Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill

Thank you, Mr Chairperson, for the opportunity to speak in support of Part 1 of the Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill. In speaking in support of this bill, it is easy to say that the bill is symbolic, because it does not really add to the wilful damages offences that currently exist under the Summary Proceedings Act, and perhaps that is right. But, then, perhaps this bill will send a message to those vandals out there who take great delight in defacing other people’s property that this is unacceptable behaviour, that it is a cost to society, and that it needs to be stopped.

This bill is a step in the right direction, although the Law and Order Committee report in the accompanying commentary on the bill states: “We do not expect this bill alone to solve the problem of tagging and graffiti,”. But the public, I think, has had enough. We have not heard very many submissions on the bill, and I would have to say that the Law and Order Committee worked in a very constructive way on it. The majority of submitters were in favour of the bill. Some, of course, were not in favour of the bill.

We heard along the way that graffiti is art. Well, my view is that graffiti is not art. Admittedly, some of it may be quite clever, but when it is done on someone else’s property, without that person’s consent, then it is pure and simple vandalism. If a tagger or graffiti artist wants to draw on and deface his or her own property, then that may well be art, but when the tag or graffiti is on someone else’s property, without that person’s consent, it is vandalism, it is a scourge, and it is simply not acceptable.

Graffiti has a huge cost for our society. We heard amongst the submissions from Local Government New Zealand, for example, that the annual public cost of graffiti alone is about $10 million. That is not the private cost; that is the annual public cost to ratepayers. We heard, for example, that the Manukau City Council deals with about 300,000 tags a year, and that costs the ratepayers $1.2 million in that council district alone, and it is estimated that a further $5 million is being spent by the private sector. We were advised that the cost to the Hamilton City Council was in the vicinity of $500,000, and that the cost to Wellington City Council ratepayers was about $600,000. The figures go on and on, and they reflect the monetary cost alone of taggers and graffiti vandals. This money could be better spent on positive youth activities, rather than on trying to combat negative vandalism by a few.

The bill itself is quite simple and straightforward. When we come to Part 2 I will put forward an amendment in relation to the storage of spray-cans. Part 1 relates to the offence of graffiti vandalism and tagging, and, as new section 11A in clause 4 states, it basically covers anybody who “damages or defaces any building, structure, road, tree, property, or other thing by writing, drawing, painting, spraying, or etching on it, or otherwise marking it—(a) without lawful authority; and (b) without the consent of the occupier or owner or other person in lawful control.” The penalties imposed for that offence consist of a community-based sentence, or a fine not exceeding $2,000.

When the bill first came to the Law and Order Committee, there was an omission that the committee felt fit to address, and that was in relation to the offence of having in one’s possession graffiti implements. Accordingly, new section 11B, in clause 4, has been inserted at the recommendation of the select committee so that: “A person is liable to a sentence of community work or a fine … if without reasonable excuse he or she has in his or her possession a thing capable of being used to commit an offence against section 11A in circumstances in which it can reasonably be inferred that he or she intends to use it to commit such an offence.” That covers a wide array of implements. Part 2 is more narrowly defined to spray-cans, because, again, we heard from submitters than an estimated 90 percent of graffiti is spray-can - related.

On behalf of the National Party I am pleased to rise to support the Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill and to speak to Part 1.

💬 Ron Mark: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Without seeking to question your decision at all, I was wondering whether you could offer an explanation to the Committee as to why you have chosen to take two National Party calls one after the other.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): The member will be seated. The member should look at Speaker’s ruling 25/4. Once I have called a member, that is it. The member should also look at the issue of proportionality.

💬 Ron Mark: Point of order—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): If the member is challenging my ruling, he had better be careful.

💬 Ron Mark: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. It is a new point of order. How can you assume that I am challenging your order before I have even opened my mouth?

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Mr Mark, I made a decision; you rose to question it. Please make your point of order.

💬 Ron Mark: My point of order is that you rabbited that section off so rapidly. Could you please repeat it so I might be able to read it.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): 25/4.

💬 Ron Mark: Thank you, Mr Chairman.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you, Mr Mark.

In rising to speak to Part 1, “Graffiti vandalism”, I say that it is with a sense of sadness that we in this Chamber are dealing with an issue like tagging and graffiti vandalism in the wake of three brutal murders in Manukau. I know that other MPs in this Chamber—the Hon George Hawkins, Ross Robertson, and Pansy Wong, for instance—feel very deeply that—

💬 Ron Mark: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Did you say Speakers’ Rulings or the Standing Orders?

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Speaker’s ruling 25/4—which relates to the fact that once I have called a member, I cannot take the call away.

I am sorry that Mr Mark wishes to interrupt all the way through my speech. Perhaps that is an indication—

💬 Ron Mark: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Just for my clarification, is it perfectly acceptable for any member to ask the Chair at any time about a reference to the Standing Orders?

