started to wonder whether all my jobs were being logged properly, as I was noticing that some kiosks were cleaned up pretty quickly, whilst others never seemed to get done. I therefor started tracking everything I logged in a spreadsheet.

What I've found is that most of the incidents have been logged by Energy Australia within 5 days, and generally cleaned up about 2 weeks later. I haven't been back to every site to check whether they've been cleaned or not, but as I go past them from time to time, I have a look at how they are going.

Interestingly, I logged 5 incidents this week. I got two emails back yesterday - one for an incident logged on the 4th, and another logged last night. However, the three in the middle have gone walkabout. I really wonder whether their system is eating some of the incidents, or whether they are simply failing to log them.

If I don't get a response within a few weeks, I contact Energy Australia and follow up over the phone. I shouldn't need to be doing this, but unless I am absolutely certain that they are on top of things, I'm going to check and check and check again.

The good news is that the cleaning efforts of Energy Australia appear to be bearing fruit. When I first started doing this a year ago, all their substations and kiosks were a bloody disaster - coated in graffiti half an inch thick. Now, most of them are clean and green. Yes, graffiti does creep back, but in nothing like the quantities they used to attract, and the attacks are much less frequent.

Is two weeks an adequate response?

I've been keeping a rough track of how Energy Australia has been going in regard to cleaning kiosks around the inner west. I started a spreadsheet back in November, and every time I report a vandalised kiosk, I keep track of when I reported it, the reference number, address and so on - and then note the date when it is cleaned.

Not long ago, it was taking Energy Australia nearly two weeks just to get around to logging my reports, and then a further two weeks to send someone out with a paintbrush to clean things up.

Now, they are logging the reports within 4 days, and cleanup seems to happen within 10 days in many cases, giving a 2 week turnaround time.

The problem with this is that I read an anecdote not long ago that said if you cleaned a site within 2 days, there was a 90% chance it would remain clean. If you took longer than two weeks, there was a 100% chance of repeat graffiti.

What I have noticed over the last year though is that although Energy Australia kiosks are still being hit, they are being hit much less often and the volume of graffiti is much lower. Cleaning seems to discourage a lot of vandals. Not all, but many. Which is better than nothing.

Lacking in energy

Yes, I've been quiet for a few weeks - because there has been little to report. Thanks to the wet weather of late, not much damage was wreaked over the school holidays. I've made my rounds of the usual trouble spots and seen nothing worth following up.


The only thing I have noticed is that Energy Australia is taking 11-12 days to process vandalism reports. It used to take them a day or so. They have no hope of removing graffiti within 2 weeks if it takes them nearly two weeks to look at their web reporting system and log an incident. I bet that before long, the following will happen.

• I will report some graffiti
• 12 days later, Energy Australia will get around to reading my report
• A week after that, I will report the graffiti again
• A day later, a contractor will remove the graffiti
• 12 days down the track, Energy Australia will read my second report and send a contractor out to perform a clean up
• The contractor will report back that there is nothing to clean - the report is a dud
• Energy Australia will start to think that false reports are being logged
• Trust will break down

That would be a lousy outcome.

There's none so blind....

...as those that will not see. Five seconds after taking this photo:

I turned around to see this car waiting at a red light. An Energy Australia car. The company responsible for the defaced kiosk that I was standing next to. The driver, presumably an Energy Australia employee, was no more than 30 feet from a bit of vandalised Energy Australia asset - and I guess he/she couldn't give a stuff.

I watched where the car went after the lights turned green, and walked a few hundred metres of that same route. Along the way I saw this:

Not this - this was in the other direction.

But I also saw this.

How willfully blind do you have to be to drive past 3 clearly vandalised assets that your company owns, and to ignore them all?

It would be even worse to find that the employee in question lives in this area, and passes these same assets twice a day on their way to and from work. That would be really dedicated blindness.

