Goff Phil: Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill — Second Reading 
Goff Phil: Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:640;Page:10269] 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Defence) 
: 
 That was the typically negative whingeing unconstructive set of comments that we have come to expect from Judith Collins. Judith Collins is so “worried” about the problem and so “worried” about her constituents that I get constant complaints from them that she is never there— 
Judith Collins 
: Where? In Mount Roskill? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: No in Clevedon—the electorate she advertises for but never appears in because she is not interested in doing work on the ground. People ring her and ask for her help but she is not there to help. She is neither serious nor genuine about the job. But enough of that member because— 
Judith Collins 
: That’s a personal insult. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: It is not an insult; it is a statement of fact. That member does nothing for her electorate and she has done nothing in the area of graffiti control. 
Let me come to the bill. I want to congratulate George Hawkins on his commitment to this issue. I have worked with George on the issue of tagging over a long period of time. I know how seriously he takes it I know the effort he has put into it and I know that he works closely with the Manukau City Council. That council regards him as an excellent local member unlike the member for the Clevedon electorate. I also want to congratulate Barry Curtis and the Manukau City Council because they have recognised a problem that is of concern to their residents and ratepayers. 
I have to say as the member representing the electorate of Mt Roskill that the problem is also a real concern to my residents and ratepayers. In fact last Friday I was on the side of State Highway 20 in my electorate working with some of the local people in trying to clean off the graffiti. We have had a gutsful of these young people who think they can use the rest of the city as their blackboard scrawling over private public and commercial property and thinking they can get away with it. Well they cannot get away with it and we are determined to do more about that problem. 
I want to recognise what is already happening. I want to recognise what Manukau City Council is doing with regard to its rapid removal of graffiti. It is spending $1 million a year—as are the Waitakere City Council and the Auckland City Council—in cleaning graffiti off property. If we look at the wider effort we see that the cost runs into millions of dollars. But Manukau City Council is very effective in what it is doing. It is working on preventing graffiti through education and in a partnership scheme with the community. It is working on getting volunteers out on the beautification scheme it is running and on anti-graffiti design. That council is known in Mount Roskill for its pioneering anti-graffiti design and environmental management initiatives. If only the member for Clevedon would stop her whingeing and negativism and actually get out and do something and work with the council then that might make it better. 
I would also like to pay tribute to an anti-graffiti programme that is operating in Auckland and in particular to the man in charge of it Rob Shields who works out of my electorate. A free-of-charge eradication service is run for street frontage private property. The programme involves a database and when tags are photographed the database is used for evidential purposes to prosecute in court. Closed-circuit television cameras are in operation and we have done stings on some of the areas that have been most affected. People have been prosecuted as a result. Some of them have been fined very large sums of money; others have been ordered into community work. I will give members an example. Over the last couple of years nearly 500 arrests and apprehensions of graffiti vandals have been made and that is good. The council is getting on and doing something about the problem. 
Just two months ago in Auckland the Auckland Region Graffiti Free Project was set up bringing together the council and the police and there is a new commitment on the part of the police to do something about this problem. So things are happening and I applaud that. I am working with my local council and with other people—just as George Hawkins and Ross Robertson are working with their mayor—and we are making some progress on it. But it is not enough. 
I want to come to the bill because I think that it contains some very good things we need to address. The bill addresses five different areas. One is the sale of spray-paints. The council’s answer is that it thinks it can require retailers to secure spray cans and prohibit the sales of spray-paint to those under the age of 18. I think we have to do something from the retail aspect. A lot of these cans are being stolen because of not being properly secured. They should be behind the counter or in a cupboard not stacked up in rows by the door of the retail outlet from where they can be readily stolen. But there are New Zealand Bill of Rights Act issues in terms of some of the provisions in the bill. Obviously those have to be addressed and seriously. 
