Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill

Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Justice) Link to this

I move, That the Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. This bill seeks to amend the Summary Offences Act 1981. It creates a specific offence of graffiti vandalism, prohibits the sale of spray-cans to people under 18 years of age, and compels retailers to physically restrict access to spray-cans. The bill is designed to complement the wider legal framework to manage graffiti vandalism. It establishes a specific new graffiti vandalism offence—section 11A, in clause 4. The bill consequently amends section 33, “Billsticking, defacing, etc.”, of the Summary Offences Act by removing reference to defacing. The bill is thus clear that the offence relates specifically to graffiti and tagging, although still including defacing. Penalties under the new offence include a community-based sentence, or a fine of up to $2,000, or both.

The Law and Order Committee has recommended several changes to the bill. I commend the committee’s work, which has resulted, in my view, in a stronger bill. Reference to damaging property has now been added to the graffiti vandalism offence, to indicate that tagging should be considered damage. This makes it clearer that the bill does not limit or diminish the ability of the police to charge people with the offence of wilful damage, under section 11 of the Summary Offences Act, or with intentional damage, under section 269 of the Crimes Act, for more serious graffiti damage. The penalties for these offences are stronger than those proposed in the bill. I wish to emphasise, however, that I believe that the new offence option of a community-based sentence, whereby the offender can be involved in cleaning up graffiti vandalism, will be used most often and will be the most appropriate and effective penalty for most offenders.

When introduced, the bill did not include any offences for possessing tools that could be used for graffiti vandalism. This precluded police action prior to a graffiti offence having been committed. The bill now makes it an offence to possess implements that could be used for graffiti vandalism. A person can be charged if he or she does not have a reasonable excuse for possessing an implement in circumstances where it can be reasonably inferred that that person intended to commit a graffiti offence. This enhances the ability of the police to take action in order to prevent damage to property before it occurs. The bill gives judges discretion about whether the offender pays a fine of up to $500, or completes a sentence of community work, or both, for the offence of possessing tools. Thus the possessing offence, appropriately, has a lower penalty than the actual graffiti vandalism offence.

Submissions on the bill noted that there was some uncertainty about what was expected by the provision that spray-cans must be secured in shops. Some people took it to mean that spray-cans must be kept in locked cabinets. That was not intended. To clarify the intention, the bill now reads that access to spray-cans in shops should be restricted. This should make it clear that shopkeepers must simply physically restrict access to spray-cans, so that the public cannot access them without the help of staff. I trust this change allays some concerns about retailers’ compliance costs, in that they will not be compelled to provide locked cabinets. I do believe, however, that it is appropriate to require shopkeepers to take measures to prevent spray-cans from being readily stolen from shops.

No specific agency has been given responsibility for enforcing the bill’s provisions, and this is consistent with other provisions in the Summary Offences Act. A key feature of effectively enforcing the bill is keeping enforcement responsibility flexible. It is important that either the police or territorial local authorities can potentially enforce any part of the bill, as appropriate, while having primary responsibility for enforcing certain parts. This flexibility will enable local prioritisation, collaboration, and alignment of enforcement between the police, territorial local authorities, and any other Government agency that may wish to enforce provisions or to take actions under this bill. Operationally, I expect the police to be the primary enforcement body for the graffiti vandalism offence. I expect that spray-can sales and restriction measures will largely be enforced by territorial local authorities, with supporting police action where appropriate. This aspect of the bill fits more appropriately with territorial local authorities’ regulatory functions, and provides a mechanism for them to contribute to the prevention of an offence of which they are often the most significant victim.

I take this opportunity to signal my intention to introduce a Supplementary Order Paper to the bill. The Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Act was recently passed. I commend the Manukau City Council leaders for developing that Act, and the Hon George Hawkins for proactively introducing and progressing it, for the benefit of the people of Manukau. The Act contains a range of provisions to address the Manukau graffiti problem that are broadly similar to those in the bill that I am currently addressing. Although the Act is certainly a good thing for Manukau, I believe that it would be inappropriate to retain it should this current bill, which provides consistent responses to graffiti vandalism across the whole country, be passed. The existence of both pieces of law is likely to cause confusion and inconsistency in Manukau around which piece of law is to be followed, and to lead to offenders in Manukau being treated differently from offenders in the rest of the country. It is logical that national law should supersede local law that addresses exactly the same problem. But we must commend the Manukau City Council for bringing in a local bill to set in course some action. I therefore believe that the legal framework would be simplified and strengthened if the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Act was repealed upon the passage of the Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill. Consequently, I intend to introduce in the Committee of the whole House stage a Supplementary Order Paper that repeals the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Act.