Lights out

A light pole along the City West Link in Haberfield has been hit by something big enough to twist the pole around and snap the light off the top of the pole. Last time I went past, the light was lying in the vegetation barrier on the side of the road.

Whatever hit the pole moved it back a good six inches.

Every pole is supposed to have an asset tag like this one. I couldn't find one on the damaged pole, so I reported this number and said it was the pole next door.

It's been reported to Energy Australia via their website. Given that the pole has been like this for about a week, I am not assuming that whomever smashed into the pole bothered to report it to Energy Australia. I'm assuming that Energy Australia are "in the dark", as are the motorists who drive past here at night.

Who owns what?

There is a cycleway underneath the M4 motorway, and there are cabinets every so often for supplying electricity to the lights along the pathway.  Most of the cabinets have been vandalised, and they bear a simple tag like this one:

M4 Cycleway metering 

Electricity supply from Martha St

Pole No. 889

Thinking that anything to do with electricity would be looked after by Energy Australia, I logged this problem with them.  They have replied today that these cabinets belong to the RTA.

It's nice that EA responded quickly, and pointed me at the RTA, but I wish the companies or agencies that own these cabinets would put some sort of identifying tag on them, along with a contact number in case of problems.  

I've now logged this with the RTA.

Most of the asset tags on these cabinets are unreadable.  It looks like they have been tagged before, and whoever came and painted  them painted straight over the tags, obliterating the information on them.  I've also asked that the RTA clean the tags up and remove the paint from them, so that they appear as originally intended.

These cabinets are also "off the beaten track", and I guess they are not visually inspected very often.  If they are tagged, the only way they will ever get cleaned is if a member of the public reports them.

Slack and useless

There are around half a dozen of these electricity supply cabinets underneath the M4 motorway.  Most of them have graffiti on them. Helpfully, they have a very handy asset tag on them that tells you everything you need to know in order to report this to Energy Australia.

Except that most of them have obviously been vandalised previously, and whoever has come along to paint over the graffiti has painted straight over the tag!  That's just absolutely slack and useless.  I guess a contractor will get the blame, as usual.

Quick off the mark

I have to give full credit to Energy Australia this week for being quick off the mark at cleaning a kiosk that I reported on Monday. By Thursday, the graffiti was gone - that's a very rapid response for a utility (and it wasn't even offensive graffiti).

However, I do still wish that they would encourage their own staff to report graffiti, rather than relying on members of the public. They get an A+ for fast removal and an F for internal reporting.

They really don't care

Over the last month, I've reported about a dozen vandalised kiosks (those green substations that lurk in suburban backstreets) to Energy Australia.  Energy Australia are generally quite good at arranging to have them cleaned - within a week or two, most are back to being boringly dull green.

My constant complaint is that Energy Australia has staff driving around all day in Energy Australia vehicles, and a reasonable percentage of these staff must drive past vandalised kiosks and substations.  I have even had a chat with one bloke who parked next to one to do his paperwork.  My impression is that as far as these mobile Energy Australia staff are concerned, vandalism of Energy Australia assets is not their concern.  It is somebody else's problem. Someone in another department or division, possibly in another building.  Definitely someone that they never come in contact with during their working hours.

Just to drive this point home, I photographed this Energy Australia truck recently in Canada Bay.  It appears to be parked at the home of an EA employee.  Assuming this employee works out of the Homebush depot, they have to drive past at least 3 regularly vandalised kiosks to get to work, and the same 3 on the way home.  How many instances of vandalism do you think they have reported over the last year?

I can safely say "zero", since the only time those kiosks get cleaned is when I report them.

Why is it so hard to encourage staff to notice and report this kind of stuff?  Do they have any pride in the organisation that employs them?

Those who contact out work are blind

I've seen this sort of thing twice in the last few weeks - contractors for Energy Australia working on improving the electrical distribution system.  In both cases, the contractors were working within spitting distance of a vandalised Energy Australia kiosk.  In this case, the kiosk is right behind the truck in the photo below, and the contractors were sitting around the kiosk having morning tea when I took the photo. 

