Mallard Trevor: Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Mallard Trevor: Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 19 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5389. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Labour—Hutt South) 
: 
 I move  
That the Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill be now read a third time 
. Very early in this debate I am feeling a little bit of confusion because the run sheet I have says that the Minister speaks here. I just wanted to know whether or not there has been an event an invitation from Mr Key or an election or what the story is but I will assume in fact that the member in charge of the bill should appropriately speak now. 
This is a bill that is a relatively simple little bill one from the Hutt City Council one that is the brainchild of Ray Wallace the Mayor of Hutt City. He is a very good mayor of the independent city. 
Grant Robertson 
: That’s right—republic. 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: No I would not say we were a republic but it is an area that is proud of its independence. Ray Wallace when running for mayor made graffiti an important issue as part of his campaign and as part of that exercise we went through some of the things that could be done to reduce graffiti in Hutt City. It is fair to say there has been a considerable amount of progress. I think Dave O’Sullivan’s team—anyone who has any knowledge of rugby league history in New Zealand will know former Detective Sergeant O’Sullivan who is a pretty mean second rower. I think he was part of the Wainuiomata champions team in the early 1990s. He has taken charge of the contracting for removing graffiti and he and his team work very very well. They work quickly. The Hutt City works on the basis that when this rubbish is up it is better to get it down as soon as possible. It is taken down from places that can be viewed from public places especially from roads where it is on council land. There is an arrangement with Telecom the New Zealand Railways Corporation the power companies and a number of others to get rid of the stuff immediately and as a result of that the place looks a lot better. 
They also do private property. The council works on the basis that if it has an expert team and it is going around the city every day anyway it is better to use that team and its expertise with paint and matching to paint private property with the consent of the property owners. The vast majority of property owners are rapt. Some people tell me that they did not even know that they had graffiti on the fence and they get a knock on the door from the contractors from the council offering to paint it out. I think that it is a damn good service and it is something that we are proud of in the Hutt. 
But unfortunately there are a few people who come really into two categories. First there are the owners of abandoned buildings. These are people who are often offshore have not got tenants in the buildings or very occasionally have dubious people who are in those buildings. It is hard to get a response as to whether or not the graffiti should be painted out; to date it is always done with consent. 
The effect of this bill is to give the council rights so that after an appropriate period of notice in writing has been issued—about 10 working days’ notice; it is a couple of weeks effectively although these people do work more than 5 days a week—if there has not been a negative response from the landowner it means that the council or its contractors will be able to go on to the property and get rid of the graffiti. That seems like a logical thing to do. 
There is a doubt about the period. I think that these days there is email and other electronic contacts and that is the way that most contact occurs. Out in the Hutt now most people pay their rates— 
Grant Robertson 
: You’ve got email in the Hutt? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: We have got lots of wonderful males in the Hutt including email Mr Robertson. There is a question with an email delivery method of whether in fact that might be better and the period might be shorter but the view was that because this law is new and steps into an area that previously councils around New Zealand have not it was better to be a bit conservative in bringing it in as to notice periods. But I do want to make the point that there is a point of balance because the effect of that is that you do leave graffiti up for longer than would otherwise be the case which slightly defeats the purpose. 
There is quite a strong view in the Hutt that the presence of graffiti or tagging signals a lack of social cohesion. It does sometimes give a perception generally an unfair perception of danger and there is no doubt that it has an effect on property values for the properties that are around the abandoned properties. Therefore our view is that it has a detrimental effect on our city on the image and on the well-being—the feeling of well-being—of people. That is why we want to get rid of it. 
 The Summary Offences Act does provide legal grounds to deter offenders and to do some graffiti control. However often the people who do this are frankly sneaky little bastards who—sorry? Well they quite often are Mr Speaker. They are people who sneak in do the graffiti and sneak away and too often they are not caught in a way that they can be prosecuted. What is also not available under the Act is the ability as I have indicated to go on to private property or other property that is visible from a public place and clean it off without consent. 
The package of measures—I want to say that some of them are negative. The painting out the decision to prosecute people when caught defacing public property—those are negative. But there is a lot of positive stuff that goes on with youth in the Hutt. There is an attempt to divert. People like Councillor Ken Laban are doing a wonderful job in the sports area because there is a view that the kid in sport is not in court. That sort of activity is very positive. Although the form of art is not one that I naturally warm to it is often the case that many of these young people are in fact talented artists. If they can be channelled towards murals and other things then very positive things can happen. 
I think anyone who has visited what we call the old village what people call Homedale in Wainuiomata the village on the way down to the Rimutaka Forest Park—it is a beautiful park; people should visit it—going through that village will know there is a wonderful mural of Tana Umaga and Piri Weepu. I think that has been up now for maybe 5 6 or 7 years. I tell you what that does not get vandalised. No one—no one—touches that mural because there is community ownership. In fact some of the people who painted it and who might properly have been described as the little bastards of the time have now grown up and they are quite big. I think any suggestion that that mural would be attacked—in fact it would not happen. 
I want to congratulate the Mayor of Hutt City Ray Wallace on his war on graffiti. I want to thank the Local Government and Environment Committee for the very good work that it did on the Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill. I think the changes it made were an improvement to the bill. I want to thank the chair of the select committee for the way that she chaired it—in a way that I am sure a number of her colleagues could have lessons from to improve their abilities. I commend the bill to the House.