Hipkins Chris: Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hipkins Chris: Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 19 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5402. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 That was a very insightful call from Jami-Lee Ross. It is not often that we get National members standing up in the House and delivering such honest appraisals of their own Government’s performance as we just saw from Jami-Lee Ross who was condemning his own Government for not picking up the principle behind this piece of legislation the Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill and making it a national bill. That was effectively what he just did. He took only 30 seconds to do it and it was a very accurate appraisal of the Government’s performance on this issue. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: They need the Opposition on this bill. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: That is right. It needs the Opposition to do it. I do take great pleasure in rising to speak in favour of this particular piece of legislation in the name of my colleague Trevor Mallard. I know that he has put a huge amount of work into this piece of legislation and I only hope that in about 25 years’ time after I have also been in Parliament for the equivalent length of time as Mr Mallard I too may have a bill such as the Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill passed through the House in my name. 
But perhaps on a more serious note I do want to acknowledge the Hutt City Council although I have a problem with that in one respect. I grew up in Lower Hutt. I do not know where this place Hutt City is. Actually if you go to the New Zealand Geographic Board it does not know where Hutt City is either. There is Lower Hutt and there is Upper Hutt and in the not too distant past some empire-building mayor in Lower Hutt decided that he was going to rename Lower Hutt as Hutt City. There is actually no such place as Hutt City. And I can say that because I was born there and I grew up there. I do not know where this place Hutt City actually is. It is Lower Hutt it has always been Lower Hutt and it is still Lower Hutt. So that is just a little bit of my pet peeve for the day which I just wanted to get off my chest. Now that I have done that I want to turn a little bit more to the substance of the bill. 
Graffiti has been a problem in the Hutt Valley not just in Lower Hutt but in Upper Hutt as well and this piece of legislation will allow the Lower Hutt council or the Hutt City Council as it prefers to call itself to remove graffiti from private property in certain circumstances. I just want to put into context what we are talking about here. We are not necessarily talking about garage doors because in the case of a garage door on somebody’s house it is not that difficult for the council to go and knock on their door and say “Hey you’ve got graffiti there. Can we remove it?”. That is generally not where the problem begins. The problem begins in buildings that are not currently occupied. I will give an example of an old empty factory that might back on to the riverbank for example. In that case it can take a long time to actually figure out who owns it to get hold of the owner if there is no tenant at the moment and say “Actually do you mind if we remove the graffiti?”. Of course in 99 percent of the cases they say “Well we don’t really care. Do whatever you like.” but at the moment it is taking the council a long time to track down who those owners are and get their permission. What this bill says is just go ahead and do it. I think that is quite a reasonable thing for the council to be doing. 
There are buildings in the Hutt Valley where it could take some time to track down the owners. I know of a building in Upper Hutt that will not be covered by this legislation where the owner is based offshore. The building is no longer occupied it is vandalised on a regular basis and the owner actually just does not care. The owner does not live in New Zealand does not have to drive past this particular property every day and just does not care. If that property was in Lower Hutt under this piece of legislation the council would be able to do something about that. 
I think it is a welcome initiative. Graffiti is something that simply drives people mad. It is pointless. It is destructive. It is the destruction of people’s private properties. I really feel for some of the residents in my neighbourhood actually in Trentham who I see out there painting their fences or waterblasting their fences on a fairly regular basis. It must be infuriating for them to have to get out there and repaint their fences after these little toe-rags basically get out there and— 
Kris Faafoi 
: Toe-rags? 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: —that is right—vandalise their fences. But actually where I think there is another problem area which I do not think this bill necessarily addresses and which we are seeing increasingly throughout the Hutt Valley is etching. Etching of glass windows costs a heck of a lot more for local businesses than painting. Painting can be removed with a bit of turps. Etching is very very expensive and that is something that I think we need to find some solutions to as well. I know that it is costing our local businesses—