To conclude, I want to make it clear that this bill forms only part of a comprehensive strategy that the Government is developing to combat graffiti vandalism. The Government has agreed that the core content of the anti-tagging strategy—the Stop Tagging Our Place (STOP) strategy—is a very important part of it. This strategy will include a range of strategic and operational responses to the graffiti problem, in addition to this legislative response. The Government has also backed the STOP strategy with $6 million of funding over 3 years to support local communities and councils to establish new or additional anti-tagging activities. The Government expects the STOP strategy to be finalised by July this year.

This bill will create a clear graffiti offence, stop spray-can sales to under-18s, and restrict the physical availability of spray-cans in shops in order to avoid theft. It forms an important contribution to the STOP strategy. I commend the bill to this House, and thank the members of the Law and Order Committee for the very constructive work they did on improving this bill.

SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) Link to this

I thank the Minister for her concluding remarks. The Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill was one of those bills on which, when it went before a select committee, members formed the view early on that there were some major holes surrounding the way it would be enforced. In particular, our view was that the controls on the actual sale of a spray-can and the way it was secured in the shop that was selling it would not be enough to deal with the potential criminality that would flow from the sale and purchase and subsequent use of a spray-can or other tagging device.

I was interested to hear the Minister say—and this is the first of my points—the Government intends to introduce a Supplementary Order Paper to repeal the legislation George Hawkins was in charge of, the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Act, during the Committee of the whole House. I think that is appropriate, in the sense that having laws that work area by area when an alternative national approach is available—and that is an important qualifier—is not a useful suggestion. I note also, from memory—and I stand to be corrected by the next Government speaker if I have this wrong—that the legislation the Hon George Hawkins was in charge of did not include a possessory offence. The Minister is nodding, so I will take it that is her understanding of that legislation, as well. I think that would have left Manukau in a very difficult position, because there would have been one law for Manukau and another for the rest of the country. Presumably, if statutes that are specific rather than general take priority in an application, we would have had the curious situation where a well-intentioned local bill may have been less effective than a national bill. I do not believe that the Hon George Hawkins would like to see that occur. However, I would be interested to hear during the Committee of the whole House what Mr Hawkins has to say about the application of the more general bill to the specific circumstances surrounding graffiti—the application of this particular legislation—in Manukau.

The Minister raised a really interesting point about the different enforcement roles of the police and territorial authorities, and in particular about the regulatory checking function that a territorial authority would have in order to ensure that retailers were meeting their obligations as to the security of cans that were contained in the original bill. Now, of course, the bill refers to a lesser standard of cans simply being stored in such a way that members of the public cannot obtain possession without the help of the occupier. I want to come back to that, because that particular clause was not without controversy at the Law and Order Committee.

I just return for a second to the difference between the role of the territorial authority and that of the police. What we did not want, as members of that committee, was to have the police tied up in checking dairies, shops, and hardware stores throughout New Zealand to see whether spray-cans were being secured properly. They have far more pressing issues on their minds, as this House has heard from members on both sides many times over the last 2 or 3 years. Rather, the territorial authority may be in a better position to deal with what we would call first-instance compliance issues. Then the police would take an enforcement measure or an enforcement role at the point where it became clear that the smaller compliance issues were not being met. It is really important that we do not lose sight of the differing responsibilities that the bill puts in place.

I just make this significant point. This bill is not the answer to graffiti, actually. I am sure those parties that are opposed to this legislation will have the view that regardless of the intent of the policy, perhaps the legislation has not been drafted in a way that will ever be regarded as comprehensively dealing with this issue. But National will support the second reading of this bill, because we believe it is a step in the right direction. We are keen to look carefully at amendments and improvements that may be offered during the Committee stage, and we will do that with an open mind. But at this point, we are supporting the second reading.