The bill creates a graffiti offence and also creates an offence of carrying a graffiti implement. The problem with that is not that the council is not trying hard to find a solution but that we need a solution that runs across the whole city—in fact across the whole country. It is no good banning spray cans from being where they can be stolen in Manukau if people can steal them from outlets in places such as Otahuhu and Papakura by walking across the boundary because strangely enough taggers do not respect city lines. They will not regard those places as no-go areas if this legislation goes through. So we in this House have to look at how we can universalise some of these solutions. I am in favour of creating a specific graffiti offence and I think we can do that. 
I am also in favour of increasing the penalties for making graffiti. That is no problem; it is part of both the Labour Party’s manifesto and the Minister of Justice’s design in this area. Most of all I am in favour of seeing those young people who are scrawling over the property of my constituents over public property over Transit land and over ONTRACK land being required to get out there and clean their damage up as the punishment. The punishment for tagging that is most effective is to get those young people out there cleaning the tagging off. I was out there in a set of white overalls— 
Judith Collins 
: You’re the Minister—why don’t you stop it? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: That member screeches and yells across the House like a harridan. She ought to get out and do something instead of whingeing. 
I am saying that the appropriate way to deal with these young taggers is first to make sure they are apprehended. We need to work with the police on that; we need more effort there. And second when the taggers are apprehended we have to make sure they pay for the damage or as is the case in many instances if they cannot afford to pay for the damage then they should have to get out there on their Saturdays and Sundays with a paintbrush and clean up the damage. I stood on the side of State Highway 20 in my white overalls—in my prison boiler suit—and my orange jacket and I thought: “I’m not the one who put this up there. The people who should be out here in the white overalls as in the south of the United States ought to be the young people who actually created that damage to our environment.” That is going to be a critical way of creating a deterrent to people tagging. If they have to take off the graffiti—and it takes a lot longer to take it off than it does to put it on—they will soon tire of doing that if they know there is a reasonable chance of apprehension and that that sort of penalty will follow. That is what we need to do. 
There are other powers in the bill. One is to provide people who are not police officers with the power to require those people whom they apprehend to name others. I think there are New Zealand Bill of Rights Act issues in that. Even the National Party would agree with that; its members claim sometimes to be civil libertarians. Clearly changes would be needed in this bill. 
But the critical change we need is to have legislation not simply covering Manukau but covering the country as a whole. The critical problem with this bill is that it is localised only to the Manukau area. The changes that we need need to be made across the board. I know that the Minister of Justice is working hard on them at the moment and that things have happened already. 
John Carter 
: Ha ha! 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Under 9 years of a National Government absolutely nothing was done. John Carter can sit there and laugh. Not a thing was done under 9 years of that failed Government. National failed to do anything useful socially. It had a failed law and order policy it had a failed economic policy and now it pretends it has some answers. The thing about this bill is that we are not debating National Party answers because it has none. There is not a policy that the National Party has put up in this House that the public can look at and say: “Here is something that the National Party would do if it came to office.” That party has no policy. That is why we judge it on its track record. If we judge that party on its track record we can see that it has been appalling. 
If we judge the National Party’s members on what they say we know that that is pretty hopeless. Question time after question time we hear National Party members who say one thing in the paper one day and 5 days later contradict themselves and say the opposite. John Key said that climate change was a hoax and now he is saying that we are not doing enough about it. John Key and the National Party said that the nuclear-free policy would be gone by lunchtime. Don Brash was gone by lunchtime but the National Party suddenly had a reversal of policy. [ 
Interruption 
] It is no good that woman shrieking across the House. 
Judith Collins 
: That woman! Woohoo! 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: There she goes. She absolutely makes a fool of herself—in her electorate and in Parliament. 
I applaud Manukau City Council for its initiative. I think there is a lot in the bill that needs to be picked up and worked with but it needs to be picked up and applied across the country. It is not only the legislation that is needed; I know that a series of initiatives is being worked on at the moment and will be announced shortly that will help free this country finally of tagging which every citizen in this country will applaud.