How this broken swing led to two million complaints in Australia

Little did Danny Gorog know that when he first stumbled upon a broken swing in his local park in 2012, it would lead to him overseeing close to two million qualms from other Australians.

Mr Gorog was out with his young son in Melbourne's St Kilda East when they discovered his favourite swing had been damaged.

"My son started crying when I told him he couldn’t use it. I remember being so disappointed that we weren’t able to enjoy a nice day at the park," he recalled.

“I remember thinking to myself, ‘How do I get this fixed? Who do I tell?’ I had no idea. I didn’t even know what council I was in at the time."

It was at this point he had his life-changing brainwave and conjured up the idea for an app where Australians could easily report issues to their council simply by taking a photo.

Snap Send Solve was born.

The app has gone from strength to strength since with more than 720 local authorities signed up to receive residents' reports and is even used by other entities such as Telstra and the University of Melbourne.

There were 437,381 reports alone in 2020.

Users can report anything from dumped rubbish to illegal parking, from pot holes to overgrown bushes and even abandoned trolleys through the app.

Sharing a photo of the broken swing with Yahoo News Australia, Mr Gorog, who remains the CEO of Snap Send Solve reminisced: "This is the image that started it all."

Lockdown prompts rise in certain reports

He told Yahoo the uncertain recent times has not affected users' appetite for the app and there has been a surprise increase in playground reports in the past year.

"We think this is due to more people spending time in playgrounds over the lockdown," he said.

Playgrounds have been a contentious issue amid lockdowns in Australia, with a decision to ban the use of them in Melbourne's latest lockdown only lasting for a short period after facing community anger while even the police union criticised the move.

Mr Gorog said there has been a spike in reports on trolleys, dumped rubbish, illegal parking and graffiti during the last year.

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