We are pleased to note that the select committee, under the guidance of the chairperson, included a clause that made it absolutely clear that the remedies available today to the police and the public under the Summary Offences Act and the Crimes Act are not to be overridden. It was always our argument with regard to the putting forward of legislation on graffiti that existing mechanisms in the law could actually be used to deal with some of these problems to a point. So this particular bill should be seen as being complementary to those existing provisions, which, I have to say, create much harsher penalties for the more hard-end use, I guess, of graffiti implements. In this bill, the possessory offence proposed by the committee has a fine of up to only $500. That is because the nature of the proposed offence is a wide one, and that provision, if used inappropriately by the authorities, could capture a wide net. When the definitions are looked at closely, we see the penalty suggested by the committee is appropriate. Otherwise we would get ourselves into a very difficult situation indeed.

National does remain concerned about the practicalities of the implementation of restricted access to spray-cans in shops, and we make that statement in the debate on the report back to the House today. Originally, the bill provided that spray-cans had to be secured, and the Minister was quite right when she said that meant retailers envisaged having to expend a considerable sum of money to run out and buy lock-secured cabinets for these particular spray-cans. We heard evidence from the Retailers Association that if that were the case, the lead-in time of 3 months offered in the bill would be insufficient for retailers to react to that proposed new standard for the securing of spray-cans. So that particular issue of secured spray-cans was changed in favour of a recommended amendment to indicate that access to spray-cans in shops should be restricted. What the committee meant by that was that it was sufficient to make clear that the occupier of a shop would be required to keep spray-cans where the public could not access them without help from a staff member. That is quite different from keeping them in a locked cabinet.

That meant the committee formed the view that the lead-in time of 3 months was appropriate. I do think that is the case, because the last thing we need to do is to pass legislation that was rushed through the first reading and went to the select committee for a very short period of time, and then to say that Parliament has done this in a very quick and driven manner but that we will wait 6 months until it is implemented. I do not think that would have been satisfactory in terms of the Government’s so-called Stop Tagging Our Place strategy or of common sense when it came to applying these provisions.

Some things remain to be done during the Committee stage. I am sure that amendments will be offered around the definition of the possessory offence. Now that the Minister has indicated a Supplementary Order Paper will be put forward so that this bill overtakes Mr Hawkins’ legislation, I am sure discussion around the way those two pieces of legislation are married and what that means for the Manukau City area in particular will be the subject of debate during the Committee stage. But at this point National will support the second reading of this bill.

I close by endorsing the comments of the Minister. I thank the chairperson of the select committee, Mr Ron Mark, for enabling discussion to broaden in a way that enabled the committee to suggest and include the possessory offence, which I think is probably the crucial difference between this bill and the one offered earlier this year to deal specifically with the graffiti issue in Manukau City.

Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Labour—Dunedin South) Link to this

I rise to take a brief call. I begin by thanking the preceding speaker for the positive and constructive way in which he and his colleagues addressed this issue. I think most members of the House and the wider community would agree that tagging—let us not be too forgiving of tagging—is nothing other than a form of vandalism. Acceptable street art or graffiti is quite another matter in the appropriate place, and one of the things we have done is focus on this form of vandalism and property damage. Most members of the House and the community would agree that tagging is not just an offence against individual property owners. It damages our communities both in respect of the visual and aesthetic problems and in terms of, at least, perceptions—and, probably, more than that—about people’s safety.

We care very much in this Government about developing, supporting, and empowering strong welcoming communities in which people’s rights are respected and upheld, and I think this bill in its amended form—and in whatever form in which it emerges from the Committee stage—will empower communities right across New Zealand to eliminate this most unfortunate and undesirable practice.

One of the earlier speakers—the Minister, in fact—talked about the desirability of seeing those involved in this practice, mostly young people who are mostly young males, out on the streets cleaning up their handiwork and that of others. That is highly desirable, and I have yet to hear anyone criticise or object to it.

