Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill be referred to the Law and Order Committee, that the committee report finally to the House on or before 21 April 2008, and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during oral questions, during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, despite Standing Orders 192, and 195(1)(b) and (c).

Graffiti vandalism is not art, and it is far more than just a nuisance. Tagging is a destructive crime and it represents an invasion of private and public property. Graffiti vandalism is the wilful damage of another person’s property, and the costs of graffiti, both financial and emotional, are high. Graffiti vandalism has negative impacts that extend beyond the anger and annoyance felt by the owners of the property that has been tagged. It creates an eyesore for the wider community and it can also have links to gangs in New Zealand. It certainly leaves people feeling intimidated.

If we want to protect the beauty of our country, and create cities and towns where New Zealanders can feel proud of their communities, then we must take steps to combat graffiti vandalism. In doing so, we are also taking steps to protect ordinary, law-abiding citizens from those who feel they have the right to damage property in the name of notoriety.

In the discussions about graffiti vandalism and tagging that have occurred over recent weeks, there have been claims of tagging being self-expression and of it having artistic value, but why should one person’s need to express himself or herself outweigh other people’s right to have their property remain tag-free? There are two simple differences between graffiti vandalism and tagging, and art. The first and most obvious is the issue of permission. How can a person’s scrawling his or her name on someone else’s property without permission be considered legitimate art? The second is artistic merit. The vast majority of graffiti vandalism in this country consists of the talentless scrawling of a nickname. This reminds me more of the way an animal marks its territory than it does of any real artistic talent.

This bill builds on previous thinking including that which led to the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill, a local bill introduced by the Hon George Hawkins. I thank that member for bringing that bill to this House. However, this bill takes the key measures of Mr Hawkins’ bill into the national arena. I understand that the Attorney-General considers this bill to be consistent with the Government’s obligations under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990.

The current legislation that relates to graffiti vandalism does not, in my view, go far enough to deter graffiti vandals. In the past, the penalty for defacing properties was a $200 fine. This bill proposes to increase this penalty. However, it does so not simply by increasing the fine; more important, it does so by also giving the judiciary the opportunity to sentence convicted graffiti vandals to a community sentence. This is designed to ensure that offenders put right what they have done wrong by cleaning graffiti off walls and buildings in their communities.

The Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill will establish a new and specific graffiti vandalism and tagging offence. Under current legislation, offenders are normally charged with either defacing or wilful damage. The term “defacing” means little to ordinary New Zealanders, and this proposed new graffiti offence clarifies the actual behaviour individuals are charged with.

This bill will also replace the old defacing penalty of a $200 fine with a new tagging penalty of a fine of up to $2,000. This better reflects the impact this crime has on individual victims and on the community. However, as I said, fines may not always present the best penalty for this kind of offence. Crucially, therefore, the bill will give judges the ability to sentence graffiti vandals to a community-based sentence, such as community work, through which offenders may be required to clean up tagging as part of their sentence. This is a significant step, and reflects the need to hold offenders accountable to their communities and to have them undo at least some of the damage they have created.

In recognition of the need to make it harder for graffiti vandals to access spray-paint cans, the bill proposes that the sale of spray-paint cans to under-18-year-olds will be prohibited. Spray-paint cans are the most common implement used in graffiti vandalism, and they enable vandals to do a large amount of damage in a short time. I am told that it is estimated that one can of spray-paint can do as much as $10,000 worth of damage. I acknowledge that many people who take part in this crime are older than 18, but according to what we know, most taggers are in their teens. I am also concerned about the number of young people who start tagging early in their lives, and I believe that it is important to discourage them from doing so.

There has already been criticism that this move will not stop tagging. It is not my expectation that restrictions on the sale of spray-paint are a panacea for this problem. That is why the restriction on the sale of spray-paint cans is not the only response that this Government, and its partners at a local level, will make towards this problem. But as part of a package of action being taken in restricting the sale of spray-paint cans, it will make it a great deal more difficult for teenagers in the peak age for this activity to access the primary tagging implement, and the measure, therefore, will have an impact.

The restriction of sale provisions are expected to deter children and young people from becoming involved in graffiti vandalism and entering the tagging culture. All taggers start somewhere and if those first steps, which may take place at the age of 10 or 12, are made more difficult, then fewer young people will go down this path. This legislation will help to prevent today’s youth from becoming tomorrow’s vandals.