The sign below explains who they are and what they are up to.

The chances of these contractors reporting the vandalism to Energy Australia are probably somewhere close to zero.  It's not something I would necessarily expect them to do, unless they were specifically asked to do so by Energy Australia.  Assuming that Bastow Civil Constructions has a long term contract with Energy Australia, you might think it reasonable that they have the sort of working relationship where EA would expect Bastow staff to act as their eyes for them - but that does not appear to be the case.  They dig holes and lay cable and leave it at that.

On top of that, I'd assume that from time to time, an Energy Australia manager would visit sites like this to check on the work that Bastow are doing.  I would expect that a manager employed by Energy Australia would care enough to do something about graffiti on an Energy Australia asset - but from what I can gather, I have higher expectations than many.

Contracting out work is something that I have no complaint with.  But in doing so, many organisations have lost direct visibility of how their assets look.  Contractors are "all care and no responsibility" - in this instance, they care about laying their pipes and cables properly, but have no responsibility for ensuring that this asset doesn't make the neighbourhood look like a slum.

One small step for man....

As the Chinese supposedly say, "A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step".

In the middle of 2008, I started to wonder whether government authorities like EnergyAustralia were reporting graffiti on their property to the Police.  As time went by, it became pretty obvious that the answer was no.  

From my haphazard observations, an awful lot of the graffiti that mars our public spaces is scrawled on government assets.  Most agencies have some sort of system to get it removed, but unless it is reported, the statistics will never truly reflect the amount of damage being done, and the effort required to clean it up.  

A good statistical picture also allows someone with the right training to discern patterns and to target resources to where they can do the most good.  At present, most of the statistics on graffiti in this area are based around Council property, because the Council reports everything - but that skews the picture.  You can have areas that have little or no Council property, but are utterly blighted by graffiti, yet they will not show up in the statistics as problem areas because nothing has been reported.

I wrote to the Minister for Energy last month and got this response today in regard to EnergyAustralia.

Good.  It's a small step, and more need to be taken, but a small step is better than none.  Now for the next ones.........

A few things here and there

It's been a typical week, reporting graffiti on a few Energy Australia kiosks and Council assets. What I have noticed of late is that Energy Australia is now a lot quicker at cleaning up their assets than they were when I started.  I'd guess they have cut their turnaround time from 2 months to 2-3 weeks.

That's still too slow, but it's a big improvement.  Personally, I still think they should simply handover responsibility to Council, who would clean it within a week, and then they could stop worrying about it and concentrate on their core business - delivering electricity reliably.

I went past an Energy Australia kiosk yesterday and noticed graffiti on it.  Not 50 yards away, their contractors were digging up the road and laying or replacing cable.  It had to be Energy Australia contractors, because they had a sign up saying, "Improving our electricity supplies in this area".  The street was closed off, they had 5 or 6 trucks and a dozen staff working on the site - and what is the bet that none of them thought they should bother to report graffiti on an asset that they were working right next to?

Last week, I went to the first meeting of the new Police Community Safety Precinct Committee (CSPC) here in Five Dock - and found myself being the only member of the "community".  As far as I am concerned, the meeting went well and we had a good discussion about a number of issues.  The next meeting will be held in 3 months time, possibly at another venue and at a later time to allow more people to attend.  

Everyone who attended (the meeting included our local member, Angela D'Amore MP, two Councillors, several Council staff and a number of Police officers) want to see more members of the public at future meetings.  

Not obsessing

I have sometimes been accused of "not having a life" in my comments, which is an interesting statement for those that don't know me to make.  A bit of personal abuse is not going to make me pack up shop and go away.  If anything, it strengthens my purpose.  