As members know, the Government’s initiatives do not consist of just this one bill. This bill is part of our Stop Tagging Our Place (STOP) strategy, and that strategy is about discouraging tagging, at the same time giving local government and community groups the tools they need to help clean it up and discourage young people from doing it, or rather to encourage young people to make a more constructive contribution to their communities.

We acknowledge the wide support in the community that this bill has received. It has support from local government, from community and business groups, and from other non-governmental organisations. I guess that is evidenced in the change of attitude we have seen about this sort of activity. That has not happened just in the community. We have seen it reported more recently in the changes of attitude of the judiciary to the seriousness of this nascent behaviour, which leads on to much worse and much more serious antisocial behaviour. We should all welcome that attitude change, but certainly there is very little disagreement about the unacceptability of tagging.

Most people would agree that there is no confusion over what tagging is. It is clearly just territorial marking, very similar to the behaviour of tom-cats. It is no more nor less that sort of territorial behaviour. We saw some of the most undesirable forms of tagging a year ago or more in some of the street behaviour in other parts of the country.

Members will be aware that this initiative is part of a $6 million funding initiative over 3 years for anti-tagging and anti-graffiti vandalism initiatives, including grants for community groups for their own anti-tagging initiatives, a fund for local government programmes, funding for restorative justice programmes, targeted law enforcement by police in tagging hot spots—including the 250 extra community police officers who will be in the force by 2009—and the establishment of an expert community advisory group.

Just before I close I would like to publicly acknowledge the efforts of those people who have already been well and truly on the case. I refer not just to some very extensive initiatives run mostly by local government and other community groups in a number of our main centres, but also to commercial operators—paint recyclers, and so on—who have taken the trouble to do not just the correct environmental thing by picking up their own product, but who have gone a step further and distributed that product, grey and all as it might be, to the groups that are out correcting this sort of damage.

The other matter that is important, and to which the Law and Order Committee has made improvements, is in respect of the widening of the kinds of implements referred to. As members will be aware—and if they are not, they should look at the detail—this provision no longer talks just about spray-cans and their availability; it actually talks about the issues around the use of other implements. I do not need to be more specific, but it is not just felt and vivid pens, which also cause a lot of damage in public places around the country that is very difficult to erase.

I commend the bill to the House. I think it is significantly improved. I look forward to the ongoing discussion and refinement, if necessary, in the Committee stage.

JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) Link to this

The members of the House who are interested in this issue will recall that I often spoke on the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill, which is now an Act, and which was first introduced by the Hon George Hawkins in November 2005. There is a reason for that. I am a South Aucklander by choice. I prefer to live and work in South Auckland, and paying rates to the Manukau City Council makes me extremely aware of the cost of graffiti, certainly in terms of money. Living in South Auckland means that I am fully aware of the effect that graffiti has on the 98 percent of people who live in the South Auckland region who are very good people, but who, unfortunately, so often have their landscape absolutely destroyed by taggers.

I do not subscribe to graffiti being art. I do not subscribe to the view of the Children’s Commissioner, and others of that thinking, that graffiti is some sort of resistance-type statement and is therefore legitimate; I think it is vandalism. It is destruction of property, it is destruction of the environment, and it is destruction of people’s peace of mind. In Papakura, there are areas of lovely woods. Kirks Bush is lovely bush that is very close to the centre of town. If members go through there they will see that the trees have been graffitied. How could this possibly be some resistance-type art work? What rubbish! I think that most New Zealanders—most young New Zealanders, most old New Zealanders, and most middle-aged New Zealanders—feel threatened by the presence of graffiti. The reason is that it is actually about marking out territory; it is about saying “We don’t care about you. We expect respect from you but we’re not going to give you any back.” That is the sort of nonsense that goes on in the minds of those who commit these crimes.

We have waited an awfully long time for this bill. The Labour Party promised in its 1999 manifesto that it would get tough on the issue of graffiti. It said that it would have a restorative justice programme in which “young offenders and their families can opt for community work, e.g. cleaning up graffiti, as an alternative to prosecution.” That is what Labour said. It is now 2008 and we finally have a bill before the House. What made that happen was that the Manukau City Council became tired of waiting for something to happen so that these young offenders and their families could opt for community work—for example, cleaning up their graffiti—and it said it was going to do something about it, and it brought forward a bill.

