Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill — In Committee 
Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:646;Page:15313] 
Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill 
In Committee 
Debate resumed from 12 March. 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 Given the nature of this bill I seek leave for the bill to be taken as one question so that we can have a wide-ranging debate over all provisions. I understand from the sponsor of the bill that that would be acceptable. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs) 
: Leave has been sought. Are there any objections? There are no objections; leave is granted. 
Part 1 ( 
continued 
) Parts 2 to 6 schedules 1 and 2 clauses 1 and 2 and new clause 1A. 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 I am very pleased to be able to support my fellow South Auckland electorate MP along with our other colleague Ross Robertson on this bill of George Hawkins and to help the Manukau City Council take a stand against graffiti. I really thank the Committee for the ability to have a wide-ranging debate about this because the bill as presented was a very small bill but in lots of different parts and we would have ended up having very long speeches on such matters as infringement notices. That would not have helped the standard of debate. 
It is fascinating to me as a person who lives in South Auckland and works in South Auckland to find that there are still people today who think that graffiti or tagging on other people’s property is not a problem. I was absolutely astounded today to find out what the Children’s Commissioner thought of this. I was astounded that she thought so highly of her comments that she went and put out a press release today where she said that tagging law does not need to change. She was actually giving a submission to the select committee in relation to the Government’s other bill on this matter but the words were really meant for this bill as well. 
This was what she said: “I have heard from young people on the matter of tagging and graffiti and I believe their voices need to be heard and respected.” She went on to say other things like this: “I am aware that there are strong public opinions regarding the issue of graffiti and tagging” but she then went on to say that “these public spaces are often environments that children and young people are alienated from.” Well I suggest that she comes down to Papakura and has a look at the skating bowl. That is completely for young people and children but almost every weekend it is completely covered in tagging. So the very space that is not meant to alienate but in fact is meant to include and be for young people is taken over by other young people who do not wish to have that space free for others. 
She also said: “I acknowledge that graffiti and tagging can have negative connotations and outcomes” but then she went on to say that “For some people graffiti and tagging are seen as legitimate art forms.” And this is the bit I really thought was worthwhile saying: “There is history and social commentary behind these art forms.” Well I suggest that she stops doing all her trips around the world—eight last year on the taxpayer—and stays at home in New Zealand Aotearoa to understand what it is for people to have their properties debased defaced and ruined by this sort of so-called social art and history. She can be at home with the rest of us and understand that we have to live in the real world. In South Auckland and in Manukau in particular we have had an absolute gutsful—I say sorry to the Committee for being so rude—of that sort of behaviour— 
Mark Blumsky 
: Gutsful! 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: —an absolute gutsful of it. And I have to say we are sick of it. As Manukau City ratepayers—and I should disclose my interest as a ratepayer—we spend about $1 million a year and the cost is rising on this. But we are really not getting very far with it. We have the Manukau Beautification Charitable Trust a wonderful organisation that I know the electorate MPs all support. We have those people out there working hard and the Manukau City Council working hard. We even have Work and Income occasionally helping out with things. We do everything we can to help and to improve the environment for young people to grow up in—and by the way for old people to grow old in. We do everything we can then we have it ruined by the sort of drivel put out today by the Children’s Commissioner. That woman needs to get real and understand that we have to live in it; we have to live with this. 
Pita Paraone 
: Where does she live? 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: She clearly does not live in Manukau I tell Mr Paraone—she clearly does not live in Manukau. But we need to say congratulations to Manukau City and congratulations to the Hon George Hawkins on his efforts. The National Party is very proud to be supporting this bill and helping Manukau look after Manukau. 
H V ROSS ROBERTSON (Labour—Manukau East) 
: 
 First of all at the outset I acknowledge the work that my parliamentary colleagues have done in supporting the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill. In particular I acknowledge my colleague of long standing George Hawkins for his 18 years working for Manukau and its people and Judith Collins for the work that she has done. Of course we have other Manukau members of Parliament as well. 
It is not surprising that we actually have a special part Part 2 “Sale of spray paint” in this bill that outlines the guidelines necessary to control the sale of taggers’ weapons of wanton destruction especially when we consider that in Manukau City we have over 300000 tags—yes 300000 tags. We have already heard from Judith Collins what that costs us as a city. The incidence of graffiti per year in our district is not good enough. In fact it denigrates our city. Manukau is where New Zealand touches the world; it is the face of the future and we need to do something about it. I can tell the Committee how despondent I felt when I saw a tagged tree near one of our Manukau parks our reserves. Not only does tagging damage our environment but also it plays havoc with our lives in the stress and strain felt by individuals as they wake one morning to see their fence house or letterbox tagged. 
