Councillor goes blank over sex billboards

By Shaun Inguanzo
A GREATER Dandenong councillor says she will investigate the council buying space in front of the city’s billboards and erecting blank signs to cover up explicit advertising.
Keysborough Ward councillor Roz Blades this week told Star she had received complaints from the city’s parents regarding explicit and offensive advertising on billboards in areas populated by families.
Cr Blades this week asked council directors what power the City of Greater Dandenong had to control content on the billboards.
But the council’s director of development services, Mal Baker, said the council was powerless to act because it had no control over the billboard’s content.
Mr Baker said in the past the council had contacted the Advertising Standards Board but had experienced no luck in gaining control of what was advertised.
But later this week Cr Blades said she would pursue the angle of asking the council to purchase space in front of the billboards and erect blank boards that would hide the offensive content.
“I think it is ludicrous that the council has no clout in its city with the Advertising Standards Board,” she said.
“The only thing we can do is hire space in front of (the billboards) and put a blank board there.”
The billboards contain advertisements for sex shops and erectile dysfunction medication – a sight Cr Blades said would not help Dandenong attract families to the city, including developments such as Metro 3175.