Faafoi Kris: Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Faafoi Kris: Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 19 September 2012. Volume:684;Page:5397. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana) 
: 
 Malo e lelei Mr Speaker. Thank you very much. On a day when we celebrate women getting the vote here in New Zealand and when we have had many tributes to women who have contributed to New Zealand I would like to begin by celebrating or paying tribute to two men the first one being—[ 
Interruption 
] Not you Trevor. You will come second; you are not first. The first one is the Hutt City Mayor Ray Wallace who obviously has been in touch with his community and spoken to his ratepayers and business owners and has recognised the enormous concern anger and frustration that his constituents have with the problem of graffiti. As another member pointed out earlier in this debate he has gone out and campaigned on that issue during the local body elections. He has won the mayoralty and turned his campaign promise and words into action partnered with the second individual I would like to pay tribute to the Hon Trevor Mallard the MP for Hutt South who has brought this bill the Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill to the House. That is enough. I will continue now. 
I am absolutely amazed about where some of these taggers can do their tagging. If anyone has driven south on State Highway 1 in Wellington and seen the rail bridge across Ngauranga Gorge some of these people—the louts or “the sneaky little bastards” as Trevor Mallard has termed them—some of these youngsters have actually gone on to that bridge and tagged it. We really have to wonder about the common sense of going up on to some of those public places and tagging. If it were a council staff person who had to go and clean that up or maybe KiwiRail you would have to do a pretty serious health and safety assessment before you went up there. Some of our youngsters who are out there doing some of this stuff are putting themselves at serious risk of harm when they are doing this tagging on public and private property. 
This is a bill that as I said in my second reading speech should after time if it works be extended to other jurisdictions. I know that certainly in my electorate at the moment the Mayor of Porirua Nick Leggett is hoping that this does work on the ground and that we can crack down on the prevalence of graffiti. In my case the Porirua City Council is doing quite a good proactive job of making sure that when graffiti does go up whether it be on public land or whether it be on private land it is doing a pretty good job of making sure that it liaises with the property owners or the homeowners to make sure that it comes down pretty quick smart. 
As Trevor Mallard said there is a sense that there is a serious lack of cohesion within a community and a perception of things not being as safe as they should be when there is a lot of graffiti in a public area and certainly around our shops. There is certainly one property in the Porirua area where it has been an issue. The owner of the building has not been proactive in making sure that the considerable graffiti that has been on that building has been taken down quick smart. The community has sent a message pretty loud and clear that it is not happy with the visuals—or the optics I should say—of that extensive graffiti in their neighbourhood because it is bringing down their sense of community. They do not feel good about that graffiti being there. And as has been mentioned by a number of speakers there is the issue of house prices that they certainly want to take into account. If one were to be selling a house and across the road there was a building with extensive tagging that had not come down in some time then you would be pretty frustrated about the visual pollution that was across the road. 
So what this bill does is allow the council to apply to a private property owner where there is graffiti that is visible from a public place and that property owner has 10 days to get back to it to ensure that it has the ability to go on to that private property which it does not have at the moment and get rid of that graffiti. I think that is a very pragmatic approach and that is why I think there will be other councils around the country that will be watching these measures very closely and congratulating the Hutt City Council and Trevor Mallard on taking this action. They will see this and hope that it works in Hutt City. I am sure that Trevor Mallard Ray Wallace—and Chris Hipkins who is in the Hutt as well— 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: And me. 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: Of course—and Parekura Horomia. They hope that this measure works— 
Hon Member 
: And Rino Tirikatene. 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: —and Rino Tirikatene and I think most MPs— 
Hon Member 
: Charles Chauvel. 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: —and Charles Chauvel. I think most councils around the country will be looking at this experience and hoping that it works for them and that it can be extended out to their situation as well. 
I think I speak on behalf of most members of Parliament when I say that we are all probably victims of graffiti whether it be on our electorate offices or every 3 years when we put up our hoardings and the carnival of the campaign begins. I think it would be very rare that there was any member of this House or any candidate at any election who has not been a victim of graffiti. I had one case where I put a hoarding on my house and 45 minutes later less than an hour later one of these—and I will not refer to them how Trevor Mallard referred to them—youngsters I am assuming was there— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Sneaky little bastards. 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: —I will not use that term—and had obviously seen that I had put up this hoarding at the front of my house and within the hour had shown his artistic abilities on one of my hoardings. I managed to rub it out using nail polish remover but the very next day he was back again— 
Hon Chris Tremain 
: Out of your back pocket. 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: Do not ask me where I got the nail polish remover from. The very next day the very same person had been back obviously because I recognised the tag that was on the hoarding. On behalf of all members of Parliament and candidates for office we all share in the pain of those people who have been victims of graffiti. No doubt in a couple of years’ time when we go back to that phase of democracy we will be back out there trying to repair some of the damage that has been done to our hoardings. 
I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to some of the local heroes in the Porirua area who have been working for many many years to make sure that they eradicate graffiti from around the city. Most of them are from a programme run by the Porirua City Council and I would just like to mention Charlie Devenish and Miranda Pittaway who was formerly from Housing New Zealand Corporation. They did great work in making sure that they identified public places and put up tag-resistant murals in those areas. I am thinking of the mural in Hampshire Street which I had the pleasure of helping to paint and also on Mungavin Avenue close to Holy Family School. It is those kinds of projects as Julie Anne Genter said that we should be focusing on. We should be beautifying those areas where taggers target making sure we see the positive in this and turning them into areas that we celebrate and make sure that they are visually stimulating. Then I think it sends the message out to those who might want to tag it that they should stay right away from it or suffer the consequences. 
I pay tribute to the former graffiti management coordinator from the Porirua City Council Trevor Mason who worked very hard and has now retired from that role. He did very very good work in terms of eradicating graffiti. I also pay tribute to the group known as WAG the Waitangirua Action Group which is a bunch of very hard-working mothers who go out and paint out a lot of the graffiti very quickly as soon as it is put up in the Porirua East area. I also need to mention Liana Leiataua and Lepeti Tea who have worked as coordinators as well to make sure graffiti is stamped out in the Porirua area and John Poppleton who used to be with Keep Porirua Beautiful and who has also worked hard to keep Porirua looking as beautiful as can be.