Retailers will also have to control access to spray-paint cans in a similar way that they now do with cigarettes, thus minimising the opportunities taggers have to steal the spray-paint cans they use to commit this crime. Unfortunately, I am told that many do steal the cans rather than purchase them, so having them under the watchful eye of the shopkeeper is, I think, an important part of this bill.

The new sentence options will provide a new tool in the anti-tagging tool box and will increase the use of community-based sentences. It will enable us to better deal with adults who persist in these behaviours past their adolescence.

As I indicated before, I recognise that this legislation alone is not sufficient to deal with this problem. It requires a more holistic response. This Government has, therefore, delivered a significant cash injection to supplement the funding and resources provided by central and local government to strengthen the work already being done in communities around New Zealand to combat graffiti vandalism. In the coming months we will also be working in partnership with local communities to establish a national strategy, Stop Tagging Our Place, which will outline a broader programme of work to address this problem. I expect this strategy to be ready by July this year.

As part of a comprehensive programme of work to tackle graffiti vandalism, I commend the bill to the House.

I stand on behalf of the National Party to speak in the first reading of the Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill, to advise the House that National will support this bill at its first reading. But there are many, many aspects to it that have been less than transparent in explanation. Some of the matters that have been discussed in the release of this policy are not as close to the mark as the Minister and the Government have indicated, and I am going to spend some time today on those issues.

National is keen to go through these issues in some detail at the select committee and to ensure that we are not dealing with another Organised Crime Agency announcement—that is, a Government announcement being made without any background work being completed or without any detailed policy work on stream. I have to say, as a byline, that we are still waiting to find out the detail of the so-called Organised Crime Agency, and what the future of the Serious Fraud Office is going to be, even though that announcement was made in September last year.

I send a warning to Government members: this had better not be in the same category as the last suggestion made in the area of law and order. Labour promised, in its 1999 manifesto, to introduce a programme of restorative justice “in which young offenders and their families can opt for community work such as cleaning up graffiti as an alternative to prosecution.” That did not happen. We are still waiting, 8 years later, for the Government to take substantial steps towards dealing with the issue of graffiti. It is only now, after George Hawkins introduced his Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill, that Labour has changed its tune. Labour voted for that bill at its first reading, but when it came out of the Local Government and Environment Committee, the committee stated that it had “examined the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill and recommends that it not be passed.”

Well that is not what Annette King just told the House. Annette King failed to mention, unfortunately, that a select committee dominated by the Government and its confidence and supply partners recommended that the House ditch George Hawkins’ bill. That bill, according to the majority of the committee, had issues of inconsistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. We will be interested to know, now that the Minister has advised the House that this present bill has no such inconsistencies, how that particular issue has been ironed out.

I have also taken some interest in the Government’s consistent claims that it will increase penalties from $200 to $2,000. Labour Party members and the majority of the Local Government and Environment Committee members themselves noted in their report: “Although there are no provisions in law that specifically refer to ‘marking graffiti’ as an offence, acts of this kind are covered by sections 11 (wilful damage) and 33 (bill sticking and defacing) of the Summary Offences Act 1981, and section 269(2)(a) (intentional damage) of the Crimes Act.” But although the maximum fine under section 33 of the Summary Offences Act, the wilful damage section, is $200, as the Minister has told the House and the Prime Minister has told the country, what the Prime Minister did not tell New Zealanders and what the Minister did not tell the House is that when it comes to bill sticking and defacing there is already an offence under section 11 of the Summary Offences Act, punishable by 3 months’ imprisonment, and there is already a $2,000 fine under that provision. So to run around the country saying that those fines have been increased as a result of this legislation is correct on only one level, because provisions relating to the size of fines available under a separate section of the Summary Offences Act already exist—

💬 Hon Annette King: No, you’ll find that’s not true.

—which is actually correct, and is particularly interesting. I look forward to seeing how Labour members of the Law and Order Committee will put the case for supporting this legislation, when their comrades on the Local Government and Environment Committee, as a majority with their confidence and supply partners, recommended that Mr Hawkins’ bill not proceed. It is a most curious situation, and one that unfortunately reeks of the same type of background thinking that failed to exist when the Organised Crime Agency was prematurely announced in September of last year. It just so happened that that was announced in the week when the then Minister of Corrections was overseas on a rugby tour with a prison guard who was in a spot of bother, but I am sure that that had nothing to do with the timing of the announcement, at all. But I am interested to know whether the substance of the work in relation to this particular bill has been done.

