Council prepares for poster backlash

BY ALEX MCDONALD
Council’s plan to reduce the number of posters on the city’s walls, power poles and hoardings has been condemned by activists.
The City of Sydney is threatening to fine those caught “postering” up to $1500 per poster from November 10 as part of a 12-month trial.
But UNSW academic and activist Diane Fieldes has described council’s hardline approach as an attack on civil liberties.
“It really beggars belief that they think they could stop people expressing their political views,” said Dr Fieldes, who volunteers for the Stop the War Coalition.
“One of the main ways people find out about protests, demonstrations, rallies, forums, public meetings or about issues of interest is via postering. It always has been.”
Council sees bill posters as “visual pollution” which are not only illegal, but also environmentally unsound and costly to remove.
A council spokeswoman said: “Under the Protection of the Environment Act 1997, bill posting is considered illegal because it is a form of pollution. As bill posters disintegrate, they have the potential of entering the stormwater system, and possibly into Sydney Harbour.”
Since 2004, the city has spent more than $6 million cleaning and removing 790,000 posters. Council said the new strategy will save ratepayers millions by reducing the need to remove them.
Yet Diane Fieldes says the crackdown is hypocritical given the amount of council-sanctioned advertising allowed on city billboards and bus shelters.
“Visual pollution is in the eye of the beholder,” Dr Fieldes said. “What about JC Decaux, a company that pays council lots of money to put those ads up in the bus stops’ If we’re visual pollution, why aren’t they’ I find most of that advertising pretty offensive.”
Not surprisingly, the owner of one Sydney’s main poster distribution companies is also critical of the plan. But he is less concerned about the threat of fines after being told by his lawyers that his business is acting legally.
“I don’t think [council have] got a leg to stand on,” said the businessman, who asked to remain anonymous. “It says in Hansard that [the Protection of the Environment Act] doesn’t apply to street posters fixed to telegraph poles. I’ve sent them a copy of Hansard.”
He also questioned why council dedicated so much time and money to removing posters over the past four years.
“They’re saying it costs them $1.5 million per annum to pull posters down,” he said. “It’s costing me about 80 or 90 cents to put up each one up and it’s costing them $4.40 to take each one down.
“I just think we can work together. Maybe they should just pay me the money to do it.”
The decision to outlaw bill posters also has its critics within Town Hall House. Councillor Chris Harris said the Greens were among the 130 “known offenders” to receive a written warning about the poster crackdown.
Cr Harris is adamant the city’s streets can be kept clean and tidy without fining citizens who wish to promote their events.
“We should have an agreement where you say to people ‘if you put them up, you’ve got to take them down’,” Cr Harris said. “I think that would be much more civilised.”
Cr Harris also finds council’s argument that bill posters are an environmental liability hard to swallow.
“I’ve door-knocked almost every house in the City of Sydney at some stage, and I constantly found City of Sydney leaflets that had Clover Moore’s message and photograph on them,” he said. “They accumulated in doorways, in gutters, in stormwater drains and on footpaths. Will the city be prosecuting itself for that'”