It is time that we got tough on and got to grips with graffiti—that ugly odious expression of bravado at best and gangland marking and ill will at worst. It is like a dog lifting its leg marking out its territory. Graffiti perpetrators are brazenly declaring their contempt for others and South Auckland has endured the squalid scrawls for far too long. People tell me that one of the reasons they do not travel by train is the unsightly visual vomit they are exposed to as they travel from Takanini through to Te Mahia—with the mire of Manurewa and the wanton and woeful on goods trains at Westfield. Passengers tell me they fear that the vandals are in control. This territorial marking marks many and makes them feel vulnerable because much of the graffiti marking is gang-related. It is marking their territory. I am at a loss to see how this self-expression can be considered to be anything but criminal damage—one group imposing itself upon another. Constituents who have come to me about this problem are utterly opposed to the ulcer of graffiti that is screaming from otherwise healthy community possessions. We regard it as the first symptom of decline and it must be nipped in the bud. The people of Manukau have a propensity to serve others they care about the quality of living and they want this House to pass legislation to support their local efforts. 
Graffiti also is a safety issue and many perpetrators put themselves and others at more risk than those risks that cause us to severely restrict the sale of fireworks. This is also a problem of waste: of police and other specialist professional resources and of the cost of withdrawing trains whilst the tagging is cleaned up. George Hawkins has brought this bill to the House and it is born of his experience of overseeing policing his service in the Manukau community for more than 18 years and his service here in Parliament. 
The best way to deal with graffiti or tagging is multi-pronged. First we need to ensure that the offensive tag is removed within 24 hours so that the fame and power reasons for doing graffiti are quickly removed. We need to prosecute the crime vigorously and ensure that the perpetrators are made to be publicly accountable by doing community work. There is an old saying that communities can see the writing on the wall. To me measures taken against graffiti tagging are barely the tip of a laborious effort because when the kids get bored with spray-cans they will find another way of declaring their arrival as a face in our cities. 
MARK BLUMSKY (National) 
: 
 I thought that that was an incredibly poetic speech from the previous speaker Mr Ross Robertson. I agree with a lot of what he said and it was a wonderful commentary. But the thing that he missed was that this bill entered the House in 2005 and bugger me it is now 2008. What has happened? Hearing the member’s wonderful speech about people wanting this measure and that it has to be done and about dogs lifting their legs and everything else I would ask why Labour members voted against the Manukau City (Control of Graffiti) Bill when it came through the select committee process. The National Party supported it but members on the other side of the Chamber voted against George Hawkins’ bill. I would suggest that there is a huge amount of hypocrisy in what we are hearing here. I just cannot believe how long this bill has taken because graffiti is a very serious problem. Graffiti is a cancer that destroys our society. It destroys our landscape because we do not see it spreading and it is vandalism—total vandalism. It affects how safe people feel it affects trade and it affects property prices. It is a very destructive cancer. 
In 2004 Sir Barry Curtis wrote to the president of Local Government New Zealand and said that he had a remit to take something through the local government conference in 2003. That remit started this whole process. That was in 2003. I have to take my hat off to Sir Barry Curtis because if he had not started this and if George Hawkins had not picked it up on his behalf then we would not be here debating this bill today. I would say to Sir Barry that he has got his act together incredibly well and Len Brown is following him very much so. I really do congratulate him on his attitude to attack graffiti. 
I also take my hat off to Bob Harvey because Bob and his team at Waitakere are also committed and have been from day one in the fight against graffiti. I had the pleasure of being taken round Waitakere with Bob’s team and I tell members that we have to take our hats off to the energy and commitment those people put into cleaning up graffiti. They know what graffiti is doing and they know how bad it is. Bob might not be able to write good letters to MPs but he can sure as hell do a good job on tackling graffiti—and that relates to a bill that progressed further through the House earlier tonight. 
When I walk around even the streets of Wellington I cannot believe how much graffiti is taking off and is becoming uncontrolled. I know that the Manukau City Council has spent millions of dollars on fighting graffiti. The Wellington City Council is now spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on fighting graffiti and it is just a shame. It is just a disgrace. Judith Collins talked about the skate park in Manukau. I can tell the member now that we opened Waitangi Park in Wellington—as Chairperson Hobbs knows—and it is a wonderful piece of city space with a very good facility for kids to do their skateboarding but blow me down taggers whacked it with graffiti on day one. We just need to walk around the city of Wellington to see graffiti on doors buildings and everywhere. It has to be stopped. 
I say to George Hawkins that his bill has been the catalyst for what is going through the parliamentary process as we speak. This bill needs to be bigger than Manukau. The member needed to start it at Manukau and he has started it at Manukau. The rest of the country owes him a debt because of the fact that he has done this but the Government also needs to be ashamed that it did not support the member. It did not support the member’s bill. Government members did not pick up this legislation in 2005 and a cynic would say that maybe they thought they should do something because someone was killed recently. Maybe they thought: “Oh my gosh! Maybe we should do something about this graffiti.” and they have. But they have gone just halfway. The bill that is going through the other select committee is not good enough. It will not fix the problems. Members should go and talk to mayors like Kerry Prendergast and ask her what she thinks of the legislation going through the House and whether she thinks that it will make a difference to graffiti. There is something missing here; there is no country strategy. What has happened is that there has not been the input that is needed into this because George Hawkins’ bill was not picked up. The Government has been too slow and it should be ashamed. But I thank George Hawkins for this bill. 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS (Labour—Manurewa) 
: 
 Can I first of all thank the colleagues who have spoken already in this debate. I acknowledge Judith Collins because she has been very active in trying to get something done about graffiti; Ross Robertson a fellow Manukau MP; Pita Paraone the New Zealand First member for his work; and all the Manukau MPs. I especially mention Su’a William Sio who is the newest member of this Parliament but he knows just what an impact graffiti has on the Manukau area. I take on board what Mr Blumsky said about our needing a bill to cover all New Zealand. I think that that is very very important. 