I have posted very little this week because I don't have anything new to say.  I haven't let up though with reporting graffiti to Australia Post and Energy Australia.  I've been using their web based systems for reporting, and I have to say that it is almost faster to write them a letter than to use their web based systems.  They have no hope of ever reaching a 24 hour turnaround time to remove graffiti when it takes them 2-5 days to respond to a web query.

Energy Australia did repaint a substation in this area last week, which is a good thing.  However, the contractor that they engaged to do the job only painted over the graffiti on the brick work - they didn't bother though to remove graffiti on the signage.  Is that pointless or what?  The idea is to clean 100% of the surface area, not 90%.  The place still looks messy, but the painting contractor can claim that they did their job, and they deserve payment.

Whoever engaged the contractor needs a boot up the backside.

Clearly, removing graffiti is not a core business activity for Energy Australia.  Given the blackouts we've had in the CBD this week, you could also argue that delivering reliable electricity is also not a core business activity either - but that is a different matter.

Since graffiti is non-core, they appear to have completely outsourced it to contract painters.  If that is the case, why not outsource the activity to local councils, like ours, who offer a total graffiti removal service and not just a painting service?  The example of this substation shows that they need someone who can do more than just paint - they need a service that can wash graffiti off where appropriate and paint over it where appropriate.  

This means I am going to have to report the substation again, this time asking for the signage to be cleaned.  What I don't understand is how the local management of Energy Australia could let this slip by.  Has no one been out to inspect the work of the painting contractor?  If they did visit, did they spot the remaining graffiti and think that the job was incomplete, and further cleaning was required?

The usual disjointed approach

I was surprised to see a "new kid in town" today - a private graffiti removal services truck parked in Concord.  I stopped and had a quick chat with the bloke doing the cleanup - he said that the RTA had contracted the work to Downer, who had then subcontracted it to his company.  He was painting all the sound barriers for the RTA.  

This is undoubtedly a good thing.  The barriers were a mess, presenting an unappetising slew of graffiti for 100 metres or so, visible to thousands of passing cars each day.  

I'll wait before I give the RTA a gold star for a job well done, since I want to see how the RTA reacts when the tagging starts again.  Will they get rid of any tags quickly as they appear, or will they wait two years for the wall to become an utter disaster again, before initiating a major project to repaint the lot?  

As for the disjointed effort, I suppose we will find that the managers that take care of the sound barriers work in one silo at the RTA, and those that manage the traffic lights work in another silo, and they never communicate with each other (this is not atypical of a large organisation, private or public).  The pole in the foreground is of course an RTA traffic light, which was not being touched (as far as I could see).

Almost every light pole along this stretch of road is also tagged, and the lights are generally the responsibility of Energy Australia.  Although the RTA and Energy Australia both sit on a government Graffiti Task Force, I guess it was too much to ask for them to coordinate their approach to this location, and to have all the RTA and Energy Australia assets cleaned in the one go.  We can only hope that such a thing will come to pass in our lifetime.

Is all graffiti being reported?

About six months ago, I discovered that not all government agencies report graffiti in the same way.  Schools appear to report almost all graffiti, but I am not sure about other arms of government.  I wrote last week to the Minister for Energy, Ian Macdonald, to ask him about how Energy Australia goes about reporting graffiti to the Police.

My concern is that if they aren't reporting it, then we don't have a complete picture of graffiti on public assets.  If Police arrest and charge a culprit, they may charge them with only a tiny percentage of the offences that they have actually committed, because lazy authorities have not provided the Police with a complete picture of their graffiti situation.

Once I get a response from Ian Macdonald, I am going to ask some other ministers about how the agencies in their portfolios go about reporting graffiti.  I made sure in this instance to list most of the reports that I have made, and then asked for a COPS event number for each instance.  If Energy Australia have a COPS event number, then it's been reported properly.  If they don't........

6 March 2009

The Hon. Ian Macdonald

Minister for Primary Industries, Minister for Energy, Minister for Mineral Resources, Minister for State Development

Level 33

Governor Macquarie Tower

1 Farrer Place

SYDNEY NSW 2000

Dear Mr Macdonald

Energy Australia – graffiti reporting policy

As you may be aware the Attorney General’s Department runs an Anti-graffiti action team, of which Energy Australia is a member.

