Benson-Pope David: Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Benson-Pope David: Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:647;Page:16070] 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 I rise to take a brief call. I begin by thanking the preceding speaker for the positive and constructive way in which he and his colleagues addressed this issue. I think most members of the House and the wider community would agree that tagging—let us not be too forgiving of tagging—is nothing other than a form of vandalism. Acceptable street art or graffiti is quite another matter in the appropriate place and one of the things we have done is focus on this form of vandalism and property damage. Most members of the House and the community would agree that tagging is not just an offence against individual property owners. It damages our communities both in respect of the visual and aesthetic problems and in terms of at least perceptions—and probably more than that—about people’s safety. 
We care very much in this Government about developing supporting and empowering strong welcoming communities in which people’s rights are respected and upheld and I think this bill in its amended form—and in whatever form in which it emerges from the Committee stage—will empower communities right across New Zealand to eliminate this most unfortunate and undesirable practice. 
One of the earlier speakers—the Minister in fact—talked about the desirability of seeing those involved in this practice mostly young people who are mostly young males out on the streets cleaning up their handiwork and that of others. That is highly desirable and I have yet to hear anyone criticise or object to it. 
As members know the Government’s initiatives do not consist of just this one bill. This bill is part of our Stop Tagging Our Place (STOP) strategy and that strategy is about discouraging tagging at the same time giving local government and community groups the tools they need to help clean it up and discourage young people from doing it or rather to encourage young people to make a more constructive contribution to their communities. 
We acknowledge the wide support in the community that this bill has received. It has support from local government from community and business groups and from other non-governmental organisations. I guess that is evidenced in the change of attitude we have seen about this sort of activity. That has not happened just in the community. We have seen it reported more recently in the changes of attitude of the judiciary to the seriousness of this nascent behaviour which leads on to much worse and much more serious antisocial behaviour. We should all welcome that attitude change but certainly there is very little disagreement about the unacceptability of tagging. 
Most people would agree that there is no confusion over what tagging is. It is clearly just territorial marking very similar to the behaviour of tom-cats. It is no more nor less that sort of territorial behaviour. We saw some of the most undesirable forms of tagging a year ago or more in some of the street behaviour in other parts of the country. 
Members will be aware that this initiative is part of a $6 million funding initiative over 3 years for anti-tagging and anti-graffiti vandalism initiatives including grants for community groups for their own anti-tagging initiatives a fund for local government programmes funding for restorative justice programmes targeted law enforcement by police in tagging hot spots—including the 250 extra community police officers who will be in the force by 2009—and the establishment of an expert community advisory group. 
Just before I close I would like to publicly acknowledge the efforts of those people who have already been well and truly on the case. I refer not just to some very extensive initiatives run mostly by local government and other community groups in a number of our main centres but also to commercial operators—paint recyclers and so on—who have taken the trouble to do not just the correct environmental thing by picking up their own product but who have gone a step further and distributed that product grey and all as it might be to the groups that are out correcting this sort of damage. 
The other matter that is important and to which the Law and Order Committee has made improvements is in respect of the widening of the kinds of implements referred to. As members will be aware—and if they are not they should look at the detail—this provision no longer talks just about spray-cans and their availability; it actually talks about the issues around the use of other implements. I do not need to be more specific but it is not just felt and vivid pens which also cause a lot of damage in public places around the country that is very difficult to erase. 
I commend the bill to the House. I think it is significantly improved. I look forward to the ongoing discussion and refinement if necessary in the Committee stage.