I say to the Minister that we will looking to move this bill along, with the Government, to a select committee, but I can assure her and her colleagues that we will be asking officials the most detailed and close series of questions in order to get to the bottom of the policy development behind the provisions now being proposed. I agree with the Minister on one or two points. I think that her strongest point was made in her opening salvo—not the referral to the select committee or the time period in which submissions would be heard, but her view that graffiti is not art. I certainly support that statement; it is just a pity that Annette King’s fellow caucus colleagues and the members of the Local Government and Environment Committee do not see it the same way that she does.

National will be very interested to know what provisions and background work the Government has done to limit the sale of spray-cans to those over 18 years of age. The select committee will have to look at some practical issues in some detail, and the Minister has signalled that that will not be as straightforward as perhaps a first glance at the legislation indicates. She has also indicated that it will require retailers to secure spray-cans, so that members of the public cannot access them without help from staff. That is a helpful suggestion. And the Minister has said that the bill will provide judges with the option to use a community sentence to force offenders to clean up graffiti and tagging. Well, we have been over that ground already this afternoon.

Although I believe this is a good directional initiative, much of the detail remains to be ironed out. Much of the inconsistency between the Government’s current approach and the approach of the Local Government and Environment Committee needs an explanation from the officials who will appear before that select committee. In a strange way, the Hon George Hawkins will be smiling to himself for two reasons. Firstly, although the Local Government and Environment Committee threw his bill out, he has, in a sense, seen aspects of it nationalised. The second reason George Hawkins will be smiling is that we all know that he has beaten the Labour Party machinery and retained the nomination for his seat up near Auckland. On that he is to be congratulated.

💬 Hon Phil Goff: That’s nonsense. He simply wasn’t challenged.

Well, we know why he was not challenged. It is because he is so good at controlling the membership—and good on him! I congratulate him on staring down the Labour Party machine.

We look forward to going through the details of this bill in the select committee, and to asking Labour members and officials why they made this statement in the conclusion of the report back on the Local Government and Environment Committee’s consideration of Mr Hawkins’ bill: “Although we do not believe that this bill is the right solution, … We will see exactly what happens in the next phase.”

When Simon Power was first elected to Parliament I thought he was a young man with a lot of promise. It is sad that that promise has never been fulfilled, and I think the reason for that is Simon Power does not do his homework.

I will pick up on a couple of the points he made. He said there was a promise made in the 1999 manifesto about restorative justice and cleaning up vandalism and graffiti. If he had done his homework, then he would know that restorative justice is a sentence used by the Youth Court and used under the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act, and that right now there are young people under instructions from those two jurisdictions who are required to do that. What we would like to do—and the resourcing in this bill and the expansion of this legislation does—is to make that a more common penalty.

Secondly, Mr Power questioned why the select committee did not support Mr Hawkins’ bill going forward. The bill, of course, was not thrown out, as he suggested; it is on the Order Paper. I say to Simon Power that he should look at the Order Paper. He said it was thrown out. Why did the select committee decide that that bill should not go forward? I know Manukau City well. The Manukau bill would have stopped the sale of spray-cans in Manukau City. But anybody who knows South Auckland knows that people from Manurewa would go a kilometre down the road to Papakura to buy spray-cans, or, if they lived on the other side in Māngere, that they would go half a kilometre to Ōtāhuhu to buy spray-cans.

The obvious point made not only by the select committee but also, I think, by Local Government New Zealand, is that if we are to have a bill like that, then it is not a local bill but a national bill, and we would need to cover the whole country for it to be effective. That is why the Manukau City Council bill, as well intended as it was, would never be an answer. I say to Mr Power that that is obvious to somebody of the lowest intelligence, so why is he pretending it is not obvious to him? I am not suggesting that the member comes into the category of people of the lowest intelligence, but I ask why he is suggesting that he does not know why the Manukau bill could not proceed. The member does know; he is being disingenuous with the House.

