Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill

I rise to speak to Part 2 of the Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill, which deals with spray-cans. The sale of spray-cans to people under 18 is to be prohibited, except in certain circumstances. Some concern has been expressed about the extra costs this will bring and the extra trouble it will put on retailers to lock these cans away. I can tell people that in my electorate in South Auckland many people already do this—they already lock them away, they already put them behind the counter, and they try not to encourage spray-can usage by young people in any way. As well as trying not to encourage spray-can buying by young people who might then commit graffiti offences, they are actually trying to protect their own property, too. These spray-cans are often stolen—shoplifting is rife, particularly by the people who do not think anything of vandalising other people’s property. Why would we be surprised that they have no respect for the property owned by shopkeepers going about their lawful business?

The fact that graffiti has moved on to etching and other sorts of damage probably says to many of us that restricting the sale of spray-cans will not stop graffiti vandalism. Again, the point can be made that we know it will not stop it, but it will certainly slow it down. It will, in fact, send a signal that we take this offence seriously. It is important, because although we in these premises at Parliament do not indulge in graffiti vandalism, and are lucky enough to work in a place where we do not see it all the time, the fact is that many other people do. Many other people have to live in it, and they have to work in it. Many shopkeepers have to. I noted the comment from the Minister of Justice before about the cost to businesses, and she is quite right. The cost to businesses is huge. It is not just the cost of the paint to paint out the graffiti, it is also the fact that it has to happen every morning—it is the person time that is used when dealing with it.

Then there is the time spent trying to make complaints to the police and taking photographs of it so that the police can add it to their catalogue of vandalism, and there is the wasted police time spent having to deal with the offenders. I think the idea that was used in Wellington of putting the little graffiti artists into pink vests with “tagger” on them was excellent, and I am glad that the Minister supports it. When I first became the MP in Clevedon in the Papakura area the police there put young taggers into orange outfits with “police” on them so that people knew what they were doing—cleaning up the graffiti. It was also a safety issue. They were stopped from continuing with it because a Queen’s Counsel came through town, obviously on the way to something important, saw this, and decided it was humiliating the children who were dressed in their orange outfits. Too bad about the humiliation of the people whose property they had been defacing! We would not want the children’s little tender hearts hurt.

Actually, the parents of those young people supported the police in their actions. The parents gave permission for this to happen, yet they were overruled by a namby-pamby outfit that thought we had better not upset the civil libertarians. Well, I am all for civil liberties. I am all for people being allowed to live in their own homes without them being defaced. I am absolutely all for people being able to go to their local dairy without getting their handbag snatched off them and then being run over. I am absolutely all for people having the civil liberty to go about their lawful business of selling their goods from their shops, and I am certainly not for people trying to stop it. That is what we are about here—we are trying to say that it is not OK for this to happen, and it is not OK for people’s property to be threatened and vandalised.

Of course, it is not just about property. It is about what it does to people living in fear. The restriction of the sale of spray-cans says that people should not have to live in fear in their own homes. Although the legislation may upset some people who lawfully want to buy a spray-can, and who may have to go through a slightly longer rigmarole because of it, I do not think there are any good New Zealanders who will resent that. I do not think their civil liberties will be offended one bit. In fact, I think they will rejoice in the fact that it will make it more difficult for people who want to buy these cans so they can deface other people’s property.

On my way from the northern part of my electorate to the southern part, I go past a fence in the country that is routinely targeted by taggers. Almost every week it is painted over. I know that a comment was made today by the Rev. Mark Beale, a person for whom I have a huge amount of respect. He runs the Manukau Beautification Charitable Trust. He said that businesses have to get out there and get them cleaned up. He is absolutely right. However, he is not saying, and I am not saying, that it is the business people’s fault if someone tags their property. All they can do is try to make it less likely that the taggers will want to come back again. What he is saying is what we are trying to say with this legislation. We are trying to make it more difficult for them to get the implements. We are trying to make it something they have to put their names down for and show some ID for, so that it is more unlikely that they will go ahead with it. Maybe it will restrain them from tagging every fence in the neighbourhood, or, in our case, in Kirk’s Bush in Papakura, every tree in the bush. I see my colleague thinking: “How can that be?”, but that is what happens. There are also streets where the actual asphalt is covered in graffiti. That is the sort of thing we are talking about here. We are not talking about graffiti art, legitimate art for people to view and have pride in; this is about vandalism. It is about tagging and marking territory. Although restricting the sale of spray-cans to people over 18 will not stop graffiti, it will slow it down, and it will send a message that people in New Zealand care enough to say that our civil liberties—the civil liberties of people who go about their business, are law abiding, do not vandalise other people’s property, and do not threaten them—are worth something too, actually, and it is about time people recognised that.

