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An Australian MP's crusade against graffiti backfired when he spent five hours scrubbing off what turned out to be a specially commissioned piece of street art.
Steve Pratt invited the media to witness his one-man campaign, calling the artwork painted on the side of a concrete bridge in Canberra an "obnoxious piece of vivid graffiti vandalism". It was only after he had reduced it to a discoloured smear with the aid of stiff brushes and industrial-strength detergent that it emerged it had been commissioned by a local sports club.
The Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory, John Stanhope, said the Opposition MP's artistic vigilantism had been referred to police for investigation. "In his eagerness to thump the law and order tub ... [he] may have joined the ranks of those he so consistently reviles - the vandals of our community."
Pratt said his stand against graffiti was part of a wider campaign against vandalism and anti-social behaviour, which he alleged the ACT Government had failed to curb.
But the Ultimate Frisbee club wants the MP to pay for it to be replaced. "It's now a grimy mess," said club secretary Greg Sparksman. "Ironically, he's exposed the illegal graffiti tags that were on the wall before the painting went up."