Then Mr Power talked about the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and inconsistencies. Well, maybe Mr Power should have said whether he supports—as the Manukau bill does—a stronger law on police interrogation of somebody suspected of tagging than the law provides for somebody suspected of murder or rape. I ask Mr Power whether that was a good idea. I do not think he would have supported that being in the bill, at all. Or would he have supported the fact that if he was going down the road with a felt-tip pen in his pocket, he could have been picked up, under one of the provisions in that bill, for carrying a graffiti instrument? Mr Power would not have supported that, and he knows it; once again, he is being disingenuous with the House.

Then he said that the penalty for graffiti has not gone up at all. Well, under the Summary Offences Act, the penalty of defacing, which is where many of the charges were brought for graffiti, was $200. That has been increased tenfold to $2,000. I support that, and not because I think that many of the kids out there doing graffiti will have $2,000 to pay; I support it symbolically, because it shows how seriously we take this offending. Where there are people who can afford to pay then they should have to pay, through fine or reparation, for the damage they have done. I speak on behalf of the overwhelming majority of the people in my electorate—and, I know, in your electorate, Mr Assistant Speaker—who quite simply have had a gutsful of the mindless vandalism that graffiti reflects. I join the Minister of Justice in saying that graffiti is not art. It can be, but what we see all around the streets is not. It can be, but the stuff that is up there at the moment is not.

There is no silver bullet answer. That is the next thing I need to say. The problem needs to be addressed by a combination of measures—strong enforcement of the law will be required, intelligent policing is necessary, and effective sanctions are important. Changing the attitudes of the kids out there doing this makes sense, as well, because we need to address the problem at its cause. We need to look also at rapid removal of tagging. Many local government authorities are doing that. We need to look at environmental design in order to make it harder to tag, and we need to look at creative alternatives for some of the offenders. I know that Christchurch has a very good scheme, and I have seen a very good scheme operating in Avondale. That is not the whole answer, but it is part of the answer. All of those things need to be in the mix, if we really want to make a difference.

I have to say, a heck of a lot is happening already. Nobody in this House should pretend that there is no response to graffiti at the moment. A lot is being done at a local level by police and others. But this legislation, backed by the STOP strategy with its extra funding—$15 million extra over 5 years—will really help.

In terms of prevention, I think there is a case for banning sales to under-18-year-olds. I do not think it is the entire answer. Yes, of course, they can still get access to cans in some other way, just as young people can access tobacco and alcohol, but that is not a reason for not banning sales. We should make it harder for those of the age category of the bulk of the offenders to get access to the cans. One of the other ways we can do that is by requiring retailers to secure the cans. A lot of these kids do not have any money; they get the cans by stealing them. Already, the retailers that are following best practice are securing the cans. This bill requires that it be done across the board. I hope everybody will support that.

In terms of penalties, I have talked about fines but I really want to talk about the specific community work schemes that require taggers to clean up their own work. I think that is really important. Those kids who think it is really cool to go out there under the cover of darkness and deface public, commercial, and private property may take a different view of their actions when in the full light of day, in public, and in front of others, they have to get out there, as part of the sentence, and clean up the damage they have done. They will not think it is quite so cool when their mates see them having to do that in public. I think that is a great case of the penalty matching the crime.

The last—but not necessarily the least important; I would say it is perhaps the most important—question is the question of enforcement of the law. This is where I congratulate my colleague Annette King, who, as Minister of Justice, brings in this bill, but who also, as Minister of Police, and working with the Labour-led Government with the support of New Zealand First, is putting 1,250 extra police staff in the police force in this term of Government. Of those police officers, 250 will be community police and will play a critical role.

I will give the House an example of what is happening in my electorate with Constable Reg Alofa. Reg works out of Avondale. He is a graffiti enforcement officer. He has had that responsibility for 10 months and in those 10 months has made 200 arrests for tagging and wilful damage. The other thing I like about what Reg is doing is that he has a mate called David Tua. Some people know him as “Tua Man”. David goes into some of the local schools with Reg and says to the kids—particularly the Pasifika kids—that it is not on to damage other people’s property. When he says that, I have to say that it has a little bit more influence than when I say it, or Mrs King says it, or Ron Mark says it. I patted David Tua on the shoulder at the launch of the graffiti initiative and it was like hitting a solid rock. If David says “Don’t tag!”, people would be pretty silly to actually go out there and do it.

