The following residents of the ACT draw to the attention of the Assembly:
Billboards have been prohibited in the ACT since the early 20th century, a move designed to protect the new capital’s national significance and preserve its natural character and bush setting.
Cities around the world – from Paris and São Paulo to New York and Chennai – have moved to ban or significantly reduce the number of billboards in their cities, an acknowledgement of the negative effects that billboards have on the urban landscape. Time and again, when people have been given the opportunity to have a say about billboards in their cities, they have elected to remove them from the public sphere.
The benefits of advertising billboards are concentrated amongst the few – major advertising firms, corporations and the private owners of billboards – while the costs are carried by all.
As people suffer from information overload, lose their connections with the natural environment and experience the feelings of inadequacy and craving that advertisements seek to instil, there is no sensible reason to consider relaxing the ACT’s current prohibition on billboards.
Canberra’s unique status as the ‘bush capital’ is now threatened by a proposal to relax the regulations that prohibit fixed billboards in the ACT. This is not something that Canberrans have asked for.
Your petitioners, therefore, request the Assembly to maintain the prohibition on billboard advertising in the ACT, and properly enforce the current rules that regulate public advertising in the Territory.