The only thing that I can really see wrong with the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Act is that it did not include other areas. However, I thought it was a great first start and I was very pleased that my party was able to support its passage right the way through the House. I do not agree with the people who say there is no need for legislative change. The reason for that is that until this Parliament signals that it takes graffiti seriously, then why should judges? I am absolutely certain that the few cases that have been very recently noted in the newspapers—I think from places like the Hawke’s Bay, where graffiti artists or taggers have been dealt with in a very sensible way, in the opinion of most people—reflect society’s views about what is happening to our communities. People have said that they have had enough of being told by liberal-type people that this is some sort of art.

RON MARK (NZ First) Link to this

I rise to speak on behalf of New Zealand First on the Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill. As the chairman of the Law and Order Committee, I thank the committee members and congratulate them on the way in which they worked on this bill. I know that committee members the Hon David Benson-Pope and Simon Power have already expressed such thoughts, but I wanted to add to them because I truly did appreciate the work of the committee and the way in which the members took on this task.

It saddens me just a little that Kate Wilkinson was not here to take the first call for the National team. Kate and Chester Borrows were both on the committee, but they have not spoken. That is a little disappointing. I see that Judith Collins, who was not on the committee, has taken a call, and I am just wondering whether Kate is off crook, or something. I know she was off crook recently with the flu. I hope that is not the case, and that she will be able to make a contribution later on at the Committee stage, because she does understand the bill and will be able to speak to it, as opposed to the wider issues that the committee confronted.

I know that previous speakers have canvassed all the issues, and, specifically, the issues in respect of charges, the amendments we made, and the question of possession. I want to give credit where it is due, so I give credit to Chester Borrows, because at a very early stage he saw a deficiency in the bill in respect of possession. I guess it was the old cop within him. The committee very quickly turned its mind to that matter, on that initial prompt from Chester.

A number of submitters came to the committee. The local government sector was strongly represented by the Manukau District Council, the Christchurch City Council, the Auckland City Council, the Papakura District Council, the Waitakere City Council, to name a few; other councils included those from Wanganui, Upper Hutt, Wellington, and Hamilton, and the Far North District Council. They made very, very clear to the committee what the cost of cleaning up tagging was.

The committee received a representation from Local Government New Zealand. We were surprised that the organisation did not appear to have at its fingertips a consolidated database of all the issues that the district councils and other councils were raising severally. It would have been nice to have accurate figures on precisely how much money ratepayers are spending nationwide to deal with tagging and graffiti.

NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) Link to this

The Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill was a shameless piece of electioneering when it went into the Law and Order Committee, and it is even worse now it has come out of it. In fact this debate has been all about the fact that we do not like tagging, and there has been very little explanation of how this legislation will stop tagging effectively or stop people from simply moving on to other antisocial activity.

I and the Green Party were criticised quite heavily in the media for opposing this legislation, not because anyone thought it would be effective but because people somehow thought it was outrageous that we should think that Parliament should spend its time passing legislation that works and actually does something. We think the law should not be about sending signals to young people but should be about putting into place effective and good legislation. Just for the record, I say the Green Party does not like tagging any more than anyone else does; we just do not agree with passing over-reactive law, especially if it will be entirely ineffective. In fact, even the most sympathetic media commentators have said this legislation would not make any difference—it is all about sending a signal. That surely should not be the business of the House.

The bill was bad when it went into the select committee; it was even worse when it came out of it. Amazingly, the select committee managed to make the bill even worse than it had been—even worse! So who are the people on the select committee, I have to ask? Ron Mark is the chair of the select committee. This is what we would expect from Ron Mark, but what about the others: David Benson-Pope, Chester Borrows, Martin Gallagher, Darren Hughes, Simon Power, and Kate Wilkinson? Those people should be ashamed of themselves. I think it is important for the public to understand who was on the select committee, because the amendments to this bill are something to be ashamed of.