Another person I want to pay credit to is Rob Shields, who works for the Auckland City Council in my area. He has built up a huge data bank of taggers. He works closely with the police. We have intelligence-led policing. That is why we are being successful. That will make a difference.

Finally, I congratulate the Manukau City Council, which I know has worked really hard in this area; Barry Curtis, the former mayor; and Len Brown, the current mayor. I congratulate George Hawkins. I tell Mr Power that George and I have actually worked in this area for quite a long time now. I think George has worked really hard on behalf of his community, and they are pleased at the difference he has made. Last—and, again, not least—I thank Annette King, as the Minister of Justice, for bringing this bill into the House. I think it is a very good bill and I commend it to the House.

I rise to speak in support of the Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill and its passage through to the select committee process. I have a number of concerns surrounding the way in which the bill is drafted and how it may work, based on where the police are at the moment in the enforcement of the current legislation.

I am pleased to see that local communities take—as has previously been mentioned—strong ownership in the redress of graffiti around their cities and suburbs. It is true to note, as the Minister Phil Goff noted, that the appearance of graffiti is one way that self-expression by one person impinges on the rights of others. It will be interesting to see how the Government responds in the next couple of weeks to a similar bill, a local bill from a local initiative, to do something along these lines—the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill—which seeks to address exactly the same problem.

The point made by my senior colleague Simon Power in respect of the legislation as it stands now is one that is quite important. In the publicity surrounding the promotion of this particular bill, the Government seeks to make the point that it is raising the penalty for defacing from $200 to $2,000. In actual fact, people are very, very rarely charged with the offence of defacing under section 33 of the Summary Offences Act. Just to give members some understanding of this, I can tell them that if they drew on a window with a lipstick, they may well be charged with defacing, and that is probably more to do with the content of what they wrote or drew rather than with the cost of the damage caused. It can be easily wiped off, as I understand it, and that is why the penalty is so low. People who get out with spray-cans, spirit markers, or paint brushes and draw on the sides of buildings, fences, vehicles, and the rest of it are generally charged with wilful damage under section 11 of the Summary Offences Act, which carries a penalty of a $2,000 fine or 3 months’ imprisonment.

Another interesting point to note here is that the courts already have the ability to impose a penalty of community service under that legislation as it stands now. So under section 11 of the Summary Offences Act the court already has the ability to impose on an offender the sentence of community work. The only problem we have is that if that young offender is under 17, section 298 of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act requires the offender to actually agree to do community work rather than have some other sentence. It will be interesting to see whether this bill allows for a judge in the Youth Court to impose community work on a young offender, or whether it will still rely on that young offender seeing the good need for him to redress his own ways and actually agree to do community work. At the moment I do not see that it is addressed at all. But, then, I do not think we have seen the legislation, either, so this is something that is hitting us just a bit out of left field.

I was talking to a policeman this morning, and in one of our provincial cities in the last couple of weeks the police have arrested three young guys under 17 for offences, totalling about $50,000 worth of damage, to vehicles and buildings by way of drawing on them using spray-cans. What do we do there? Do we charge them under this new legislation? No, they will be charged under the criminal damage provisions of the Crimes Amendment Act 2003—section 269(2). The maximum penalty there is 7 years’ imprisonment. The trouble is that at the moment those young offenders who are appearing in the Youth Court cannot be sentenced to anything other than supervision with activity, if they agree to it; or supervision with residence, if they agree to it; or a fine if they do not. The law as it stands at the moment does not allow those young people to be transferred into the District Court for sentencing so that they could get a sentence that is more than that.

It seems to me that the Government has taken a high-profile offence that is brassing everybody off, and which has previously been occurring in significant Labour-voting communities in South Auckland and is really hacking them off in that that they are upset with the Government for not supporting their local initiative, which was brought to the House by George Hawkins, and it is trying to address the issue quickly and easily for itself, when the problem is much bigger. The reason we have a problem is that there is a deficit in the law. We have the situation at the moment whereby section 298 of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act allows young people to have to do community work only if they consent to it themselves—and why the hell would they? Why would they consent to giving up their Saturdays, etc., and putting the damage right?

