Dean Jacqui: Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dean Jacqui: Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 19 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5394. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) 
: 
 Good on Ray Wallace the Mayor of Hutt City for campaigning on this issue of graffiti in his community. Good on him for taking a stand for putting his head above the parapet and actually standing for something and then when he became the Mayor of Hutt City following through on it with the help of the local member. So good on him because at the start of a good community is good leadership. Clearly the Hutt City Council has got good leadership at local government level. 
A number of members in the House this afternoon have talked about the impact of graffiti on an individual. Of course it is terrible to have your fence or your garage graffitied particularly if it is one of those roller doors that have corrugated iron. What a pain to have to organise to get it fixed because somebody without a care in the world has come along and decorated it on your behalf. And actually that— 
Chris Hipkins 
: It’s the cedar ones that are a problem. 
JACQUI DEAN 
: Sorry? 
Chris Hipkins 
: It’s the cedar ones that are a problem because you can’t clean them. 
JACQUI DEAN 
: The cedar ones yes yes. The member from over the other side is absolutely right: the cedar ones are much much worse. I do not know whether the local authority—and the member might be able to help me out—would fix that. Is the Hutt City Council going to come along and strip down a cedar garage door oil it varnish it and return it? 
Chris Hipkins 
: That’s a good point. 
JACQUI DEAN 
: The member raises an interesting point and I look forward to his contribution. It sounds like an expensive solution to me. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: No they won’t damage it. 
JACQUI DEAN 
: Well I think we will just stick to the roller door example because that I suspect is more typical of the type of surface that is being graffitied. 
It is irritating to the extreme to an individual to have their private property defaced in this way. But I think also we need to be mindful of the impact on the wider community. It is absolutely true to say that a public place that has been graffitied and left sends the message that it is not a safe place for the community that it is not a place that is cared for by the community. Indeed it sends the message that the community does not particularly care about its public places. So I come back and again congratulate Mayor Wallace and his council on obviously supporting the passage of this Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill to deal to these issues. 
I suspect I have said this to the House but I am going to say it again. I recall when the Local Government and Environment Committee visited Counties Manukau. We had a look at a little corner village which comprised a number of shops and a number of flats. It was a meeting-place for the community. with residential areas all around it. That area was terrible. Apart from the graffiti there was long grass there was rubbish and it was clearly untidy and unkempt. The graffiti was terrible. A lot of it was indecipherable and some of it was obscene. Clearly it was not a good signal to any of the local community. As part of the select committee visit we heard about how the local police and the community including the council were getting together and dealing to that graffiti and dealing to that little corner community. Now it not only is perceived to be a safer place but is in fact a safer place for people of all ages to go and do their shopping or go and meet or do whatever they do—go to the local park. So as well as the individual impact of graffiti there is that wider message to the community. 
The Local Government and Environment Committee worked in a very collegial way on this bill. It made a couple of minor amendments which have been rehearsed already in the House today. With those words I want to congratulate once again Ray Wallace. Good local leadership is really a significant thing for a community. In doing that I commend the bill to the House.