It is all very well always hearing about someone standing up for people who do not care about other people’s civil liberties but we deserve to have the civil liberties of good New Zealanders recognised and celebrated. People should be able to live in communities that are free of this sort of menace. I know that being a graffiti artist or a graffiti tagger will not necessarily make someone a street gang killer, but show me a street gang member who has not started off as a tagger. Show me one. I do not think we will find too many. Show me one who has not, at some stage in life, started off that way. That is what they do to show they are part of the gang, and they do so to show the gang’s territory. Well, there should be only one gang in our country and that is the gang of good New Zealanders who abide by the law. It about time we said that and it is about time we supported other New Zealanders who want to live in peace and within the law. I am pleased to be able to speak on this part, and I am pleased to be able to support the bill all the way through. We have supported the bill all the way through, and I am proud of the fact that the National Party has put the rights of good New Zealanders first.

I thank you, Mr Chairman, for the opportunity to make a brief comment about this admirable bill. It is a quite short bill of five pages, but I think it will be very effective. I think the discussion on it has been useful and instructive, and I would like to begin by thanking the Minister and Cabinet for bringing this necessary legislation before us. This is the sort of thing that we often do not address when we should, because of concerns about people’s liberties, because of concerns about education, and because of concerns about other ways of controlling these issues. But I think that what a number of other speakers have said is correct, in that we have had enough of what is only vandalism and quite offensive vandalism at that. I think the Minister’s earlier comments differentiated most appropriately between art—which some organised graffiti can be—tagging, and graffiti vandalism, which is really the substance of this legislation.

I am delighted to see the National Party support the bill, although not without some contradictions, but we are used to that in this place, and I will come back to that in a moment. During this call I want to focus on the restriction of access to spray-cans, and the extensions in this part to other graffiti implements. One of the obvious things we can see when we look at how other jurisdictions have dealt with these issues is that tagging and graffiti vandalism are not restricted just to the ubiquitous spray-can. In fact, during the course of the hearings and discussions at the select committee, I heard that my own Anglican cathedral in the Octagon in Dunedin was vandalised by young men and women with large felt-tipped pens. Although I will not give the reference to the website just now, it is not hard to find when one looks on the web that there are sites solely dedicated to bombing and the implements involved in bombing. It was quite important that we did not focus just on the spray-can, because, although it may be the main implement of choice in Manukau, it is certainly not the main one elsewhere in the country. I think that the inclusion of the category of graffiti implements, including glass-etching devices, is welcome. Had we not included that extension to the bill, we would have had to do so at a future date.

The matter that was of the greatest concern to submitters on the bill is the matter I want to dwell on. It has been interesting to hear the soft human face of the National Party in terms of the previous speaker talking about the hard line the National Party will take on this, but I am disappointed to see the amendment that has been put forward by a member of the select committee. The issue of how people access these cans is absolutely key to the whole debate. Young people who are about to go out tagging do not tend to buy these implements. That has been said to us repeatedly by the people who end up paying for it and the local authorities who end up doing the cleaning up. One of the concerns was about further restrictions potentially on the availability of spray-cans around building sites, where they are used for road marking, marking construction points, and so on. A lot of those fluorescent paint spray-cans, it is claimed, are stolen by taggers for their later activities. So I think it is really important that we put meaningful restrictions in place around access to cans, and I will focus just on cans in that respect.

The initial bill did cause some alarm. I do not think it had problems necessarily, but the wording, which was that cans need to be secured, did send expensive shivers about the redesign of displays, shop configurations, and so on, around a lot of the submitters. I am sure—and I will explain why in a moment—that the rewording agreed to unanimously by the select committee is entirely desirable. I think it was agreed to unanimously; the chairman can correct me if that is not the case. In my view, the wording confronts not only the shoplifting issue, which is why I was so surprised to see the hard-line comments from Mrs Collins, and the soft-on-shoplifting comments from Ms Wilkinson—both in the select committee and in the amendment she will subsequently put forward. In my view, the wording we ended up with—possession, and needing the assistance of the shopkeepers—is likely to cover all their concerns, including the concern around shoplifting.

When I have discussed this around the traps with people who have very large displays of these products, they have explained to me some of their surveillance materials. In my home town the major retailer, who has a very high level of trade in these products, has in place, in addition to quite extensive video surveillance of the spray-can area, other security methods that ensure that those products cannot be removed from the current shelving in the shop without the support and assistance of the retailer. This bill was always good legislation, but I think it is much better because of the submission process, and I am delighted to support it at the Committee stage.