I will also mention Sir Barry Curtis because he became Mayor of Manukau in 1983 and I became the Mayor of Papakura. I can well recall going to a meeting at Manukau City in the 1980s where some graffiti artists were telling us why they graffitied. There were photographs of the inside of one of their homes where they had graffitied the refrigerator inside and outside. They had graffitied the television and they had graffitied the walls. So this is not a new problem; this is Manukau City being a catalyst to get legislation. 
Will legislation solve the problem? No not in itself it will not. But it shows that a community is frustrated by graffiti. Judith Collins mentioned the skateboard rink that gets attacked and people get very annoyed about these things. One thing that really does annoy me is when the Government introduced its legislation and the news media filmed around that area but it also filmed some of the kids who are the taggers bragging that they would carry on. Taggers make their tags they say so that they become famous. Of course then the news media put them on television which only encourages them. The news media have a greater responsibility than just to have the news encouraging these people. Setting them up in the eyes of their friends as heroes is something that television journalists need to think about a little more carefully. When we see these young people some of them would do other damage if they could. It is not just the graffiti. Sometimes it is bending letterboxes over. Sometimes it will be— 
H V Ross Robertson 
: Bus stops. 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: —doing over bus stops as my colleague Ross Robertson mentions. He knows—having an electorate in Manukau City—and I know just how many elderly people feel when their letterboxes are left bent over and lying flat and their fences are graffitied. Some people may say that graffiti is art. I have heard it said in this Chamber. Well that is absolute rubbish. If they want to create art then they should do it on their canvas not on property owned by someone else. Perhaps one of the solutions may be that councils look at different ways of dealing with these young people. They should stop them feeling alienated and do something with them. 
In the end it is a problem for Manukau but I acknowledge that it is a problem in other parts of New Zealand. My colleagues from west Auckland also said that for those who travel on the rail corridors of Auckland the graffiti is an embarrassment and it is very hard to get rid of because of the danger of locomotives coming along the tracks. These young people do not think of danger. They paint on motorway overbridges they paint on high buildings and thereby put their own lives at risk. The tragedy of a young tagger losing his life in my electorate of Manurewa is something I think we should bear in the back of our minds. 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 I am delighted to be able to take a call to support the MPs from South Auckland. Last Monday I attended the first Manukau economic summit for this year. It was very heartening to hear the Mayor Len Brown articulating that one of the frustrating things about the tag name of South Auckland is that it is a turn-off for the business community and the people who live down there because it gives the impression that it is a city full of problems. I want to congratulate the Manukau City Council. That is why it took up the initiative and said it wants to focus on beautifying the city. One has pride living in a city only when the physical environment can match the people who live there. I want to congratulate the council and I also want to send my sympathy for the frustration the council has felt in terms of waiting to start work with one of the biggest problems it faces—the tagging or graffiti issue. The council sought help from central government the Labour Government in 2004 but without much luck. Eventually it was forced to draft a bill that is seen to be a champion. 
It is just as well the council has chosen George Hawkins MP because he has relentlessly stayed with this bill. He has taken it all the way for the past 2 years. I would like to see the Parliament support the Manukau City Council which has tried to build the pride of its people in the city and support an MP who has staunchly championed this bill through the House. I hope that when the bill passes its Committee stage tonight it does not see another setback. For far too long we have seen the Labour Government not listening to community concerns but at long last—this is 2008 election year—the Manukau City Council may see the bill which it started 2 years ago come to a happy ending to give it additional tools to tackle the problem in Manukau City. I also want to welcome our newest member to the Parliament Su’a William Sio the former Deputy Mayor of the Manukau City Council. I think it will be a good gift to him to see a bill that was started 2 years ago when he was on the council pass through the House. 
One has to reflect on the ironic arguments that have been put up by Labour members on the Local Government and Environment Committee. They criticised the Manukau City Council legislation for breaching the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act when it is proposes banning the sale of spray-paint to people under 18 years of age. We then find the same provision in the Government bill and we have to see what brings about that U-turn in attitude. 
I take great pleasure in taking a call tonight mainly to send a compliment to the Manukau City Council which is totally committed to ensuring pride in the city is started by cleaning up those acts. It is sending a very strong statement to all those budding artists—as my diligent and effective colleague Judith Collins would say—to practise on their own property and leave other people’s property and public property alone. I think respect and collective responsibility in the communities start in a small way. That small way is about respecting other people’s rights and property. In taking this call I want also to send my respect to the MP George Hawkins who for the last 2 years has not given up championing the cause for the city that he is part of. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs) 
: Before I call the next speaker who will be Pita Paraone I just make this request again. When I sit in the Chair sometimes the conversations and the movement around the Chamber with people standing up just gets really loud. I think it shows a disrespect to each other. If members are going to have conversations can they keep them really really quiet. 