The other problem we have is that section 283(o) of the Children, Young Persons, and the Their Families Act allows only for matters that are purely indictable to go to the District Court for sentencing. The problem we have there is that “purely indictable” offences is a relatively small schedule of offences, and it does not include the ones such as burglary and criminal damage—the sorts of things we want to address here—and the crimes for which we are wanting to hold young people even more accountable.

I think it is important to note too the difficulty encountered on day-to-day basis by policemen and policewomen and those wanting to assist in the diversion schemes that have young people out cleaning up the damage. This is something that was outlined to me by Senior Sergeant Lance Tebbutt of Hamilton Youth Aid. We go back a long way, but he is well known around the youth justice fraternity as leading a youth offenders team in Hamilton that is very, very good at getting good outcomes. What Senior Sergeant Tebbutt said to me was that when he takes a group of young people out to do their youth diversion community work, he is not allowed to have them digging gardens because they have not got safety boots; he is not allowed to put them up ladders, because they might fall off; and he is not allowed to get them spraying weeds or using sharp tools in case they hurt themselves or somebody else.

This sort of jandal-slapping legislation is legislation that is supported by the other side of the House, which now wants the courts to be able to enforce the ability of diversion teams to get these young people to clean up their graffiti. The problem we have there is that currently the big deal in graffiti is to put it as high up on a building as one possibly can. So if we walk down Queen St we might find some graffiti on the top of the air conditioner, ten floors up off the street. Will we send them up there to clean it off? If we are going to send them up there to clean it off, how does that conflict with the current rules and regulations around what we can get young people to do if they are not wearing safety boots and safety harnesses, and if they have not been trained to get rid of the substances the authorities are trying to get cleaned off?

What the Government is achieving here is Mickey Mouse legislation that no fool can disagree with, because it is aimed in the right direction and it is right where people wanted to go in previous years. The Government could have very easily made some changes to section 18 of the Sentencing Act 2002 to allow the threat of imprisonment to young people over the age of 15 and to allow young people to be sentenced in the District Court. An amendment to section 283(o) of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act would allow some District Court sentences relating to community work to be given and then enforced by the social agencies. The Government could remove section 298 of the Children, Young Persons, and Their Families Act, which ridiculously requires a young person to agree to the sentence of community work before the judge, in all his or her wisdom, is allowed to impose it. The Government also has to move within this legislation to ensure that those in charge of the youth offending teams who will run diversionary programmes are going to be allowed to get young people off their chuffs, shall we say, to do community work in spite of the fact they may not have safety boots or the grubbers used to clean the weeds, that the paintbrushes or the paint being used may be slightly toxic, or that they may have to get more than 3 feet off the ground and climb a ladder to do so.

Tagging is annoying, like cat spray, which is a stinky way for tom cats to mark their territory—and female cats. Does anyone know what we call a female cat?

💬 Chester Borrows: A queen.

Thank you, Mr Borrows.

Like cat spray, tagging is annoying and hard to wash off. Except, presumably, for taggers themselves, not many people like it, although I did read an interesting website by a guy who has based his academic career on the sociology of tagging, which is quite interesting. It is interesting that even graffiti artists get annoyed with tagging, because they see their work being co-opted with someone else’s scrawled signature. Just ask Otis Frizzell for his view about that.

Unlike the New Zealand Police, I am of the opinion that there is an enormous difference between graf art, political graffiti, and tagging both in terms of function and form. Graf art is, by definition, art. Anyone who has tried to get funky with a spray-can—and I do not imagine many members in this House get funky with anything, never mind spray-cans—knows how enormously skilful one has to be to create world-class graf art. Like all the other creative industries, New Zealand has spawned its share of world-class graf artists.

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: Like who?

Otis Frizzell, for one. DLT is magic. Political graffiti, on the other hand, is activism. It might even be journalism, because often one sentence in graffiti contains as much content as a whole issue of the Dominion Post or a week of Paul Holmes. Unlike graf art, I find it pretty hard to believe that no members of this House have participated. Tagging, I think, is different again. Some tagging is quite artistic, actually, but most of it is mundane and a lot of it is basically irritating. Even so, I was surprised to see the announcement of a major policy initiative last week supposedly focused on tagging.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: If I found somebody tagging my fence, I’d kick their backside.

Tau Henare say the best way to deal with taggers is to break their fingers and pull their fingernails out.