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Well, the member can go one too many sometimes. One has to be careful about how one raises issues in the Chamber.

I was referring to the issue of the three appalling deaths in just the last week in Manukau. Certainly, I know that other MPs would join with me in saying that this is a blot on the landscape of New Zealand. People like me who live and work in South Auckland are disgusted that other people have to live with this sort of threat hanging over them. I know that there are people who will say: “Well, graffiti doesn’t kill people. This isn’t killing people; this is just a little bit of resistance painting.” I do not hold to that view, because the graffiti is being done to mark territory in relation to street gangs—street gangs that currently swagger around the streets thinking they control them; street gangs who have the audacity to go to a liquor shop and kill a father because that is, apparently, what people do when they run out of booze at a child’s birthday party. That is the sort of disgusting behaviour that we do not want to see in South Auckland, or anywhere else.

There are people in my electorate who say they do not want to be referred to as South Aucklanders any more, because the words have such a bad connotation. Well, I say that I rejoice in being a South Aucklander. I am one by choice, because South Auckland is full of really good people. It is full of people of different ethnic backgrounds, people of different incomes, and people who respect other people. But there are a few others—the people who wish to tag areas, the people who wish to intimidate. The reason these “graffiti artists”—and I use that term in quotation marks—wish to mark their territory is to show who runs the place. They think they run South Auckland, and they think they run Manukau. Well, they do not, and it is about time this Parliament stood up to them.

I know that restricting the sale of cans will not stop all these people, but it does send a signal to the people of South Auckland and elsewhere in New Zealand. It sends the signal that we care enough to say that it is not OK to do this to other people. It is absolutely not OK. I congratulate George Hawkins, because his member’s bill was the forerunner to this bill. His Government did not back him; George backed himself—and good on him! We over here backed him, and I congratulate him. I know that civil libertarians will be deeply worried about someone’s right to mark someone else’s property. Well, too bad for them! They should get with it. All they need to do is let them go and mark their own property, and they should be very happy.

I suggest to people who do not understand what it is like to live and work in this area—and to fear, as so many people do—that they come out of central Wellington and come to South Auckland to see the good people who live in fear on their own properties. They will see the good people who have decided to rent out their properties because they are too scared to stay there. That is what I saw yesterday. And I suggest they go to Mrs Singh and explain to her, as I did, what we can do—which is not an awful lot.

I also think that they should back the police and not bag them. The police do their very best. We do not have enough police in South Auckland. The other thing we do not have enough of is people in the hierarchy of the police who are caring enough to have less political correctness. I think it is funny that Ron Mark should make all sorts of gestures across the Chamber. We know that he is known for that, but I say to him that some people in this Committee care a lot more than just making silly gestures. Some of us care enough to think that Part 1 is extremely important.

💬 Ron Mark: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. For clarification, and in my own defence, I tell the Committee and you that the only gesture I was making was the signal that you yourself often use to indicate to a member that the debate is narrow. Part 1 is narrow, so I ask you, Mr Chairperson, whether you would bring the member back within the range of Part 1. She has not spoken once, actually, on either of the clauses in Part 1. She was rambling on as if she were making an election speech, and my hand gesture to her was simply to say “Please narrow your comments to Part 1.” It was not meant to make some other sort of statement, as she seemed to be implying, quite mischievously and quite erroneously.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you, Mr Mark. The member’s time has almost expired.

I will end with the comment that the people of South Auckland and the people of New Zealand have had enough of graffiti. I congratulate the people who are voting for this bill on having the courage to do so.

I think, having travelled to Auckland quite frequently, and quite often into that member’s electorate, that I can tell that member that what people in Auckland are sick of is piety, pomposity, and snobbishness. People in her electorate are saying to me that they are sick of pomposity, piety, and snobbishness, and the higher-than-mighty attitude that she exudes all over the nation and the airways. And her comments about my hand gestures—

💬 Dr Jonathan Coleman: Where’s this in Part 1, Ron?

Well, I tell Jonathan Coleman that we get what we deserve. He does not need to blow smoke in our faces over here to get away from the fact that his party’s speaker—the one who has just resumed her seat—was not even on the committee, did not understand a piece of the Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill, and did not even bother to read it. Part 1, I tell Dr Coleman, is quite clear and quite specific.

💬 Judith Collins: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Mr Mark might think he knows a lot, but he does not know the fact that I have read the bill. I do understand the issue, and—

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): No, I am sorry, the member will be seated; that is not a point of order.