I appreciate having the opportunity to speak on Part 2, which is restricted to spray-cans. In my earlier speech I noted that one of the submitters had informed us that 90 percent of graffiti is spray-can - related, so although this part has only a couple of clauses, it is certainly an important part of this bill.

In effect, Part 2 prohibits the sale of spray-cans to a person under the age of 18, unless the spray-can is sold for school or educational purposes to enable the student to undertake a course at school or to complete an assignment or project. We have no difficulty with that. The difficulty is in the next clause, clause 6, which inserts new section 14B into the Summary Offences Act, and that is why I have put forward an amendment for the Committee to consider. The amendment relates to the section that restricts access to spray-cans in shops. Admittedly, the bill in its previous form provided that the spray-cans had to be “kept secured”. That provision has been watered down so that spray-cans are “stored in such a way” that members of the public cannot access them without the help of the occupier, but it is my suggestion that we do not need that provision. Why do we need a clause that restricts access to spray-cans when it is already an offence to sell spray-cans to under-18-year-olds?

I think that we also have to look at the over-18-year-olds who want to buy spray-cans for legitimate purposes and also at the imposition on retailers of having to secure spray-cans when we bear in mind that it is already an offence to sell spray-cans to somebody under 18. It is my suggestion that, surely, it is up to shop owners to take all reasonable steps to ensure that spray-cans are not sold to under-18-year-olds, and if they do sell them to under-18-year-olds, then they are liable to the penalty clauses and the offence that goes with that action.

If I can draw an analogy, we do not have such a provision in relation to alcohol in supermarkets. Alcohol in supermarkets cannot be sold to under-18-year-olds, but we do not have a special provision as to the storage of alcohol or access to alcohol in supermarkets. It is my suggestion that this clause itself is superfluous, and if we look at it objectively, then we have to wonder whether we need this provision relating to storage. We trust supermarket owners to control their premises so as to avoid the sale of alcohol to those under 18. Why then, if we are to be consistent in our lawmaking, do we not trust retailers such as the Mitre 10, PlaceMakers, and Bunnings stores to keep spray-cans in a way they choose so as to minimise and avoid sale to those under 18? If retailers breach the preceding sale offence, they will be subject to the penalties. So they will be accountable, and they will not be able to breach the law without having to pay the price.

If we look at this provision, we see that it is also an imposition on the innocent, law-abiding shopper who just wants to be able to go and buy a spray-can for law-abiding and proper purposes without having to seek the assistance of a shop assistant. Why should a law-abiding member of the public not be able to access spray-cans without having to seek the assistance of a staff member, which involves time, cost, and inconvenience?

The Law and Order Committee was told by some of the submitters that, firstly, age monitoring is not the problem—and if that is the case, then we have a solution looking for a problem—in relation to the storage of spray-cans. I am refining my discussion to the storage of spray-cans, not to their sale. We were told, secondly, that there is a significant cost to retailers. We were given the example of a cost of about $3,000 per storage cabinet. I am aware that some retailers have already gone to this expense, but, worse than that, we were told by one submitter that sales of spray-cans were down by 70 percent. If it becomes too hard for law-abiding citizens to purchase spray-cans legitimately, then what does that achieve in terms of graffiti? It is a cost to law-abiding citizens and to retailers. My comments on this part of the bill are very limited to the provision related to the storage of spray-cans. I am not condoning their sale to under-18-year-olds; I am saying that the clause in relation to storage is unnecessary.

I thank the member Kate Wilkinson for her contribution and for her amendment, which she obviously believes in firmly. I believe that if we were to pass her amendment, then we would actually make a mockery of the bill we have been debating. Although we have been putting in place what we believe are tougher measures around graffiti vandalism, not addressing the issue of access to spray-cans would, I believe, dilute the bill considerably. You see, what we are asking for is not onerous on shopkeepers. We are saying that spray-cans ought to be kept under the watchful eye of the shopkeeper.