It has come to my attention that not all government authorities are reporting graffiti to the Police, even though this is strongly recommended by the Attorney General’s Department, and is plain common sense.

I have reported a number of instances of graffiti to Energy Australia over the past 9 months.  I want to be assured that as well as removing the graffiti, Energy Australia are reporting each incident to the Police for recording in the COPS database.

I have attached a list of Energy Australia case numbers, each referring to a report of graffiti that I have made to Energy Australia via telephone.  In all cases, the graffiti has been removed.  However, what I want to see is the COPS Event Number for each case, and the date each report to the Police was made.  

Please arrange for Energy Australia to provide this information to me.

If Energy Australia has not been reporting graffiti to the Police, then I would like you to explain how a failure to report fits in with the government’s anti-graffiti stance.

Yours sincerely

Kiosk Energy Australia reference number

k2051 REF 500064083

3219 REF 500064084

2829 REF 500064085

3599 REF 500064086

K1573 REF 500064087

4854 REF 500064088

50062885

50062886

50062887

50062888

50062889

50062890

50062892

50062893

50062894

50062896

50062897

500059339

500058754 

500058755

500058559

500058369

500058396

50003897

50003898

500058348

500058373

5000583470

500058371

500058372

Substation 3219 Ref 500058614

Substation k2051 Ref 500058615

Substation cp228 Ref 500058616

Substation at manning & springside Ref 500058617

Substation 4082 Ref 500058618

Substation 2178 Ref 500058619

Substation at Barnstaple & Trevanion Ref 500058630

What will it take to get through to these people?

Over the last few weeks, I have reported 16 kiosks with graffiti to Energy Australia.  To their credit, they have done a good job of quickly tackling them and removing the graffiti (or painting over it).  The time it takes from logging a call with them to action appears to have been substantially reduced over the last six months.  It shows that management might be starting to "get it".

Then again, maybe not.

I went past their depot in Homebush today.  Parked in the back corner was this caravan, which is presumably some sort of mobile site office.

It's covered in graffiti.

I can understand Energy Australia having trouble tackling graffiti on kiosks that are spread all over the state, but this is parked in their depot yard.  It's presumably been vandalised whilst out on site, towed back to the depot and then left in this condition.

What's the bet that if I failed to take this up with Energy Australia on Tuesday, they'd tow it out to another site in this condition without batting an eyelid?

Six more kiosks awaiting paint

Just spent a very tedious 10 minutes or so on the phone to Energy Australia reporting half a dozen kiosks with graffiti - tedious because their computer system was running slowly. How nice it would be if they'd put up a web based reporting system, so I could go online and report these things at any hour of the day or night and not have to go through an annoying phone system with several layers of prompts.

Kiosks reported were:

• k2051 - REF 500064083
• 3219 - REF 500064084
• 2829 - REF 500064085
• 3599 - REF 500064086
• K1573 - REF 500064087
• 4854 - REF 500064088

Energy Australia have been very quick of late in getting vandalised kiosks cleaned up. I hope they keep doing it quickly for the rest of 2009.

It would be even better if Energy Australia allowed councils to clean up vandalised kiosks. That way, if an area was "bombed" with tags, you wouldn't have a disjointed effort in cleaning it up - it would all be done at the same time. As it stands, if say a wall and a kiosk are vandalised, you have to report both bits of vandalism separately, and both will be cleaned at different times - perhaps weeks apart. If the wall was cleaned today by Council, and the kiosk in say two weeks time by Energy Australia, in the time lag in between, vandals might come back and hit the wall - so you have to report it again. By the time Council comes back to clean the wall, the kiosk is hit again. And so on. You may never end up with an area being completely free of graffiti.

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.

-----------------

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.