Conservatives can make Melbourne a model – by starting with graffiti

Wednesday, 25th March 2009

Victoria’s most senior Liberal officeholder, Lord Mayor Robert Doyle, must balance
beauty with common sense and rejuvenate the city, says John Heard

That Melbourne’s alleyways have little otherwise to recommend them, and too often reek of sin — so many are strewn with refuse, rotting matter, human filth and glass; too many therefore invite violence — adds another complicating element.

Certainly, no serious stakeholder would deny that the City should maintain Melbourne’s alleyways, and no one should impede Melbourne businesses from managing the fabric of their commercial properties.

But Doyle should order City iconoclasts to otherwise keep their nozzles pointed at the ground. There should be clarity on the issue of what is permitted, and what will be cleared away, and street artists should be given a role in the decision-making process. They need to feel safe enough to use their real names, for a start.

Certainly, Doyle should continue his efforts to clean up Melbourne, and Victorians need to hear how he will confront the most serious issues relating to alcohol and violence. But in the meantime, the manner in which he approaches this peculiar nexus of art and law, an issue that implicates the City in the most basic questions of good order and governance, will help to define his tenure as Lord Mayor. He must be clear, and he must break through where the City of Melbourne has vacillated in the past. He must lead.

He has already made a good start on street performers. The guiding principles there, available for extrapolation in other cases, might be a focus on quality, and common sense, two distinctly conservative values.

Certainly, if Doyle can balance these tensions — beautify the city, preserve its best assets, transform its nastiest streets, and encourage the flourishing of its arts and business communities — he will win the support of Melburnians, and show other Liberals how to lead.

In the absence of noteworthy successes by other Australian conservatives, that sort of achievement will be worth watching, if only for this glimmer of hope: a model to emulate on a much larger scale.