PITA PARAONE (NZ First) 
: 
 Tena koe Madam Chair. Engari i mua i te haere tonu o waku korero i roto i te Whare i te po nei e tika ana kia tukuna atu nga mihi ki tena tetahi o nga kaimahi o te Whare e hia te roa. Na reira e Tumu tenei te mihi atu ki a koe. Ahakoa ka nui hoki o te mamae ki to wehenga engari mohio ana au i a taua ko tenei te ahuatanga te kaupapa o to tatou Matua Nui i te Rangi nana i homai nana i tango. 
Engari ahakoa kei te pouri hoki i rongo matou i te hinga atu tetahi o nga hoa rangatira o tetahi o nga kaimahi i roto i te Whare nei kei te mihi tonu ki a ia. Na reira e te tuahine e Tangi haere hoki atu. Tenei te mihi atu ki a kourou i takahia te ara whanui a Tane e kawe atu i a kourua ki te kainga tuturu mo tatou mo te tangata. Na reira kua ea te wahi ma kourua ki a koutou hoki ka hoki mai ki a tatou te hunga ora tena ano tatou. 
A tena hoki i a tatou engari he mihi tonu ki a koe e te whanaunga Su’a. Ahakoa i puta mai to korero tuatahi i roto o te Whare nei i nanahi engari tenei te wa tuatahi i riro i a au ki te mihi hoki ki a koe. Na reira haere mai. 
[An interpretation in English was given to the House.] 
[ 
Greetings to you Madam Chair. Before I go on with my address tonight it is appropriate that condolences are extended to a long-serving employee of Parliament. So I acknowledge you Tumu. Although your departure has created much grief you and I know that our Father in Heaven giveth and taketh.  
As we mourn your loss it has come to our attention of another who has passed away wife of one your colleagues here in Parliament. Condolences to you also sister Tangi. Farewell. Acknowledgments to you both as you walk the great pathway of Tane that will take you to the permanent home for all of us mankind. The part for you two and those departed has been met so I come back to us the living: greetings 
. 
Greetings again to us but to you in particular Su’a. Although you made your maiden speech in the House yesterday this is my first opportunity to acknowledge you also. Welcome 
.] 
Just by way of explanation I tell the Committee that I am just extending my welcome to the new member Su’a William Sio. I think it is appropriate that I acknowledge him seeing that he has announced his stepping down as Deputy Mayor of the Manukau City Council which this bill is all about. I have no doubts that Mr Sio will have a lot of thoughts pertaining to this bill. 
I also want to say that I declare a vested interest in this bill. I have done so every time I have stood in this Chamber to speak to it. That vested interest is that I am a citizen and a ratepayer of Manukau City and of course I have some strong views about the group that this bill is all about. Like the rest of the citizens of Manukau City I have to meet the costs of dealing with the problem this bill is all about. 
I say straight off that New Zealand First will be supporting this bill. It addresses a long-standing problem that dare I say not only Manukau City but also a whole lot of other cities and communities around New Zealand have had to confront. In that regard I am somewhat disheartened that we have not heard from other metropolises around the country expressing their support for this bill. It is agreed that the bill is unique to Manukau City and it addresses the issue for Manukau City but I have no doubt that other cities could adopt such legislation. 
Tonight we heard that over 300000 pieces of tagging—for want of a better description—are faced by Manukau City and make up the bulk of the problem. This bill looks at restricting the sale of spray-cans but we all know that more than just spray-cans can be utilised to tag people’s property. 
The sad part about it is that this problem usually takes place on other people’s property. The previous speaker made reference to that and I think that that is the real issue. I believe there should be areas where if people want to tag they can—but not on other people’s property. We used to have a problem with skateboarders and the answer for that problem was to set aside particular areas for skateboarders. Unfortunately I think we will be pushing the barrel a little bit to extend that answer to taggers. 
Dr RICHARD WORTH (National) 
: 
 I think it is right to say that every politician wants to leave a legacy. It is my hope that as he completes a truly splendid career in this House and in this Chamber Mr Hawkins be remembered for the efforts he took on behalf of the citizens of Manukau City to see this issue of graffiti properly addressed. 
We are faced with a most curious irony here. As I understand it the Government plans to support the passage of the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill tonight. That is a strange and quirky outcome in the context of the deliberations that took place before a select committee that was clearly dominated by Labour members. We all know—and others have spoken eloquently about this—of the curse that is graffiti. I think we also know of the unstinting efforts by the honourable member to see this scourge addressed in a practical way. What a tragedy it was that the Labour-led Government did not find it in its cold heart to support this legislation. It instead opted for a decision based on a majority position that the bill be reported with a recommendation that it not proceed. I do not know whether it lies within the heart of the Hon George Hawkins to make some further comment on these issues but I invite him on behalf of the committee to stand and explain how this bill—now apparently but belatedly warranting Labour support—will mesh with current proposals that the Government has to deal with graffiti. 