My colleague David Benson-Pope very clearly set out what our problem is. The problem is that often young folk who go out and carry out their vandalism do not bother to go to the shopkeeper to buy spray-cans; they help themselves to spray-cans. I have seen examples of shops where spray-cans are on the bottom shelf and near the door. It is easy to whip in, take out a spray-can, and do $10,000 worth of damage—with one spray-can. So what we are asking of shopkeepers, in my view, is not onerous at all. The legislation does not require them to have complex security measures. It does require them to physically restrict access to spray-cans. They could have them behind the counter, for example. We do not argue about the fact that we have tobacco behind the counter of a dairy. That is common in New Zealand. We say that we do not want under-18-year-olds to get their hands on tobacco. We have it on display behind the counter, and it is easy to get if the shopkeeper is there to assist. So I do not believe that it is onerous.

I also think that there is a difference between the storage of alcohol in a supermarket and the storage of spray-cans. It is pretty hard to get out of a supermarket unless one goes out through the checkout, so supermarket staff do have a watchful eye over the product that goes out of a supermarket. It is much harder for staff in a dairy or a small retail outlet to have a product under a watchful eye if it is on a shelf. Spray-cans are easy to access there—one can stick a spray-can in one’s bag and leave.

I do not want us to destroy the aims and ambitions of this bill, which we have spoken about in a collective voice today. I also think that it is important for members to know that the Ministry of Justice intends to give support to local authorities and retailers in respect of this legislation. This will be in the form of advice leaflets and signage to clarify the responsibilities of retailers and their employees. We are not just leaving them on their own. There is support and back-up for them. But if we were to accept the member’s amendment—which I am in no doubt was put forward in all sincerity—I believe that we would undo much of the very good work in Part 1, which we have just passed.

I want to put New Zealand First’s position on record. We will vote against the National Party’s Supplementary Order Paper because we believe that fundamental to the effectiveness of this bill is some form of control over the way in which these items are sold, or handled and stored.

It is interesting that Kate Wilkinson has raised a number of questions about us not treating other products in this way. She has suggested that people would be deterred from buying their spray-cans of paint for legitimate purposes simply because they would have to go and ask the shop assistant to get access to them. I will point out a couple of things. In the weekend I was in Hunting and Fishing. I went in there with my partner, Chris, and we were looking at a couple of rifles that we thought we might like to add to our golf bag to enable us to do the sort of hunting we do. I looked at a .22 Ruger and a .22 Marlin—both of them semi-automatics. Both of those rifles were bolted to the wall. In both instances, in order to be able to put them to the shoulder to see how they felt and how the line of sight felt for me, I had to ask one of the shop attendants to come down. I asked him whether he would mind unbolting them from the wall. He did not mind, at all. He came down and spent some time with us. We tried out the rifles for feel, for weight, and for sight picture. We made a decision at that point in time, and the rifles were put back on the wall. Having to ask the shop attendant for assistance will not deter me, when the time is ripe, from going into that shop and buying a .22 Ruger—or not. I now have a better understanding of what the weapon feels like and is capable of, and I will feel confident in the purchase. I am also confident about the advice given to me by the sales assistant, because he gave his assistance.

A few weeks earlier I was in the same store. I needed a couple of knives—a skinning knife and a boning knife—because we were doing a bit of home-kill. It is interesting that all of the knives—pocket knives, pen knives, skinning knives, and hunting knives—were behind lock and key in glass cabinets. I was not deterred from asking the shop assistant to unlock the cabinet and pull out an array of knives for me to look at, and he was not deterred from doing that for me—he was quite pleased. Eventually, after looking at a number of knives, I selected the two that I wanted, and a sheath to go with them. I was not deterred from making the purchase of a boning knife and a skinning knife because they happened to be under lock and key.

The point is that these spray-cans will not be under lock and key. They are simply required to be placed in an environment where there is restricted access to them. I point out that there are other things that could happen in this House that will not happen, but in relation to which it could be argued they pose a similar threat to the community. A while ago I was buying some building materials in PlaceMakers on Moorhouse Avenue in Christchurch when I saw a Māori chap—very scruffy, long hair, very unkempt—wandering through the aisles with silver aluminium paint around his lips. He was clutching in his hand a plastic bag that he was putting up to his face and sniffing. What was he doing there? He was wandering up and down the aisles of paint looking for more paint. Now I could be forgiven for suggesting here tonight that there should be restricted access to that type of paint, or some form of control, because it poses a health hazard. But we are not doing that; maybe we should. There are some things that in the hands of the wrong people are being used in a very antisocial manner. They are being used in a manner that is detrimental to the health and well-being of the person who purchases them, because we know that person will use them for illicit purposes, for wrongful purposes, and for the purposes of vandalism.

