(Transcript from SBS World News Radio)
Some Aboriginal residents of the South Australian town of Port Augusta say their children have been frightened by a spate of racist graffiti around the town.
The community is distressed that it took around six weeks for authorities to remove offensive slogans on road signs near Aboriginal areas.
As Karen Ashford reports, it wasn't until photos were posted on facebook that the local council acted.
And a warning, this report contains language that may offend some listeners.
The head of the Davenport Aboriginal Community Lavene Ngatokorua found the blue spray-painted hate slogans on road signs near the community centre, and along major highways on Port Augusta's outskirts.
"When you drove back into Port Augusta it said, used the "C" word , "Black C's", "more black S's are here" - that was what we saw, so we was really, really angry and our kids saw it and said, 'why would people write things like this?'"
Lavene Ngatokorua contacted the Port Augusta City council, but says there was confusion about whether it was the responsibility of Council or the Highways Department.
It wasn't until she posted the pictures on Facebook and a friend sent them to the mayor that anything happened.
"It's taken about six weeks to get these signs treated seriously, so I decided to put pictures on social media. From there the response was pretty quick in taking them down."
Responses to the facebook posting included a question from a young girl asking "are we safe Aunty?"
Ms Ngatokorua says another woman commented that she felt unsafe for her children.
Port Augusta Mayor Sam Johnson says he's seen worse graffiti elsewhere, but this was nevertheless unacceptable and he had it dealt with as soon as he knew about it.
"You walk into any public toilet anywhere in Australia, I'm pretty sure you'll find more alarming graffiti, but probably the location of it is what's more than anything, I mean, certainly I've never seen it that glaringly obvious and particularly not on the back end of a sign as well, so I guess it's a strategic location for graffiti because it's somewhere that everyone has to look if they're driving past. We do get a few little odd spots around town where we get graffiti but that one just obviously seemed to stand out given the size of it, the location of it and the colour of it."
Mayor Johnson says the council is usually quick to deal with graffiti, and he's assured the community he'll find out why this matter took so long to fix.
"As soon as anything like this is brought to our attention we defuse it straight away. We want to make sure that we do that, and continue to, as you say, operate in a harmonious way, and we take the attitude that we will take no shit from anyone. But ultimately we don't even know if this was done by someone locally, it could've been someone passing through with an axe to grind, who know who it could've been so I don't think there is this group or anyone out there with an axe to grind or a particular point to prove, it just seems to be something that's popped up."
Ms Ngatokorua says the Davenport community has good relations with the council.
But she says racism simmers just under the surface and she fears things could get worse.
"We face racism every day, there's an underlying current we have seen like this, this is coming out. Things like this will increase if they water down the Racial Discrimination Act, this will only increase, and people like, if you get leaders like the Attorney-General using works like bigots and all of that , that will just go through the roof."
Share