We know there are limitations in this bill and we know there are limitations in the Government bill. Those issues have been addressed in earlier comments made by members in another debate. But this bill represents a fine start that should be supported. I believe it is right to say that it is broadly not appropriate for criminal-creating provisions to be locally based. Where criminal offence provisions are created they should be broad brushed and applied across the country. As those who have supported the bill and the work of the Hon George Hawkins said this bill might have been a start to trigger a series of local bills that would eventually see the Government take up this issue with the credibility and cogency that the Hon George Hawkins has exhibited in advancing this cause. 
I note the minority views of the committee where it said: “The National Party and New Zealand First recognise the problem experienced by and support the Manukau City Council in its endeavour to control graffiti within its city limits. The National Party has no confidence that the Labour Government’s anti-graffiti proposals will achieve what is required and the suggested implementation timeline of four years is too long. The National Party and New Zealand First do not support the suggestion that if this bill were to be passed that addressing the issue of graffiti would then be on a piecemeal basis.” In the dying period of the Hon George Hawkins’ rule over his electorate I urge that there be a strong statement of support and a strong endorsement for all the work he has done so credibly and with such commitment in the past period. 
MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West) 
: 
 First of all I join previous speakers in acknowledging and paying respects to Tumu Putaura who was a security officer for 21 years. Along with other members I pay my condolences to his family. I acknowledge that Tumu Putaura’s 21 years of service reminds us of the people who give service to Parliament by sitting in the Chamber but there are many others who give service to Parliament the parliamentary precinct and the functioning of Parliament in other ways. It is very timely that I should specifically identify and give my very deep heartfelt thanks to our wonderful men and women who conduct the security service in particular along with others. Our thoughts and our prayers are with Tumu Putaura’s family at this time. 
This bill is very appropriate in terms of coming from the Manukau City Council. I take the opportunity to acknowledge the presence in the Chamber of Su’a William Sio who is now the former Deputy Mayor of the city of Manukau. I think it is very appropriate that as a former deputy mayor he should be participating in this particular debate. I also take the opportunity to join with the previous speaker Dr Richard Worth in paying a huge tribute to the Hon George Hawkins. Richard Worth was acknowledging the massive contribution of the Hon George Hawkins to Auckland politics and to the city of Manukau. The only difference is that Dr Richard Worth talked in the context of some sort of farewell. Well folks if we look at George Hawkins in the Chamber tonight we see that there is no farewell about him. He is hot to trot and he will continue to make a huge contribution to the people of Manukau and to Auckland. 
I was a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee that sat through this bill and I enjoyed National’s contribution. I saw on the video monitor Mr Mark Blumsky himself a former Mayor of Wellington. The reality is that the National members of the committee when they considered this bill acknowledged some of the issues the problems and the challenges. With due respect I say that I think they went back to their caucus and said: “This is the approach we are going to take.” If members look at the proceedings of the select committee they will see that National members made a constructive contribution but it is misguided and wrong for them to suggest that Labour members did not care about the issue. 
The problem we had at the time was in terms of the fact that this was a local bill. I have shared with the Hon George Hawkins and Ross Robertson two fine members the point that although this was a local bill we needed to take a parallel look at a nationwide strategy. It is just a basic thing—if people go into the Warehouse and buy a spray-can they do not go to the Warehouse in neighbouring Auckland City or Waitakere because they cannot buy it in Manukau but they can buy it everywhere else in greater Auckland. 
Parallel with this bill is the Government legislation that is now currently before the Law and Order Committee which I sit on. We are giving consideration to that bill and we want to come back to the House with the bill as soon as we can. It will dovetail very very neatly with the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill. 
I also take the opportunity to acknowledge the fact that Mayor Barry Curtis the Manukau City Council and community and certainly my own community of Hamilton City—especially with the work that we are doing in the Hamilton City Council—have been huge catalysts for the bill and also for the Stop programme that is being developed. I also pay tribute to Len Brown for his excellent leadership. 
Like other members of the Committee I have walked around Manukau at 1 o’clock in the morning with some really great security officers. I have looked at the tagging and I have talked to the Maori wardens. [ 
Interruption 
] I am talking about MPs on this side of the Chamber—I do not know about people on the other side—being on the job and talking to Maori wardens. I also take the opportunity to pay tribute to those wonderful community workers in places like the city of Manukau and elsewhere in the country. These people walk the talk and make a wonderful wonderful contribution. I will be asking for their views and input in respect of this bill. I did not just sit in a select committee and make nice speeches like some of those National members did; I got out amongst the people. That is the example I follow from George Hawkins and Ross Robertson who as members get out amongst the people. I acknowledge their role. 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I have been in my office watching members on the television. This new parliamentary internal television system is a wonderful thing. It will provide great DVDs during the election will it not? We will be able to say: “Oh he said that today? Let me play a DVD and show what he said in the House.” I am so looking forward to that moment because the inconsistencies here tonight have been just mind-boggling. Members have been waxing on lyrically. I confess that when I was sitting in the Opposition benches I was probably one of the Hon George Hawkins’ greatest antagonists when he was the Minister of Police. But he must be feeling sick to the stomach with the some of the waxing that has been going on from some of the National MPs who have been saying how highly they regard him on the back of this bill. That is not what they used to say about him when he was the Minister of Police attempting to do the very same thing. In fact there was no credit given to him at all for the work he did trying to maintain the fingerprinting of juvenile delinquents and offenders. The tremendous work he did there was quietly brushed under the carpet. 
