A cheeky social media campaign is aiming to whip up support to keep Canberra's billboard ban as an inquiry into the possible relaxation of rules governing outdoor advertising in the ACT enters its next stage.
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'Naked' photos of women calling on lawmakers to "keep Canberra nude" around some of the city's most recognisable locations hit Facebook last Friday.
Green Institute executive director and one of the coordinators of Ad Free Canberra Tim Hollo said while there was no actual nudity, just some "carefully posed photography", the message was clear - keep the billboard ban.
"Everyone I talk to about [the billboard inquiry] says it's nuts, why would we want more advertisements?" Mr Hollo said.
"The almost ad-free nature of Canberra is one of the best things about the place."
Submissions to the billboard inquiry closed on Tuesday. All of the submissions published online as of 5pm Tuesday opposed the deregulation of outdoor advertising.
Unions ACT wanted the government to further crack down on outdoor advertising, including not renewing contracts for bus stop advertising, their submission - not yet published but supplied to The Canberra Times - showed.
Secretary Alex White said the government had done little to stop the "undue expansion" of outdoor advertising in recent years, with building developers advising new apartments on the side of the buildings.
He said Unions ACT was worried about the "increasing privatisation of public assets", and described it as a "pernicious form of neoliberalism that prioritises the benefits of a few businesses over the interest of the public at large".
"Public spaces are public goods," he wrote.
"Public spaces would effectively be privatised if restrictions on billboards were removed.
"Further more privately managed outdoor advertising is undemocratic, as it grants commercial interests, rather than duly elected or appointed representatives, the power to determine what can be publicly displayed."
A joint submission by Conrad Burden, Barbara Nelson and Geoffery Nelson proffered the full-wrap advertisements on ACTION buses should be scrapped as it constitutes "the unjustified introduction of billboards to the ACT by stealth and cannot be justified on economic grounds".
Total annual revenue from all bus advertising was $545,000 in 2014-15," they wrote.
"This is less than one half of one percent of the cost of running rhe bus system in Canberra.
"The advertising revenue generated does not seem a sufficient argument in favour of full wrap advertising when weighed against the detrimental effect of such advertising.
"It is conceivable as a precedent to argue that billboards in general are an acceptable form that the existence of wrap advertising on buses, which has never been agreed to by the public will be used as a precedent to argue that billboard in general are an acceptable form of visual pollution in Canberra."
Their submission said billboards were the "absolute antithesis of what Canberra is".
They warned Northbourne Avenue would become a "crass parade of moving billboard when light rail is introduced" if advertising wraps on public transport continued.
A submission by Craig Gill said the move to regulated billboards appeared to be about money and served "no-one except advertisers and the owner of the boards".
Hugh Dakin called billboards "litter on a stick" in his submission.
Jonathon Crane said billboards were "a way of the past, like travelling medicine shows or asbestos as a building material".
Billboards have been banned in the ACT since the 1930s but Chief Minister Andrew Barr signalled a possible relaxation of the regulations in January of this year.