Let us look at the amendments. First of all, the select committee has added a whole new dimension by saying it will now be an offence to carry things like a marker pen, a can of paint, a bottle of glue, or even car keys if it can be inferred that the intention is to mark something. I was surprised to hear that Mr Borrows was the motivator of this amendment; that is what Ron Mark said during the debate. I was surprised at that, given Mr Borrows’ usual concern about just process. We have to ask what is meant by “inferred”. How do we infer that the intention is to use something to commit an offence? There is no indication in the bill or in the commentary on it of how that is to be inferred. I guess the select committee chose the term “inferred” because it carries some vague notion of evidential support. The danger is, of course, that it risks turning lawyers into philosophers, and some obvious ungulate analogies spring to mind—notwithstanding Mr Borrows’ multiple lives. Or perhaps, given that he is now a National member of Parliament, that proves the point.

But in any case, having found someone to be in possession of a felt-tipped pen, how will the police infer that that person intends to use it to commit an offence? How could they tell that? What evidence will be adduced to prove that point? Judging by the comments in the debate through the various stages on this bill, the person’s age will probably be a factor. Unlike other elements of this bill, that amendment does not restrict possession of those items to people over 18; it says anyone will commit an offence if it can be inferred that he or she is going to use the item to commit an offence—to mark something. However, being young would appear to be a predisposing factor to criminality, according to some members of this House—

HONE HARAWIRA (Māori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) Link to this

Tēnā koe, Madam Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koe to Nandor—that was a choice kōrero. While Mr Tanczos was speaking, one of my colleagues in National made a quip about how one could have got arrested “Black while driving” in the US. That was just a passing joke, but I recall one of the things that Ngā Tamatoa raised back in the 1970s. There was a law on the books right up until the 1960s in this country whereby one could be arrested for being out at night with one’s face darkened. It did not say anything about artificially darkened, either. Apparently it used to be an old English law to stop people from putting soot on their faces and going out burgling. It was a law used to arrest Māori in Auckland if they could not think of any other reason.

I do not mind saying right up front that I am not a fan of tagging—none of us are—not today, not yesterday, not tomorrow. It is ugly, it is offensive, and makes one’s town look like crap. People do not want to stop in those towns, because they see the existence of tagging as a clear mark of the existence of crime. I personally do not mind some of that cool looking stuff like they did for Sir Edmund Hillary, but I do not like ugly tagging. Up my way, some places really attracted taggers, like the skateboard bowl in Kaitāia and some of the parks in Whangarei. Some of the taggers keep coming back again and again, but the locals are working on trying to overcome it, and involving all sorts of community groups as well as schools, police, etc. I know that Tai Tokerau is pretty much the same as everywhere else in the country with this problem as far as tagging goes, although the Māori Party candidate for Te Tai Tonga, Mr Monte Ōhia, tells me they have a pretty good initiative being run down there by the Kahurangi Employment Trust to keep Nelson tag-free and litter-free by helping the taggers move on.

But tagging is the reaction of the poor to alienation, anger, boredom, frustration, and low esteem. It is pretty basic, really. One reduces tagging by reducing the factors that lead to it: some really complex stuff, such as poverty, poverty—and poverty. But what have we got? We have a bill to fine kids up to 2,000 bucks and to fine people $1,500 for selling spray-cans to under-18s. Just to hear Mr Tanczos talk about kids wandering around with crayons and pens, made me think: I got home in the weekend to find my mokopuna had artistically scribbled all over my sofa; I was thinking that if this bill had been passed I would have rung a cop! But how progressive is that? How intelligent is it? How innovative is it? Guess what—the select committee actually wanted to take it even further to make the penalties even tougher! But I repeat: when the jails are already full, where does one put the taggers?

Hon DOVER SAMUELS (Labour) Link to this

Te mea tuatahi māku kei te mihi atu ki a koe te Kaiwhakahaere o te Whare me koe anō hoki e te whanaunga, e Hone, tēnā koe.

[The first thing for me is to acknowledge you, Madam Assistant Speaker of the House; and you, also, Hone, the relative, greetings.]

I was not going to speak on this bill, but I thought I would take a short call. When colleagues get up and speak they make me enthusiastic about their perceptions, and certain things happen—my springboard legs automatically stand up and I take a call.