There are also inconsistencies in Labour’s position. This bill and the minority report that I have just read were destined for the rubbish bin. I am now hearing talk that it will be revived. It is interesting for me because I am the chairman of the Law and Order Committee where we are currently hearing submissions on the new Government tagging bill. Now everybody wants the legislation. Everybody now wants it. We have a former Deputy Mayor of Manukau here. He must be a very confused man because all of his colleagues were against the bill. They were against all the great work his city did. They were against all the arguments he put up. They told George he was talking rubbish. They said he was a typical rightwing nutter in the Labour Party and told him: “Sit down and shut up. We don’t want to hear from you.” But I say to George Hawkins that he was right. He always was right. 
There are inconsistencies from the Maori Party. It is wonderful. We heard from Pita Sharples about the artistic ability of taggers and how we should not deny people the opportunity to express themselves. Compare that with what happened in September 2005 when a young 16-year-old was caught defacing—of all things—Pita Sharples’ own hoarding. What was the Maori Party reaction? Its members kidnapped the tagger. They kidnapped this kid. They threw him into—[ 
Interruption 
] I ask members not to believe me but to read the reports in the newspapers. Mr Sharples and his cohorts kidnapped this kid and held him hostage for hours—a 16-year-old. This is the same man who said “Don’t lower the age of criminal responsibility.” Now I get it; we just kidnap all the young offenders and lock them up. This is Dr Pita Sharples who for years has had a wonderful photograph on the Maori Education Trust Board website of himself with a full korowai moko mere and feather in the hair. That child did not accept that he could spread his artistic works over the finest buildings and memorials of this land but he must not dare graffiti Pita Sharples’ hoarding. He must not dare do that because Pita Sharples is special. Pita Sharples stands above all those things. Pita Sharples says people can express their artistic ability on other people’s homes other people’s cars other people’s fences and other people’s businesses but not on his pretty face. 
Here are all the newspaper reports about that; there are dozens of them all about a 16-year-old kid who did nothing more than express his artistic ability on Dr Pita Sharples’ face and for his troubles got kidnapped locked up and held hostage until John Tamihere and other people negotiated. That negotiation would have been interesting. I wonder whether they were going to send in the Special Tactics Group—a group from the police—to rescue this child. I wonder whether that crossed their minds and whether Pita Sharples would have leapt up and said: “It’s an abomination. It’s terrorising us—me. It’s terrorising. It’s the big long arm of the Pakeha law coming down and psychologically raping us all.” No he said nothing because Pita Sharples was so angry that he got graffiti on his face. 
Tame Iti who also expresses this sentiment about Pakeha law has graffiti on his face every day. Some of us would ask what gives him the right to wear a moko; I do not see any warrior qualities in that man whatsoever. But it is his choice. He can graffiti his face he can graffiti his car and he can graffiti his house and Dr Pita Sharples can support all that. 
But we now know—because Dr Pita Sharples does not support this bill—that the line gets drawn on Dr Pita Sharples’ own hoarding. The message is very clear out there for people in the Northern area when the election comes around. As far as Dr Pita Sharples is concerned people can graffiti anything except his hoardings. Thank you. 
I seek leave to table a wad of press comments about the kidnapping of the 16-year-old graffiti artist. 
Documents by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 Before I talk briefly about the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill I will firstly pay tribute to George Hawkins. If people listen to members on the other side of the Chamber they would think they were listening to a eulogy. Those members have forgotten that George Hawkins will be back again and again and some of them could actually learn from the diligent work of a local member—I know I certainly did. What George Hawkins has done in respect of this bill unlike the member for Monaco—I am sorry Dr Worth—over there is that he has taken up the cudgels on an insidious issue. It is an issue that is an invasion of people’s property rights and we have all been victim of it. There is a particular property down the road from my house with a big green concrete fence. I would say that for the last 8 years that particular fence has been graffitied nearly every week or every second week. The owner goes out and paints over it again and again. What Mr Hawkins is attempting to do with this bill is drive a local issue out of his electorate and what the Government has then done with its own bill is to take many of those ideas add to them and take them out nationwide with its Stop Tagging Our Place programme. 
