{"id":650967,"date":"2026-05-05T10:55:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T10:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/650967\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T10:55:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T10:55:10","slug":"graffiti-protest-interrupts-queensland-transport-ministers-press-conference-amid-strikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/650967\/","title":{"rendered":"Graffiti protest interrupts Queensland transport minister&#8217;s press conference amid strikes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A\ufeff graffiti artist has been arrested at a live press conference with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.9news.com.au\/queensland\" target=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"Queensland\">Queensland<\/a>&#8216;s transport minister today, amid a standoff between Queensland Rail and transport <a href=\"http:\/\/www.9news.com.au\/unions\" target=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"unions\">unions<\/a>.Brent Mickelberg was speaking to media at South Brisbane Station today to announce reduced <a href=\"http:\/\/www.9news.com.au\/trains\" target=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"rail services\">rail services<\/a> when a man began spray-painting on a wall behind him.<\/p>\n<p>It appears the man was intending to write the word &#8216;QRUPT&#8217;, which he was heard repeating as he was removed from the area by railway squad officers.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/3fb8f0da-92f7-47d9-99b5-e048d13e6994.png\"   alt=\"Graffiti Mickleberg\"\/>A man is seen spray-painting a wall behind transport minister Brent Mickleberg. (Nine)<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Q-rupt, Q-rupt, Q-R-U-P-T, Q-rupt,&#8221; he said.\ufeff<\/p>\n<p>Almost 300 services across the Queensland Rail network have been affected as wage negotiations with transport unions including the Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) have stalled.<\/p>\n<p>\ufeff&#8221;I want to acknowledge the frustration that commuters are feeling,&#8221; Mickelberg said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m frustrated too, the government is frustrated as we work through these enterprise bargaining negotiations with unions.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Maintenance has not been done directly as a consequence of union industrial action over a number of weeks and we simply don&#8217;t have the rail rolling stock available to be able to operate the services that we need.&#8221;\ufeff<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/e4f08bbe-7316-4c32-8c2d-dda270b862e8.png\"   alt=\"Graffiti Mickleberg\"\/>The man is arrested by Railway Squad officers. (Nine)<\/p>\n<p>Micklberg said there were enough trains to run a &#8220;customer-optimised timetable&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The unions are very good at downplaying their actions by saying things like we&#8217;re undertaking partial work bans or paperwork bans.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They&#8217;ve also not been maintaining the trains, and that&#8217;s why we are where we are.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The RBTU\ufeff has previously insisted its rolling strike action would be &#8220;measured and deliberate&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The Fair Work Commission has called for an emergency meeting on Thursday to break the deadlock.<\/p>\n<p>Police have confirmed a 30-year-old Herston man has been charged with one count each of wilful damage by graffiti, commit public nuisance, and possess graffiti instrument.<\/p>\n<p>He will face court on May 13.\ufeff<\/p>\n<p>NEVER MISS A STORY: Get your breaking news and exclusive stories first by following us across all platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A\ufeff graffiti artist has been arrested at a live press conference with Queensland&#8216;s transport minister today, amid a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-650967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}