Benson-Pope David: Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Benson-Pope David: Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:647;Page:16628] 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Labour—Dunedin South) 
: 
 I thank you Mr Chairman for the opportunity to make a brief comment about this admirable bill. It is a quite short bill of five pages but I think it will be very effective. I think the discussion on it has been useful and instructive and I would like to begin by thanking the Minister and Cabinet for bringing this necessary legislation before us. This is the sort of thing that we often do not address when we should because of concerns about people’s liberties because of concerns about education and because of concerns about other ways of controlling these issues. But I think that what a number of other speakers have said is correct in that we have had enough of what is only vandalism and quite offensive vandalism at that. I think the Minister’s earlier comments differentiated most appropriately between art—which some organised graffiti can be—tagging and graffiti vandalism which is really the substance of this legislation. 
I am delighted to see the National Party support the bill although not without some contradictions but we are used to that in this place and I will come back to that in a moment. During this call I want to focus on the restriction of access to spray-cans and the extensions in this part to other graffiti implements. One of the obvious things we can see when we look at how other jurisdictions have dealt with these issues is that tagging and graffiti vandalism are not restricted just to the ubiquitous spray-can. In fact during the course of the hearings and discussions at the select committee I heard that my own Anglican cathedral in the Octagon in Dunedin was vandalised by young men and women with large felt-tipped pens. Although I will not give the reference to the website just now it is not hard to find when one looks on the web that there are sites solely dedicated to bombing and the implements involved in bombing. It was quite important that we did not focus just on the spray-can because although it may be the main implement of choice in Manukau it is certainly not the main one elsewhere in the country. I think that the inclusion of the category of graffiti implements including glass-etching devices is welcome. Had we not included that extension to the bill we would have had to do so at a future date. 
The matter that was of the greatest concern to submitters on the bill is the matter I want to dwell on. It has been interesting to hear the soft human face of the National Party in terms of the previous speaker talking about the hard line the National Party will take on this but I am disappointed to see the amendment that has been put forward by a member of the select committee. The issue of how people access these cans is absolutely key to the whole debate. Young people who are about to go out tagging do not tend to buy these implements. That has been said to us repeatedly by the people who end up paying for it and the local authorities who end up doing the cleaning up. One of the concerns was about further restrictions potentially on the availability of spray-cans around building sites where they are used for road marking marking construction points and so on. A lot of those fluorescent paint spray-cans it is claimed are stolen by taggers for their later activities. So I think it is really important that we put meaningful restrictions in place around access to cans and I will focus just on cans in that respect. 
The initial bill did cause some alarm. I do not think it had problems necessarily but the wording which was that cans need to be secured did send expensive shivers about the redesign of displays shop configurations and so on around a lot of the submitters. I am sure—and I will explain why in a moment—that the rewording agreed to unanimously by the select committee is entirely desirable. I think it was agreed to unanimously; the chairman can correct me if that is not the case. In my view the wording confronts not only the shoplifting issue which is why I was so surprised to see the hard-line comments from Mrs Collins and the soft-on-shoplifting comments from Ms Wilkinson—both in the select committee and in the amendment she will subsequently put forward. In my view the wording we ended up with—possession and needing the assistance of the shopkeepers—is likely to cover all their concerns including the concern around shoplifting. 
When I have discussed this around the traps with people who have very large displays of these products they have explained to me some of their surveillance materials. In my home town the major retailer who has a very high level of trade in these products has in place in addition to quite extensive video surveillance of the spray-can area other security methods that ensure that those products cannot be removed from the current shelving in the shop without the support and assistance of the retailer. This bill was always good legislation but I think it is much better because of the submission process and I am delighted to support it at the Committee stage.