I am interested in the people who say “Yes, none of us like tagging. We have had a gutsful of it, and blah, blah, blah.” The first thing I want to know is where this word “tagging” comes from. Somebody said that it is an interpretation of some sort of artistic talent—tagging. I looked for it in the dictionary and I certainly could not find that definition. But let me say this. In the old days, if I had wandered around and did some of the things that these people—I will not say young or old—are doing, defacing and destructing private property, I would have got a boot straight up the backside by my old man. I would be scared as hell to come back and say to the old man: “Listen, I went down the road and saw a beautiful fence, and I scribbled all over it with spray paint. Come and have a look at it because I believe it is art. That is the new description for tagging.” Do members know what the old man would have done? He would have said: “Bend over. You’ll get six of the best right on the backside.” That is the answer to that one.

I am very, very interested in these guys who say that they do not want tagging but that tagging is a minor offence. Perhaps it is minor for someone whose property is not tagged. Let me say something for the old ladies or the people who own houses in Epsom and come out every morning, twice a week, and find that their fences have been sprayed with spray-cans, in all sorts of ways. Is there any difference if the same thing happened to a marae in Rotorua or Ngāruawāhia? Members should just think about it. What if our king came out one morning and found that some imbeciles—whatever they thought they were doing, and whether or not it was artistic—had taken a spray-can and defaced the whole front of the marae? I would say that Hone Harawira would be the first—and I would back him up—to say that we should identify who did it and very quickly put him or her in a hāngi, as Shane Jones was saying. Hone Harawira would be the first one to say this. I am saying there is no difference if this happens to a marae or to anybody else’s home in this country. If somebody is going to destroy one’s private property, then that person should get his or her beans, big time.

I have been listening to some of our more liberal colleagues, and they have been in trouble with me. I have been upwind of the smoke, sometimes. Some of them were downwind of the smoke, and they got a little bit carried away in terms of their interpretation of what tagging is, and about their belief that it is some sort of artistic talent. As I said, Chester Borrows has been a policeman and he is too tough to think that. Most of these members of Parliament, if not all of them, have never come out in the morning and seen that their fences have been desecrated, tagged, or painted. Half of those member would not have the time to get out and clean those fences themselves; they would have to pay somebody else to do so. Could members imagine Nandor Tanczos going out with his bucket, organic soap, and brush, and cleaning his fence? I could not imagine it. It would be something for the New Zealand Herald to take a good photo of—here is Nandor with his brush and eco-friendly toothpaste trying to clean up this tagging! Get real!

I said I would take only a short call, but this is a serious situation for many, many people, and a lot of them are elderly and cannot get out and clean it up. Some of them are even more frustrated because they pay somebody else to clean it, and within 2 weeks they come back and see the desecration again. I support the Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill, and I recommend it to the House. Kia ora tātou.

CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) Link to this

I wish to address a number of the issues that have been raised so far. I must say that I thought that the Hon Dover Samuels had got his speeches mixed up and that he meant to deliver the first part of his speech during the debate on section 59. But I am glad for his contribution tonight. I think he made a number of points that made good sense.

A number of comments have been made around tagging and where it comes from and the reasons for it. I was interested to note, on a trip to Canada last year, when walking around the city of Calgary and attending a number of the public places of interest, that there was an obvious lack of tagging. In fact, the most prominent tagging that was there was on railway carriages. Well, what a surprise—that is often the case in this country, too. But the fact is that railway carriages move. There is no proof that the tagging on the railway carriages was done in Calgary, and, in fact, I would suggest that it probably was not. I had a good look around for tagging, and I found one example on a power box and another example on the back of a sign at the zoo that was about the size of a piece of A4 paper, and that was all there was. When I spoke to the Calgary police about that, they made a number of comments, and one of them was this. The fact is that street gangs in New Zealand are poor and identify themselves by wearing clothing and colours, and by tagging. Street gangs in Calgary are rich. They drive big cars, make money from selling drugs, and remain under the radar by not wearing colours, not tagging, and not making signs and calls. So there are issues there in relation to why tagging actually occurs. I agree that the issue is very similar to a dog that runs around peeing on a lamp post. People tag for a number of different reasons, and it is also true to say that where it appears once it will appear again and again, and that a clean or recently painted wall is more of a target than anything else.