I will just draw a contrast with the work that is done. There is a collision of ideas on this side of the Chamber. There is some good enthusiasm and members are actually thinking about local problems and local constituencies. I look over the other side and I see the hollowed-out group over there. I ask what they did during their 9 years in office—9 years—to address this issue. They did nothing and I challenge “Barmy Bob”—old Private Jones or Captain Mainwaring—over there in his seat. In the 2½ years that he has been squawking like some sort of a male version of a bantam hen I ask what he has done in Tauranga— 
Nathan Guy 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. That member has been in the House a reasonable time now. He should know that he should address members by their correct name. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs) 
: The point is taken—by their correct name. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: I am quite happy to ask Mr Bob Clarkson what he has done in 2½ years in this place. Has he proposed a private bill on graffiti? Has he gone out to his community groups and proposed an idea? He may have gone round the rest homes of course. I do not think people will find much graffiti around the retirement homes or the rest homes or the cemeteries. He may have been round those places a bit. But in his electorate he has done nothing. In the 9 long years that the National Party reigned supreme in this country it did absolutely nothing on this issue. Now we get Dr Worth and others getting up—as I think Mr Mark pointed out—with their glowing inconsistent rhetoric and gushing compliments. [ 
Interruption 
] Of course they do not like it. Mr Blumsky will be gone. What has Mr King done in his electorate over the graffiti issue? Part of his electorate borders mine in Waipara. They have problems there but what has Mr King done? What has Pansy Wong done? What has the member who comes from somewhere up Otaki way done? 
Bob Clarkson 
: What have you done? 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: No—we have a member who tonight continues the good old Kiwi tradition of good members of Parliament and who actually listens to the mayors—Len Brown Sir Barry Curtis and others—and says: “OK. Let’s turn some ideas into some practicality.” [ 
Interruption 
] The squawk-boxes over there could learn something form that. It is called “work”; it is not called “hot air”. It is not called “sitting on your backside taking the dollars and not doing anything for your constituents.” I invite those members to get up and tell us how many members’ bills or local bills they have proposed in the last few years—2½ years for some and 9 years for others. I think we will find it will be a very very short list. 
It is a bit rich for those members to get up and try to propose empathy with the people of New Zealand who have had their properties or their places of commerce and their shops covered in graffiti. I have been victim of it myself like Mr Sharples. I remember that during the last election I had horns painted over my hoardings. But the great thing about the graffiti on my hoardings was that it gave me more hair which I have to say I was exceptionally gratified about. Some people said it improved my looks. Some people would call that art indeed. But there is a difference. Somebody talked about graffiti art. In my electorate the Belfast Bowling Club commissioned some work by young people. The club’s fence had been done over week after week so it commissioned the young people to do a fantastic mural and from that day it has never been touched. But I invite the cynics and the geniuses on the other side of the House who now try to jump on the bandwagon of this bill to get up and tell us what they have done in their constituencies on the issue. 
Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 It is good to see that some people believe in the myths and stories that get published on the front page of the  
Dominion Post 
. I get accused of kidnapping and I get my face on the front page—there I am in bed sleeping and I find out the next day that I am a kidnapper. But never mind. 
I would like to explain why the Maori Party opposes the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill. We oppose the bill mainly because of the reference to giving the police extra powers. I do not believe that is necessary. I believe that the police have all the powers they need to carry out their duties at this time. I feel that we always come down heavy on the youth. When there are problems we attack the youth instead of looking at the major problems in our society. We build big communities that are poor. We do not put in the resources. The teachers drive in teach and drive home again. There is no community spirit as there is in the country towns that are thriving. The people meet together and they are all joined up somehow or other. But in those large communities most of the people who provide the services drive in and drive out again and it makes it very hard to have a good community spirit. The lack of resources the lack of industry the lack of transport facilities the lack of after-school activities and the lack of user-friendly clubs mean that it is a struggle for the local people in some of our communities to carry out their roles and get full support. We do our best. 
It is really interesting. Everyone watches the Warriors—though not last week of course. They watch the Pacific Islanders excelling in rugby league and in the All Blacks and all the other teams and they feel really proud yet they look upon their very children as people who need to be policed chased and harassed in the community for their misbehaviour. We have a lot of things to look at in our communities and I believe that tightening up every time something goes wrong is not the right answer. We have just let the situation get out of hand. There are the “quick rich” in our cities now. If we look at the board of governors at places like King’s College we see that in the old days the people on the board used to be the old families and 50 percent rural people. Now it is all the “quick rich” from in town. That is the sort of thing that is happening. The people who are asking for favours now are the people who had the best advantages when they were young and they are the old people now. They got cheap loans. They could buy houses and sections for $9000. They had a free education—in fact they got paid to go to university—and they are the people that many of our politicians are pandering to and looking after instead of dealing with the community as a whole and building up a strong foundation for our youth. 
I feel a bit sad that a lot of the bills we have had in the last year have been about punishment. Now I hear that the Sensible Sentencing Trust wants to tie people to chains and let them hammer away at the side of a road and put them in tent villages. That policy started in the United States. It failed. They have the worst incarceration rate. In fact they lead the world in incarceration and it is interesting that it is the black people the coloured people who are most representative of the people in prison. We have to rethink how we look at a society’s communities. If we take a freezing works out of a town it takes years for that town to build up again. We have to reinvest in rural towns and build up their structures in order to give the communities a life. I hate graffiti—even on my own face. I hate it on walls and fences of any kind especially tagging which is the worst kind of graffiti. But I do not see it as the greatest sin in the world and that we need to have an Act of Parliament to deal with it. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Do you know how much it costs to clean it up? 
