The clean up is well underway Paint is being removed from a GAYTM on Auckland's Ponsonby Rd, in vandalism said to have been carried out by two youths this morning. One of those painstakingly removing the white acrylic paint from the glammed up cash machine has told GayNZ.com Daily News "two young kids" were snapped on security camera hurling the paint. Footage has been passed on to police, who are investigating. "You have to wonder at the mentality of people who would do this," the cleaner says. He adds that there is unlikely to be damage in the machine from paint or solvents, as the cash flap is working and "these machines are weathertight". The video screen is still working. By just after 10am today work to clean the GAYTM had been underway for about an hour and a half. The original damage Workers are using screwdriver blades and a small brush to get between the 120,000 rhinestones on the installation, which took artist Reuben Paterson 300 hours to put together. The bank installed two GAYTMs in Auckland and one in Wellington to celebrate Auckland Pride Festival and Out in the Park, stating "the GAYTMs represent values that are important to all of us: respect, inclusion, equality and acceptance." A gay man on Ponsonby Rd surveying the damaged GAYTM remarked to our reporter "in a way this is what Pride is about - celebrating being gay and remembering that there are still plenty of homophobes out there." Among the comments from passers-by have been "it's pathetic and shows a lack of intelligence," and "I thought New Zealand had come further than this since I was a kid." Another passer by, asked if he felt the vandalism was motivated by homophobia, commented: "It must be. If it was dressed up for Anzac Day or a Red Cross appeal do you think this would ever happen?"