I will take some issue with a number of points raised by the Green Party and the Māori Party. One of them concerns the issue of why there is a need for making a law against this stuff. They tried to make the point that we should not be making laws but channelling our energies, our efforts, or our money somewhere else. The point has also been made that about $10 million a year is spent on dealing with tagging across district councils around the country. If we looked at how much those same councils spent on youth activities and promoting youth development, we would see that the figure would be far, far in excess of $10 million. There is nothing in this legislation that prohibits, prevents, or provides a hindrance to people spending money on those positive youth development initiatives, and they do spend money on them. Just because we make a law against something does not stop it happening. A law against rape does not stop people being raped, and a law against tagging will not stop tagging. But that does not mean that we should not do anything. If we tried to make a law to get rid of a crime, I am sure that my friend from the Green Party would be jumping up and down, because by not having an offence and not creating a law about it, we are endorsing it. One has to take—

Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Building and Construction) Link to this

Tēnā koe, Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise to take a short call, for fear that anyone in the north will believe that the view of my colleague and whanaunga Hone Harawira reflects the entirety of the Tai Tokerau.

I know that it is slightly treacherous territory for the words, etc., of this House to become mixed up, but recently we have had some decisions out of our District Court in the Hawke’s Bay area that have given weight to the fear, anger, and frustration that ordinary, everyday, garden variety Kiwi families feel when they wake up and find that their properties—which they have worked away at, in struggler’s gully, to amass enough dough to afford—have been defaced.

If there is one myth being peddled that must be stopped, it is that somehow we can compare graffiti to the moko. Well, the word “moko” is very close to the word “muku”, which means to wipe one’s backside after doing business. And that is what graffiti looks like to me; there is not a single redeeming feature. I have wandered around places, such as outside the Taipā School not far from where my parents and I come from, after I have woken up in the morning, and seen that some young waster has gone there and defaced local school property with something that would offend any mother or any wife. We should be fearful of it when we see it, because it reflects markings belonging to a gang. The only reason young people are doing that is that their habits are beginning to resemble those of the canine variety.

It might be said that this is an overreaction, but it is not an overreaction when people are beginning to experience daily, regular fear. One or two things happen. If the State is unable to bring forward sanctions, then communities are filled with a vigilante fervour. Then the people who are in control of or working with the youngsters who are tagging—and they are not all young—begin to fear that their hold over the community is being threatened, and it causes them to become bolder and more dangerous. The notion that we should stand back in this House and allow those elements to increase their reach, whether in Heretaunga, Tai Tokerau, or South Auckland, is abhorrent. I do not wish any particular taggers a life of misery, but if they are going to be miserable then please spare me from it, and please spare our communities from those habits.

This bill ought to be supported. Earlier speakers are correct: it will not wipe out all the motivations that make people tag. But if this bill gives further strength to the judiciary—District Court judges—to get these young gang-related taggers and give them a holiday in the hīnaki to bring them to their senses, then it is money well spent, in my view. It is not very good for the parents of those young children, and having seven kids myself I do know what it is like to have ups and downs with kids who go around and get into trouble occasionally. This is a matter of constant, ongoing threats, not only to private property but to the meaning and affection that people are putting into their homes. That is why this bill is a clear statement that that element in society, in the community, must not be allowed to hold the community to ransom.

If they want to create some art, they should go down to the Sunday schools and teach the mokopunas how to draw a picture. If they want to enhance art and carving, they should go down to the marae, which are being run largely by volunteer kuia and kaumātua. The average tagger is associated with gangs. They are not doing enough to uphold those institutions that give us our identity. There is no single contribution or redeemable quality associated with these young taggers, in terms of their making a strong contribution to Māori culture. So we must never ever let it be said that they are at the forefront of a new version of Māori art; they are at the forefront of Māori art spelt with the letter “f” in front. I salute this bill. Kia ora tātou.