Perhaps in relation to National members’ speeches we could have given some recognition where it was due—that is, to Chester Borrows. If Ms Collins had bothered to read Part 1, she would have seen standing out there new section 11B, inserted by clause 4, “Possession of graffiti implements”. Ms Collins would have known, had she read the report, that her colleague Chester Borrows was the person who instigated and initiated much of the debate on this Part 1 as it resulted. The section there is quite clear for Ms Collins to read because it has a big black line underneath it, and the big black line, I tell Ms Collins, indicates that it is a new section. I tell the member that it also indicates that Chester Borrows argued very well and very clearly. He drew upon his experience as a front-line police officer and as a lawyer who understands that simply prosecuting people and making illegal the activity of spraying someone else’s property with paint is not going to cut it. He pointed out quite clearly to the committee that we needed the powers to actually charge people who were found to be in possession of a can, who were holding the can up to a wall, but who had yet to press the button and begin their vandalism. It was a point that was well made, and there was a lot of discussion in the committee about that. Hence we have the “Borrows clause”, and it will sit there for all eternity. As the chairman of that committee, I am very confident that that one clause in itself will do a lot—a great deal—to empower police officers to arrest, detain, and successfully prosecute graffiti vandals.

Clause 4(1) deals with the issues of making it an offence—and it is making it a specific offence. I have to hand it to Mr Borrows again, because here once more he made very clear to the officials who came before us that it was no longer acceptable just to deal with this issue under the Crimes Act, but that we needed to be specific and clear that this act stands alone as an offence against property and people. The great thing about the Law and Order Committee is that it has an ability to work across parties very well and cooperatively. Again, I thank the National Party team for its contribution in those two areas, because it has added substance.

The area where I tried to make some input was in dealing with the question of community-based sentencing. I have sat in this Chamber for 12 years now, and time after time I have seen various members of the Opposition parties raising the question of unpaid fines. It seems ludicrous to New Zealand First to continue to impose more and more fine ceilings on people when we know full well they will not pay the fines and that simply, eventually, they will have those fines remitted. So taking away from young people who graffiti and vandalise walls the one thing they value more than anything—that is, their time by requiring them to do community work—makes sense. I say at this point that I would hope we see them in pink vests. I would hope that the officer out in Porirua, whose good work has been so severely undermined by the do-gooder critics there, is able to continue doing what he has been doing—that is, putting graffiti artists in pink vests and making it very, very clear to the community they have vandalised that they have been caught tagging and have been sentenced to community service. We should give these people a taste of what they definitely need: a bit of humiliation.

First of all, I thank the members of the Law and Order Committee for the work they did on this bill, the Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill. The bill has come about because, at the end of the day, this Parliament and the people of New Zealand have had enough of graffiti vandalism. I agree with the member Judith Collins that graffiti is not art; it is vandalism.

There is a difference between graffiti art and graffiti vandalism. No doubt, members of this House have seen some wonderful graffiti art done by artists. But what we see on the properties of New Zealanders—individuals and businesses—around this country has nothing to do with art. It is offensive, and it is a violation of people’s property. There is a cost to it, and it leaves people feeling very angry indeed. They do not know why someone would come along with a spray-can or a felt-tip pen and write mindless rubbish on their property. They cannot understand what it is about.

This bill tries to address the graffiti vandalism problem we have in New Zealand. It is not peculiar to South Auckland; it is found in all parts of New Zealand. The problem is worse in some of our big cities and we see a greater cost in those places, but no area is free of it. This bill builds on the work done by George Hawkins, and I say to Judith Collins that he was supported. His bill came to our caucus and it was supported. But the problem with the bill was that it related only to Manukau, and, as I have just said, graffiti vandalism is an issue for all New Zealand. A bill that dealt with only one area was not going to work. As we know, people can cross the boundary of Manukau City, go into another area, pick up spray-cans, return to Manukau, and spray as much as they like. This bill, however, will have a nationwide effect.

I say to Ron Mark that I agree with many of the comments he made about the work done in the Law and Order Committee. I thank Chester Borrows for his contribution in terms of adding to Part 1, and, in my view, making it better. I agree with imposing community sentences. We know that many young people will not and cannot pay a big fine. This bill allows for a community sentence and/or a fine to be imposed. I imagine that in many cases where young people go out and violate somebody’s property they will, if they are caught, be carrying out a community sentence.

The police officer who has put a lot of effort into this issue comes from Miramar, which is in my community—my constituency. I support totally what he has done in cleaning up graffiti in Miramar. We had a real problem there. He went out as a community constable—in my view, a front-line officer—and helped clean up graffiti in that area. I do not apologise to anyone for the way he has gone about doing it, because the people of Miramar are delighted to see that those who were committing graffiti vandalism in the area have got their just rewards for what they did.

Part 1, as members have already heard, introduces two new offences relating to tagging and graffiti vandalism. I think it is part of the solution, but it is not the whole answer. It can be only a part of the strategy, as, I think, Kate Wilkinson said in her contribution. There is more to this issue than legislation, but legislation is part of the answer.

