Hide Rodney: Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill — Third Reading 
Hide Rodney: Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:646;Page:15742] 
RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 With the greatest respect to the Hon George Hawkins and with the greatest respect to Ross Robertson Judith Collins and Pansy Wong I have never heard so much rubbish spoken in this House in such a short time in my brief time in this parliamentary debating chamber. The Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill is rubbish. The only reason that political parties are jumping up and down in support of it is that this is election year. They all want to be seen to be doing something about the terrible blight of graffiti seen throughout New Zealand so they will jump on any measure and pass it. The speakers in the debate have admitted that this bill does not fix the problem so why on earth are we passing the bill if it will not do that? Inherent in the bill it is obvious that it will not fix the problem; if it would why would we be passing it only for Manukau City? If this were the solution for graffiti would we not be passing a bill to cover the entire country? We have graffiti in Newmarket too and in Mount Eden but the collective wisdom of this Parliament New Zealand First the National Party and the Labour Government says we need a bill to rescue Manukau from the plight of graffiti. The reason the bill covers only Manukau is that the MPs in this Parliament know that the bill is not a solution. 
We all love George Hawkins—over here we love him more than his own colleagues do. He is an honest and straightforward-talking politician who works hard. So I would like to support his bill because I think he is a good guy but I have to tell the House that in good conscience I cannot. My first commitment even beyond my respect for George Hawkins is a respect for the job of passing good law. George Hawkins knows that this bill is not good law. He has to do it because he is the local MP; the mayor and the council are all agitated and they want to do something to fix the problem of graffiti. The bill has a solution—stop people buying cans of spray-paint! If people are walking down the street carrying a spray-can looking to use it to make graffiti then that is against the law. What rubbish! Graffiti is a crime against property. It is a crime but making a new law is not necessary. What is required is to enforce the law that we already have. How hard is that to understand? We must enforce the law that we have not just in Manukau but right throughout New Zealand. Let us not just sit here and say fine words about how we oppose graffiti and then go back to our electorates and ask people whether they had heard our speeches and say we are against graffiti. Let us actually do the thing that would fix the problem. Let us not try to fix the problem by talking about it; let us not try to fix the problem by passing even more laws—especially if they apply to just one blighted district and not the whole country. Let us do the right thing. 
Are we agreed in this House that graffiti—the writing with paint on other people’s property and on public property—is a crime? Of course it is a crime. Everyone in this Parliament knows it. I could not believe it when I heard Pansy Wong say we need the tools to fight the problem. 
Te Ururoa Flavell 
: Only in Manukau. 
RODNEY HIDE 
: But only in Manukau—I guess they are brown people so we need more tools. I do not know—brown tools! What is going on! We have the tools. It is called the law as it exists. We have a thing called the police who are there to enforce the laws. I would much rather the police were out chasing the taggers than chasing me for my newsletters that I am putting out into my electorate telling people what a good MP I am. That would be a proper use of police time. So why do we not unite as a Parliament to fight the scourge of graffiti because it is disgusting; it is terrifying to have one’s fence garage door house walls or business graffitied endlessly to go out week after week to repaint it only to see it graffitied again and then to complain to the police and have nothing happen. That is the disgusting thing. And then this Parliament comes along with a bill to ban the sale of spray-cans in Manukau—that is our response. 
I do not think there is a party in this House—maybe the Maori Party—that has stood firmer for property rights than ACT. Never have we voted to denigrate an individual New Zealander’s property rights. If members think about human freedom they realise it is all about property rights. We believe it is our job in Parliament in holding the Government to account to respect people’s property rights—everyone’s property rights. That is what the problem of graffiti is: we are not empowering our police and we are not resourcing our police to defend New Zealanders’ property rights. If we want to get tough on graffiti that is what we do; we do not stand piously in this House passing a law that we know will not work and passing a law for a particular district for a New Zealand - wide problem simply because that is where the politics lies. 
I have heard some of my parliamentary colleagues say in public that ACT does not care about graffiti because we are voting against this bill. Members who have said that know who they are. Those members are shameless and they should be ashamed of themselves. I do not believe they should be ashamed of themselves for how they vote today because that is their call but I ask them not to question the people who are voting against this bill because those members know just like I know that this bill is not the answer to the problem. There is an answer to the problem and it is respect for one another and our property and a court justice and police system that enforces that. That is what we should be spending our time on not this rubbish.