Keira MP Ryan Park has dubbed the state government's Graffiti Hotline a "waste of money" and called for a new approach to managing the problem of illegal street scrawl.
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Mr Park wants the hotline funding to be redirected to local councils for use in graffiti clean-up projects.
He said he had sought advice from the Department of Justice and found the hotline alerted Wollongong City Council to just eight instances of graffiti this financial year.
"Essentially all the hotline does is transfer information back to Wollongong Council," he said.
"Instead of wasting money on a hotline no one knows about, let's give the money directly to council so that we can get the graffiti that is causing problems right across our community cleaned up as quickly as possible."
A spokesman for the Department of Justice confirmed a hotline operator's role was to disseminate information to the government agency or council responsible for clean-up, in this case Wollongong City Council, which maintains its own graffiti line (4227 7111).
However, the spokesman said the hotline, as a single statewide number, had worth in eliminating confusion and delays.
The spokesman would not confirm the number of Wollongong reports made to the hotline, but said it had received thousands of calls since opening in March, 2012.
"The service is relatively inexpensive to run as calls to the hotline are answered by staff at the LawAccess call centre," the spokesman said.
"The hotline is a valuable service for many councils that don't have their own dedicated graffiti-reporting phone line."
The spokesman said the hotline was only one aspect of the government's strategy for combating graffiti, with tougher anti-graffiti legislation, Graffiti Removal Day and grants for council-led hot spot projects introduced in recent years.
"Last year, the Department of Justice provided a combined total of almost $75,000 in funding to Wollongong and Shellharbour city councils for projects to reduce graffiti in hot spot areas."
Larissa Hutchison opened a cafe, Drift Lounge, on Corrimal's main shopping street 12 weeks ago and has already seen neighbouring walls marred by tags.
She would like to see a legal graffiti wall established in the area to deter vandals from private property.
"I've had so many people say, 'What a lovely shop; shame about the graffiti'."
Across the road at RJ's Discount Variety store, where unwanted tagging is also a problem, Treena Fielding has enlisted the services of a local artist to cover two of her shop walls in legal aerosol art.
"It won't get touched then, because they respect [graffiti art]," she said.