Anyway, it was a bit amazing to see a major policy announcement around tagging last week. It was supposedly aimed at tagging, but it actually targets young people in general.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am sorry for yelling and interrupting you. I find it difficult to believe that there is not a rule in this House—and it may be a debating point, but—[Interruption]. We are supposed to be quiet during points of order. I find it very difficult to believe that there is not a Standing Order whereby a member can refute an out and out mistruth.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Can I just suggest to the member that he look at Speaker’s ruling 36/4 to do with misrepresentation.

I thought that there were more important things for the Government to focus on than tagging. I thought that addressing child poverty, addressing housing transients, truancy, the lack of mental health and drug addiction services for young people—

💬 Heather Roy: The economy.

—or the economy would be higher priorities. I thought responding to the Green-initiated report into improving the justice system for victims of crime might be a higher priority, or improving police response times to crimes of theft and violence, or even funding a decent ambulance service.

More important, I would have thought that a crack down on tagging would actually include some initiatives that might actually reduce tagging, but that is not what we have got. Section 14A, in clause 5 of this bill, which was speedily introduced this week, bans the sale of spray-cans to under 18-year-olds. Section 14B requires retailers to keep spray-cans under lock and key. Does the Government really think that only people under the age of 18 tag? The Minister’s peak-age theory seems a pretty tenuous basis for introducing age-discriminatory laws. In addition, does the Government really believe that taggers under 18 cannot get spray-cans from other people—because, of course, although under-age possession of a spray-can would not be illegal under this bill, selling a spray-can to an under-18-year-old would be.

Buying a spray-can on behalf of an under-age tagger would be legal, and maybe here is a whole new business opportunity for some enterprising B-boy. And, in any case, if under-age taggers cannot get spray-cans do we really think they will not use instead markers, stickers, etchers, scratches, scorers, or stencils? What about the requirement to keep spray-cans under lock and key? Does this Parliament really think that spray-cans are so dangerous that they need to be treated on par with lethal materials such as cigarettes and guns? It is absolutely bizarre.

The bill also creates a new offence of tagging with a maximum $2,000 fine. Of course, the maximum fine will not be noticed by people who do not think they are going to get caught. If they are caught, they probably will not pay the fine anyway. And in any case, they are more likely to receive one of the new community sentences to make them clean up their act—a sentence, which, as we have already heard, a judge can already give them under the Sentencing Act. So what is the point?

For all the fanfare, the bill is unlikely to make any difference to tagging whatsoever. And here is the real issue. Even if it does work, even if it stops people from tagging, what do members think they will do instead? Urinate in peoples’ letterboxes? This is the issue. Until the underlying issues are addressed methods such as these simply shift the problem around like trying to push an air bubble out from under wallpaper.

Let us be clear. There are no silver bullets for manifestations of anti-social attitudes. Behaviours like tagging are an expression of something much deeper and much more important, and they are something that this House really should be paying attention to. Scapegoating young people, as this bill does, and as early announcements from both John Key and Helen Clark did, do nothing to solve the problem. It just makes the problems of youth alienation even worse.

That is why I describe this bill as a new low in dog-whistle electioneering. Usually we can expect to see the start of election year heralded by attacks on parents receiving the domestic purpose benefit. Maybe that is being saved for later in the campaign. This year we are starting with attacks on young people. That is why the Green Party says that we need to address the causes of anti-social behaviour rather than grandstanding on the symptoms with simplistic solutions. Unfortunately, as I have already indicated, election year is never an easy time to do that.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. As per Speaker’s ruling 36/4 what I said was: “If I found somebody tagging my fence I would kick his backside.” The member said that I said that I would go out there and break his fingers.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. My sincere apologies to the member. I clearly misheard him, and I withdraw and apologise for the remark.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I thank the member very much. It makes the House much easier.

I want to speak briefly in support of the Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill for a couple of reasons, and I want to revert to the comments from the previous speaker, with which I have some sympathy.