I recognise that very often when the law is being interpreted there are those who seek to defend actions by asserting what they believe was the intent of Parliament at the time the legislation was passed. I want to take this opportunity to add to the comments from New Zealand First about community service sentencing. I want it to be absolutely clear in the minds of those people who will prosecute, defend, and adjudicate on the crime of graffiti vandalism exactly what was in the minds of the people who are passing this legislation through the House in respect of community service sentencing.

There is much debate out there, and there was even when submissions were being taken on this bill, on what denotes community service sentencing, or what community service sentences can comprise. We have, in the time I have been in this House, discussed a range of initiatives around the country that were implemented by police officers and were part of diversion programmes. These were sometimes later pulled to pieces by people whom I would describe as hand-wringing liberals as being offensive or humiliating for the poor souls on the receiving end. I think the power and strength of Part 1 is that we in this Parliament are making it clear that judges have the ability to give a community service sentence to these people—to take from them the time they would use to go out, ironically, to vandalise other people’s property by graffitiing them; to take from them the time they would use to enjoy themselves with their friends and their cobbers. New Zealand First expects judges, in the enforcement of this law, to give people community service sentences that are quite substantial. Where the judges think of a heavy fine we would like them to think of “heavy time”—time on the streets of the offenders’ communities, cleaning up the vandalism.

We heard from various district and city councils. Auckland is a classic example. Anyone visiting Auckland who gets into a taxi, drives out of Auckland airport, and heads into town is struck by the amount of graffiti. Imagine how many people hours could be involved in cleaning it up; imagine how many labour hours would be needed to fulfil the task of cleaning it up. We in New Zealand First ask the judiciary who will be applying this legislation and who will be making the decisions to please focus on the man hours, to please focus on community service sentencing. We see the ideal solution as being one where all those young people—or old people, if they are tagging—are out there in their pink vests, being seen by the ratepayers of the area as they paint over and clean up their mess. We agree with Kate Wilkinson that this bill is not the be-all and end-all. It will not solve it all, but the sight of so many people who have been caught tagging out there cleaning up the mess would be an encouragement to ratepayers and citizens. We believe that it would actually send them a message giving them confidence that things are working in their favour, that the House does recognise what they are being subjected to, and that the judiciary and the courts are doing something about it.

We would despair if we saw the judiciary handing out $2,000 fines. We know that they are meaningless. Boy racers take it as a badge of honour and a mark of pride if they have a glove box full of tickets and are able to tell their mates “Yeah, I’ve got $30,000 worth of fines racked up.” At a certain point, the level of the fine is meaningless to them because they have no intention of paying it. There was an example on the West Coast about 3 years ago of three young men who had $250,000 of fines remitted and written off. Well, we would say what an absolute waste of time that exercise was. By how much did it undermine the justice system? They should have been given community service right at the outset, that community service should have been enforced, and it should have been done in such a way that it was humiliating for them, in such a way that they were seen by the wider public, and in such a way that they themselves decided that they never ever wanted to be put in that situation again.

This provision is very powerful, and is a very useful tool in deterring people from continuing their vandalistic behaviour. We hope to see it being used to its fullest extent. We would despair if we saw taggers being reported in the paper as owing $15,000 worth of fines, when actually community service was the appropriate sentence.

I rise to take just a short call in respect of Part 1 of the Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill. Members will realise that there are already a number of provisions within our law that deal with criminal damage—that is, wilful damage or intentional damage as it is called under various pieces of legislation. There is section 33 of the Summary Offences Act, which this legislation alters; there is section 11 of the Summary Offences Act, which relates to “wilful damage”; and there is section 269 of the Crimes Act, which relates to “intentional damage”. Obviously, it is sort of a graduated scale.

Section 11 of the Summary Offences Act, as it is at the moment, allows for a penalty of imprisonment, and this falls short of that by providing for community work or community service. My question—and I wonder whether the Minister can help me here because we did raise it several times within the select committee process—is this: when a young person under the age of 17 appears before the Youth Court, and the court wishes to impose a penalty that involves community work or community service, does that young person have to agree to it? I cannot remember which section or subsection it is in, but there is a provision that states that if the Youth Court wants to sentence an offender under the age of 17 to a penalty that involves community service, the young offender, currently, has to agree to it.

I understand that there is a clause in the Children, Young Persons and Their Families Amendment Bill (No 6)—which, I think, is currently before the Social Services Committee—to remove that subsection so that they can be sentenced to a term of community service. I guess the question for the Minister is whether under this piece of legislation the young person would still have to consent, at least until that legislation is transacted through the House.

Part 1 agreed to.

Part 2 Spraycans