Williams Andrew: Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Williams Andrew: Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 19 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5400. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First) 
: 
 I will take a third call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill. Can I just say that in looking at the background to Hutt City it is very interesting to study this wonderful—relatively small by international standards but a lovely size by New Zealand standards—city. It is interesting that on Women’s Suffrage Day where the women have had the vote for 119 years a bill affecting a small city in New Zealand would be getting its third and final reading through the House and showing what local democracy is all about in this country. At times I am sure many New Zealanders do ask what is happening with local democracy in this country when you look— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Certainly after what’s happened in Christchurch. 
ANDREW WILLIAMS 
: —exactly—at what has happened in Canterbury when you look at the steamroller that went through Auckland when you look at the third fourth and fifth-largest cities in New Zealand being put out of existence in Auckland with virtually no public consultation and certainly no referendum and where you still have a city like Hutt City which is able to still function fully with full democracy full local democracy and getting on with the job as we heard before but getting on with the job in this case of bringing a good thing to its people and to its community. 
When I look at Hutt City and I see that it prides itself on the fact that it has something like 25 parks 50 playgrounds six swimming pools eight public libraries two museums and the best beaches in the Wellington region then obviously it is great to see that it is bringing forward a bill to reduce graffiti. It has so many public places and it has so many areas where it does not want to be seeing from recreational and public places what is basically very antisocial graffiti on the walls of private properties adjoining public spaces. It also mentions that Hutt City has 10 secondary schools 50 primary schools and 40 early childhood centres. They have a lot of young people in Hutt City. They have a lot of young people who are very greatly influenced by their surroundings and their urban environment. If they grow up in an urban environment that is cluttered with graffiti and nasty antisocial scrawlings on many of the faces of the walls and buildings around Hutt City what sort of environment is that for them to grow up in? So it is a great thing that the Hutt City Council with the Hon Trevor Mallard championing it has brought this bill to this Chamber and to this House to have it put through. A proud city that evolved from the Hutt County Council from 1877 and in 1941 became Hutt City Council—1941; that is quite a long time ago—it now has something like 102000 residents and is in the top 10 largest cities of this country. So it is very good. 
I was certainly on the Local Government and Environment Committee and was very supportive of this initiative that it had to try to remove unwanted graffiti from private properties where it could not have that done where perhaps landlords were absentee landlords overseas or uncaring landlords or people who simply took no interest in maintaining the properties—we went through stringent requirements with the select committee to ensure that they would still be given adequate notice several weeks’ notice to remove the graffiti and go through all the usual legalities of serving correct notice on the property owners—so that at the end of the day if the council wants to step in and remove some of that nasty graffiti from some of the structures around its city which it has great pride in it could do so. 
So also I would like to recognise Mayor Ray Wallace and his city councillors and the executive and staff of Hutt City Council who have worked this through. I am sure there will be many other city councils and other local authorities in New Zealand that will wish to do the same. Indeed I can see that Wellington City Council itself would like to do the same. Hutt City is the second-largest city in the Wellington region. I have no doubt that others like Wellington City Porirua and others will want to follow suit in due course particularly when they see the significant difference that this can make in the region. 
I have mentioned in the House before that when I was Mayor of North Shore we had a problem for many years and we got on top of it. It was costing us in the order of $600000-odd a year for graffiti and vandalism but we put in place a team to get on top of the problem—former policemen incidentally who came to work for the council; retired policemen—who started to profile the taggers started to work out who they were and started to keep a very comprehensive database of the regular taggers. When the taggers were apprehended by the Waitemata District Police and we could put two and two together and identify who the culprits were in each instance it had significant effects on having them desist and cease their activities but also on getting some restitution from those offenders. Where restitution was not possible they certainly were put through the mill and had to undertake community work. In many cases the community work included removing not only many of their own tags but also other people’s tags to give them a good lesson in having some respect for other people’s property. 
In respect of this however we in New Zealand First are somewhat concerned that perhaps this is in a sense the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff in that this is fixing the graffiti at the end of the day once it is there rather than perhaps preventing it before it even gets there. And that comes back to the education of our young people—good schooling good upbringing and you know good tuition from their teachers and from the parental guidance that they get which is most important in this country. But also it comes back to resources within our police and our authorities to be able to ensure that people can get on top of this and the police can actually provide a presence in many of these communities so that this does not occur. Because at the end of the day if there is not much of a police presence in our communities you can end up with antisocial behaviour and often the antisocial behaviour goes hand in hand with the likes of graffiti tagging and vandalism and often that in turn leads to much more serious crime. At the end of the day if we can knock it on the head before it even gets to that stage with greater police resources so much the better. 
In that regard I was very pleased that a number of years ago New Zealand First was the party that helped push through this House—this is a number of years ago under a Labour Government—a measure to get another thousand police on the beat around New Zealand. A thousand more police on the beat under the Labour Government supported by the initiative from New Zealand First to do that negotiated by Rt Hon Winston Peters to get a thousand more police out there in our communities. These are the sorts of resources that are needed around our country to ensure that this happens. 
On another note we also need to have safeguards and one of the safeguards with graffiti and vandalism is ensuring that the source of the materials used is also restricted. In that respect restricting access to aerosol cans and keeping them in DIY stores in dairies and in other places in locked cabinets so that nobody can just walk in and grab one off the shelf or steal it or try to get away with it as a young minor—these are the sorts of things that we do have to do to ensure that we restrict the access. Obviously they have to use something to deface a fence a wall a house a building or whatever and often it is aerosol paints that are used. So restricting access to those is very very important. 
In closing can I just again commend all those who are involved with this. This is a good initiative. This is local government doing what local government is good at. It is bringing the concerns of its people of its citizens and of its communities to this Parliament and it is getting things done. This is allowing local government to speak on behalf of its people. This is ensuring that on the 119th anniversary of women’s suffrage and giving women the vote a local voice is heard in the Hutt City Council and in this Parliament from the Hutt City Council. We certainly want to ensure that this sort of local democracy local government continues through all the communities of New Zealand and is not steamrolled out of existence by a National Government that really has very very little interest in supporting the second tier of government in this country a most important tier of government in this country which basically is the glue for our communities to operate. Thank you.