Society has a right, if it sees fit, to pass laws such as this to restrict access to those products—whether they be tobacco or alcohol. I say to Kate Wilkinson, with all due respect, that I think alcohol was a bad choice because my understanding of the sale of liquor licensing laws is that certain people under certain ages are prohibited from going into bottle stores and being in certain places. They cannot go in there. They are not allowed in there. So there are restrictions on the way in which alcohol is sold. They are specific restrictions designed to ensure that, as far as possible, alcohol does not get into the hands of those who are not legally entitled to purchase it.

The big issue that we were consistently reminded of as members of that committee was not actually about the purchase; it was about the theft—the stealing. And whilst we would all assume that good business people, who were mindful of the stock losses that they would be incurring and the impact on their profit line, would take all reasonable steps to ensure that their items are not being shoplifted, or that they are secure, it is not always done. That is why they get shoplifted. We also need to recognise that many of the people who own the businesses are not staffing the counter. They rely on competent, effective, efficient salespersons to monitor the premises, to ensure that stuff is not stolen, and to ensure that customers who wander over and pick up a spray-can and start looking at it are serious in their intent of purchase and are purchasing for legal reasons.

We discussed in this clause—taking advice from the officials—the various ramifications that this law might have on the legitimate usage of these products. We talked about schools, school projects, and the fact that young people are required to do art projects using these spray-cans. Those issues are well catered for in this clause. The one area where we have some controversy and disagreement is in relation to the level of security that a retailer or wholesaler must place around the storage and keeping of these products. I guess it is up to those people who want to sell these products. They know that builder George Brown or developer Bob Clarkson will buy these products, which may be markers to mark building sites. In terms of quantity, they know that the developer will order maybe two cartons of them, in different colours for different legitimate purposes, and those orders will be met in the normal way. Bob Clarkson does not have to walk in and purchase one spray-can off the shelf, and ask the shop assistants for assistance to get it down from the high shelf that he cannot reach; he does not have to do that. He simply puts in an order, and it arrives. And that is how most farmers—who use them for marking stock—most builders, most property developers, and most schools will meet those orders. This clause is designed to prevent, or at least in some way deter, shoplifting and stealing, and the vandalism that results from such actions by the particular people who would do that.

I rise in support of my colleague’s amendment in respect of this matter. The point that our colleague the Hon David Benson-Pope made was that most businesses are already taking these steps, so what is the point of penalising them for not taking those steps, bearing in mind that they do not want to lose stock and they are putting in place measures to make sure they do not. Why should they be penalised when somebody comes along and steals from their shop or later uses a spray-can? If a shop has sold a spray-can and if information or verification that the purchaser was over the age of 18 was not provided, then the shop will be penalised for that, and this legislation is relatively punitive in that respect.

What bothers me is that time and time again we see that the actual perpetrators, the offenders, are being patted on the head and told that it is not their fault. In these circumstances the law seeks to penalise a legitimate business person for trying to put it beyond the capability of some young person to be able to get hold of a spray-can—not everybody, just those who are under 18 years.

What that means is that shop assistants do not have to bother securing spray-cans from people over 18 years of age. In actual fact, what happens now, and what will continue to happen, is that they have measures in place to do that. Why do we need to have the punitive aspect of fines if they do not measure up to where a local inspector tends to think they should be? Why is it not enough of a disincentive that they would lose the value of the product they are trying to sell, or that there is the threat that if they do sell to the wrong person without seeking verification, they will be charged and are likely be convicted and fined in respect of that?

I think we also need to draw a bit of a line under the comments in respect of obtaining firearms and knives, and the hoops that have to be jumped through in order to be able to have a decent look at, and handle, a firearm in a sports shop. By the way, I indicate to my friend Mr Mark that if he wants to borrow a .22 Ruger, Ms Wilkinson has one available. He will have to ask for it, but she will deliver it! But, of course, there is a lot more incentive for a shop owner to open the cabinet and go through the whole sales pitch for someone who will buy something that is worth somewhere between 750 and 1,000 bucks.

💬 Ron Mark: $650!

OK. I did not realise that the Warehouse was selling .22 Rugers these days—it cannot be the rotating magazine version.

Of course, another side to this is the fact that skinning knives, boning knives, and pocket knives, or anything else that one could get stuck with, are weapons. There are also some other incentives, apart from that, especially in a sports shop, for instance, where there are other goods that might be attractive to people who would use a weapon they got hold of to rob the store in any event. So the point of the amendment is to say where the blame lies, and the blame lies with the people who are using the spray-cans, not with the hard-working shopkeepers who are seeking to sell to legitimate clientele.

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Kate Wilkinson to clause 6 be agreed to:

to omit from subclause (1) new section 14B.