The Melbourne City Council has declared war on the city's status as a stencil-art capital with their new
zero-tolerance graffiti plan. Under the plan, building owners will be legally obliged to either remove graffiti (which includes aerosol art or stencil art) or put in applications for each individual piece to remain. And so, the city becomes a little more like Singapore or Giuliani's New York.
It may be that they intend to use it to spread the load of graffitti cleaning a little bit, which is not totally unreasonable. It would be sad to see stencil art treated the same way as tags, though. If that starts happening, everone should just be encouraged to graffitti only government buildings.
Frankly, I think it's telling that some things attract graffitti, and some don't. and the sme that don't are often much more beautiful than the some that do. Maybe the better plan would be to require building owners to (re)decorate eyesores.