Borrows Chester: Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Borrows Chester: Summary Offences (Tagging and Graffiti Vandalism) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:647;Page:16080] 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 I wish to address a number of the issues that have been raised so far. I must say that I thought that the Hon Dover Samuels had got his speeches mixed up and that he meant to deliver the first part of his speech during the debate on section 59. But I am glad for his contribution tonight. I think he made a number of points that made good sense. 
A number of comments have been made around tagging and where it comes from and the reasons for it. I was interested to note on a trip to Canada last year when walking around the city of Calgary and attending a number of the public places of interest that there was an obvious lack of tagging. In fact the most prominent tagging that was there was on railway carriages. Well what a surprise—that is often the case in this country too. But the fact is that railway carriages move. There is no proof that the tagging on the railway carriages was done in Calgary and in fact I would suggest that it probably was not. I had a good look around for tagging and I found one example on a power box and another example on the back of a sign at the zoo that was about the size of a piece of A4 paper and that was all there was. When I spoke to the Calgary police about that they made a number of comments and one of them was this. The fact is that street gangs in New Zealand are poor and identify themselves by wearing clothing and colours and by tagging. Street gangs in Calgary are rich. They drive big cars make money from selling drugs and remain under the radar by not wearing colours not tagging and not making signs and calls. So there are issues there in relation to why tagging actually occurs. I agree that the issue is very similar to a dog that runs around peeing on a lamp post. People tag for a number of different reasons and it is also true to say that where it appears once it will appear again and again and that a clean or recently painted wall is more of a target than anything else. 
I will take some issue with a number of points raised by the Green Party and the Maori Party. One of them concerns the issue of why there is a need for making a law against this stuff. They tried to make the point that we should not be making laws but channelling our energies our efforts or our money somewhere else. The point has also been made that about $10 million a year is spent on dealing with tagging across district councils around the country. If we looked at how much those same councils spent on youth activities and promoting youth development we would see that the figure would be far far in excess of $10 million. There is nothing in this legislation that prohibits prevents or provides a hindrance to people spending money on those positive youth development initiatives and they do spend money on them. Just because we make a law against something does not stop it happening. A law against rape does not stop people being raped and a law against tagging will not stop tagging. But that does not mean that we should not do anything. If we tried to make a law to get rid of a crime I am sure that my friend from the Green Party would be jumping up and down because by not having an offence and not creating a law about it we are endorsing it. One has to take— 
Nandor Tanczos 
: It’s already illegal. 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: Well we will address the point that it is already illegal. It is already illegal and those points were made by me and others at the time of the first reading. It is currently covered under sections 33 and 11 of the Summary Offences Act and section 269 of the Crimes Act. Those sections refer to different tiers of damage. Section 33 is around bill sticking and it also covers graffiti. It provides for a penalty of $200 and it is virtually never used. Section 11 concerns the wilful damage offence. It has a penalty of $2000 and 6 months’ imprisonment and it is used if someone kicks over a letterbox smashes a window or puts graffiti on a fence or wall or whatever. Section 269 of the Crimes Act is around criminal damage and it is used mainly when people smash big and valuable objects or for instance if they key cars because of the cost of repairing that damage. In that case charges are brought under the Crimes Act. The problem that we have is that under the section 11 offence for instance of the Summary Offences Act there is no preparatory offence and there is no possessory offence. 
The question was asked as to how one could know whether a guy was going to use his big black felt tip pen or spray-can for graffiti. Well if he had the lid in his gob he was holding it in his hand and he was about to draw on the fence someone would think he should be going for something yet there is no offence for that. So if a guy is squatting down in the dark with his spray-can poised and is ready to squirt it against the fence there is nothing there that he can be arrested for and one cannot even demand his name and address. Is the Green Party really suggesting we should have left the law like that or do its members think there should have been a provision within the legislation that that person could be stopped and his name and address demanded or that an arrest could be made or that he could be taken into custody or whatever? I am sure that the House would be happy to give leave to hear that little point raised by the Green Party if it wants to come back to it. The wording used in the new section 11A inserted by clause 4 which is “without reasonable excuse” or “in circumstances in which it can be reasonably inferred that he or she intends to use it to commit such an offence.” is wording that is similar to other possessory offences within the criminal jurisdiction. For instance if members look at the law relating to possession of implements for burglary by night they will find that if people have some stuff on them that they can use for burglary—even though there might be all sorts of legitimate reasons why those people may have those things with them—and if there are circumstances where one can infer that those implements will be used for the commission of a crime then there is an offence and I reckon that most New Zealanders think that there should be. 
Nandor Tanczos 
: You’re talking about a pen—you’re talking about a marker pen. 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: Well the matter is raised: we are talking about a marker pen. The onus would still be on the prosecution to find that the pen was being carried in circumstances that implied that it would be used in the commission of a crime—that is for drawing on the wall or whatever. [ 
Interruption 
] Well does Mr Harawira want an explanation or does he just want to throw rocks? We heard points made earlier on that National’s and Labour’s support for this legislation was purely around political point-scoring. And it was quite interesting to note that the jocular vein in which the Green Party presented its arguments—some would say a “piss-take”; I think that that is a fairly colourful but pretty honest description of the way it was delivered—was pandering exactly to its target constituency. I would also argue that the way in which the Maori Party presented its arguments against this legislation was pretty much targeted towards its constituency too if we look at the points that were made and the manner in which they were made. 
We can be a little cynical in thinking that Labour members were not happy to support George Hawkins’ bill in respect of graffiti. The previous Minister of Justice said that there were a series of problems with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act in relation to that bill but nothing has been raised in respect of this bill. At the time the commentary was prepared for the House in respect of the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill none of those issues were raised because of course at that stage we knew that we would be seeing a series of national initiatives to be announced shortly as Mr Goff said in June 2007. 
The point I make here is that people support legislation to go through the House for a number of reasons. I hope it is because the bills are a good idea. But the way in which people support them and the way in which they address them—in fact the bills they tend to support—also tend to represent the constituency that put them into this House. But the fact that Labour is supporting this bill and that National is supporting this bill but the Greens are not and the Maori Party is not is no surprise to anybody. But nobody should go climbing on a high horse and pointing the finger saying that one party is political point-scoring and another is not. The whole guts behind this bill is that we make laws to show a societal abhorrence to criminal offending. None of us believes for a single moment that a law will stop that offending and that it will be a silver bullet. If anyone comes to this House thinking they can do that with law they have come to the wrong place and maybe it is time they walked away. The fact is that this legislation is addressing a problem. It enforces society’s abhorrence of graffiti and I am proud to be in a party that supports this legislation.