Borrows Chester: Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Borrows Chester: Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:645;Page:14485] 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 I rise to speak in support of the Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill and its passage through to the select committee process. I have a number of concerns surrounding the way in which the bill is drafted and how it may work based on where the police are at the moment in the enforcement of the current legislation. 
I am pleased to see that local communities take—as has previously been mentioned—strong ownership in the redress of graffiti around their cities and suburbs. It is true to note as the Minister Phil Goff noted that the appearance of graffiti is one way that self-expression by one person impinges on the rights of others. It will be interesting to see how the Government responds in the next couple of weeks to a similar bill a local bill from a local initiative to do something along these lines—the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill—which seeks to address exactly the same problem. 
The point made by my senior colleague Simon Power in respect of the legislation as it stands now is one that is quite important. In the publicity surrounding the promotion of this particular bill the Government seeks to make the point that it is raising the penalty for defacing from $200 to $2000. In actual fact people are very very rarely charged with the offence of defacing under section 33 of the Summary Offences Act. Just to give members some understanding of this I can tell them that if they drew on a window with a lipstick they may well be charged with defacing and that is probably more to do with the content of what they wrote or drew rather than with the cost of the damage caused. It can be easily wiped off as I understand it and that is why the penalty is so low. People who get out with spray-cans spirit markers or paint brushes and draw on the sides of buildings fences vehicles and the rest of it are generally charged with wilful damage under section 11 of the Summary Offences Act which carries a penalty of a $2000 fine or 3 months’ imprisonment. 
Another interesting point to note here is that the courts already have the ability to impose a penalty of community service under that legislation as it stands now. So under section 11 of the Summary Offences Act the court already has the ability to impose on an offender the sentence of community work. The only problem we have is that if that young offender is under 17 section 298 of the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act requires the offender to actually agree to do community work rather than have some other sentence. It will be interesting to see whether this bill allows for a judge in the Youth Court to impose community work on a young offender or whether it will still rely on that young offender seeing the good need for him to redress his own ways and actually agree to do community work. At the moment I do not see that it is addressed at all. But then I do not think we have seen the legislation either so this is something that is hitting us just a bit out of left field. 
I was talking to a policeman this morning and in one of our provincial cities in the last couple of weeks the police have arrested three young guys under 17 for offences totalling about $50000 worth of damage to vehicles and buildings by way of drawing on them using spray-cans. What do we do there? Do we charge them under this new legislation? No they will be charged under the criminal damage provisions of the Crimes Amendment Act 2003—section 269(2). The maximum penalty there is 7 years’ imprisonment. The trouble is that at the moment those young offenders who are appearing in the Youth Court cannot be sentenced to anything other than supervision with activity if they agree to it; or supervision with residence if they agree to it; or a fine if they do not. The law as it stands at the moment does not allow those young people to be transferred into the District Court for sentencing so that they could get a sentence that is more than that. 
It seems to me that the Government has taken a high-profile offence that is brassing everybody off and which has previously been occurring in significant Labour-voting communities in South Auckland and is really hacking them off in that that they are upset with the Government for not supporting their local initiative which was brought to the House by George Hawkins and it is trying to address the issue quickly and easily for itself when the problem is much bigger. The reason we have a problem is that there is a deficit in the law. We have the situation at the moment whereby section 298 of the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act allows young people to have to do community work only if they consent to it themselves—and why the hell would they? Why would they consent to giving up their Saturdays etc. and putting the damage right? 
The other problem we have is that section 283(o) of the Children Young Persons and the Their Families Act allows only for matters that are purely indictable to go to the District Court for sentencing. The problem we have there is that “purely indictable” offences is a relatively small schedule of offences and it does not include the ones such as burglary and criminal damage—the sorts of things we want to address here—and the crimes for which we are wanting to hold young people even more accountable. 
I think it is important to note too the difficulty encountered on day-to-day basis by policemen and policewomen and those wanting to assist in the diversion schemes that have young people out cleaning up the damage. This is something that was outlined to me by Senior Sergeant Lance Tebbutt of Hamilton Youth Aid. We go back a long way but he is well known around the youth justice fraternity as leading a youth offenders team in Hamilton that is very very good at getting good outcomes. What Senior Sergeant Tebbutt said to me was that when he takes a group of young people out to do their youth diversion community work he is not allowed to have them digging gardens because they have not got safety boots; he is not allowed to put them up ladders because they might fall off; and he is not allowed to get them spraying weeds or using sharp tools in case they hurt themselves or somebody else. 
This sort of jandal-slapping legislation is legislation that is supported by the other side of the House which now wants the courts to be able to enforce the ability of diversion teams to get these young people to clean up their graffiti. The problem we have there is that currently the big deal in graffiti is to put it as high up on a building as one possibly can. So if we walk down Queen St we might find some graffiti on the top of the air conditioner ten floors up off the street. Will we send them up there to clean it off? If we are going to send them up there to clean it off how does that conflict with the current rules and regulations around what we can get young people to do if they are not wearing safety boots and safety harnesses and if they have not been trained to get rid of the substances the authorities are trying to get cleaned off? 
What the Government is achieving here is Mickey Mouse legislation that no fool can disagree with because it is aimed in the right direction and it is right where people wanted to go in previous years. The Government could have very easily made some changes to section 18 of the Sentencing Act 2002 to allow the threat of imprisonment to young people over the age of 15 and to allow young people to be sentenced in the District Court. An amendment to section 283(o) of the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act would allow some District Court sentences relating to community work to be given and then enforced by the social agencies. The Government could remove section 298 of the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act which ridiculously requires a young person to agree to the sentence of community work before the judge in all his or her wisdom is allowed to impose it. The Government also has to move within this legislation to ensure that those in charge of the youth offending teams who will run diversionary programmes are going to be allowed to get young people off their chuffs shall we say to do community work in spite of the fact they may not have safety boots or the grubbers used to clean the weeds that the paintbrushes or the paint being used may be slightly toxic or that they may have to get more than 3 feet off the ground and climb a ladder to do so.