United Future supported the proposal by Mr Hawkins on behalf of the Manukau City Council for special legislation to outlaw tagging in that city. We indicated to both the previous mayor and the current mayor our continued support for that bill to proceed. Indeed, I did so as recently as last week. So we were pleased to see a Government bill appear that effectively takes over and provides a national solution to the issue, which is not peculiar to Manukau but has had a lot of focus there because of activities in that particular city over a period of time. We support the notion of creating a specific offence for graffiti vandalism, tagging, and defacing. We accept the community’s distaste for what is occurring at the moment, and the need for there to be some considerable action. But we are concerned about the provision to limit the sale of spray-cans to those aged 18 or under, not because of a civil liberties issue per se but because of the practicality of that particular decision and the consequence that it requires in terms of spray-cans being kept in secure places.

When I look at clause 5 of the bill, I see the concern about spray-cans becomes much more heightened. Clause 5 prohibits the sale of spray-cans to people under age 18, and renders a person who sells a spray-can to such a person liable for an offence with a fine of up to $1,500. But then the bill introduces a couple of defences, which I think make the law very difficult to enforce. They apply if the defendant is a school board, the governing body of an education provider, or an employee of a board or provider—well, that will prove to be difficult in some situations—if the buyer was enrolled at a school or institution managed by a board or provider, or if the spray-can was sold to the buyer to enable him or her to undertake the work of his or her course at the school or institution, etc. I think there will be huge definitional problems associated with those particular defences and provisions, and I think a lot of work will need to be done by the select committee in working through that particular provision and how it will work in practice.

I note that there is a suggestion that we have evidence of a person’s age—documentation—being produced. The thought of young people, or of any group of people, having to carry around passports or other forms of identification on a routine basis does start to make one wonder about the path we are heading down.

But, having said that, I have looked at graffiti legislation in other countries, and particularly at that in New South Wales. When I compare the situation set out in this bill with what is contained in the Summary Offences Act in New South Wales, I find the situation here is actually, even with this bill, far more lenient than it is there. For instance, in New South Wales if people damage a fountain erected in a public place, they are liable for a fine of $440. I do not know what the magic of $440 happens to be, but that is the fine they are liable for. There is even a specific defence, which I am just trying to find, that can apply if people damage a ferry in New South Wales. If people wilfully mark by means of chalk, paint, or other material any premises where the markings are within view from a public place, unless the consent of the occupier or person in charge of the premises is first obtained, they are also subject to a penalty of $440. In other words, that law is far more specific, and far more Draconian in many senses, that what we have here.

The New South Wales law also sets out some very particular provisions relating to how people must keep spray-cans in secure places. That reminds me a little of our firearms legislation. In a shop, the spray-cans have to be in a locked cabinet and behind a counter, so that customers cannot gain access to cans without the assistance of shop staff, or be kept on a shelf of a height of 2.1 metres—again the specificity surprises me—or more, or in any other manner prescribed by regulations.

💬 Ron Mark: It’s discriminatory against short persons.

It is certainly an anti - short person policy, as my colleague Mr Mark outlines—and I have some sympathy with him on that score.

I guess what both of those measures outline is the problem that civilised societies today face from tagging and from the desecration and defacing of public items of various types, and the question of how we resolve that. I was intrigued to note that in British Columbia, for instance, the emphasis on resolution there is based much more on the removal of the offensive items. There is a partnership with a painting company, and people can get a free paint kit for graffiti removal in Vancouver. There is a mural programme, so people can actually express their talents as graffiti artists by painting public murals. There are even community paint-outs—the mind boggles—that encourage community groups, businesses, and residents to team up to improve the physical appearance of their neighbourhood. That is another novel approach that I do not think would work in the New Zealand context.

The point of drawing those illustrations to the attention of the House is not to be frivolous so much as to make the observation that there have been various efforts made the world over to try to resolve what it seen as a major antisocial problem. I think the select committee that considers this bill ought to pay some attention to those international initiatives and then try to weigh the proposed New Zealand solution alongside them. I would like to think that the outcome would be one where we are not at one extreme of the response, but is one where our solution is generally in the middle by international standards, is workable, is fair, and does not impose unnecessary restrictions on the good and the honest, but will help to remove the blight of tagging from our presence.

With those observations, I say United Future is happy to support the bill being referred to a select committee. We hope it does not languish there too long, because the pressure from cities like Manukau and elsewhere will intensify if there is no significant progress in a reasonably short period of time. When the bill comes back from the select committee, we will be looking for some of the concerns about the practicality of the measures that it would impose to be addressed. With that, I am happy to pass to the next speaker.

Debate interrupted.