Dr PITA SHARPLES 
: There he goes. He is measuring everything by cost again. What about the cost to the community? 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: What if it happened at your place? 
Dr PITA SHARPLES 
: No the cost is the community cost. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: No it’s not. 
Dr PITA SHARPLES 
: Totally. The community has to live and some places cannot afford all the flash benefits we give out here like the Working for Families package and KiwiSaver. They cannot afford the measures that would give them a better quality of life. Those are the communities I am talking about and a lot of their children are doing this. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: This is Dreamtime. 
Dr PITA SHARPLES 
: Not at all. 
Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Building and Construction) 
: 
 I rise to correct the impressions in the minds of the multitude of listeners this evening in the unlikely event that they feel there was one redeeming element in Dr Pita Sharples’ speech. The clear line ahead is that we should support George Hawkins and I must also acknowledge the effort of the other MPs from the Manukau area. I have on earlier occasions been possessed of the thought to refer to one of those members as a pink bat. I am now searching for how I might describe that in our Maori language. I remember that my tupuna from Ngapuhi fought a great battle at Ruapekapeka which means “the nest of the bat”. 
However having said that I note that Mr Hawkins and the other MPs of Manukau live on a regular basis with the effects of tagging. It is a crime. It diminishes status and the sense of community. It spreads fear and it causes people to doubt whether anything can be done to arrest this type of pollution. So I salute the mahi those members are doing together to challenge the taggers. But we know that young people are prone to great flights of fancy and end up doing things that they regret in later life. If members have doubts about that they should just look at Hone Harawira my relation from Te Aupouri tribe. 
That aside Mr Hawkins has brought to our attention as parliamentarians the fact that tagging and graffiti that is allowed to spread unabated wears down ordinary mums and dads because they know that many of the people behind this anti-social behaviour are in gangs. Gangs are only a minority but the fact is that if we do not challenge their influence then we are undermining the spirit of communities that fear that their own children will be forced into options or decisions that arise as a consequence of our lack of diligence in allowing gangs to become normalised. 
That is why I will never ever agree in this Parliament with Dr Pita Sharples that we should indulge gangs and what they represent. I salute the man for the work he has done in the revival of our culture and for being a great supporter of urban Maori initiatives and a proud son of Kahungunu but I will never support his desire that we should indulge or acquiesce with the spread of gang culture which is firstly proliferating through the acceptance of tagging; secondly overlooking the cancerous effect of drugs; and thirdly turning a blind eye to activities that are passed off as graffiti but that are in actual fact a very sinister crime against the spirit that binds a community together. 
So I salute Mr Hawkins and—perish the thought—the other MPs who although they may not belong to the illustrious party that comprises the Government have also made efforts to arrest this attack. I accept that Mr Mark alerted the country to the fact that Dr Sharples during the last election campaign and in a fit of anger when he saw an object poking out of his mouth that was not a cigarette—as a consequence of the efforts of a tagger—saw red. It is a pity he does not vote red but that is another matter. I accept that he was moved to capture that young person and almost dispense some summary justice but the reality is that we need to ensure that the message is amplified. We should have zero tolerance for tagging yet still embrace the rangatahi so that they see a better way. 
But I say to Dr Sharples that there is no way we should indulge justify or apologise for the activities of gangs. They exist on the basis of threats intimidation and violence. They celebrate the fact that they can get their way because “if you stand in their way they will do you away”. Well I say to them “Go to hell!” Kia ora tatou. 
Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 The taggers are generally not from gangs. They are usually two or three individuals who communicate with two or three other individuals in different parts of the town and they go throughout different communities and put their mark on the place like as someone described it a dog does. That is basically what they do. They are not the gangs that Shane Jones is talking about at all. Shane Jones is quite wrong and he knows that he is wrong to say that I indulge gangs and encourage them. I do not encourage gangs and I do not like their criminality. I have said a number of times in this Chamber that if gangs indulge in any criminal threatening or bullying behaviour they must be dealt with by the police or by any activity that is legal. 
But what I am doing is working to defuse and change the activities of many of the gangs and I will keep doing that. If the member wants to say that that is indulging the gangs then that is fine but at the end of the day anyone who breaks the law has to be dealt with properly. As for Shane Jones saying that I also support the drug activities of gangs I remind him that we brought the whole P issue to this Parliament and put it before a select committee—when I was not in Parliament—and 2 months later Parliament classified it as a class A drug. I have raised money and taken the P case up and down this country twice from Invercargill to Kaitaia pointing out to people and giving demonstrations of the evil of P. I have a team doing it now and I gave a demonstration myself at the Manukau Institute of Technology just a week ago. I am a fighter against drugs and I deplore the member associating me with supporting any kind of drug activity. 
I just want to get those things straight and to say that yes we have to stop the tagging and we already have powers to do that. I think that we have to move in and do it; that we have to strengthen the communities and not just leave it there and attack the kids. Kia ora. 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS (Labour—Manurewa) 
: 
 This has been a very interesting debate and I thank those who have contributed to it. It is not often that we get parties working together at a local level. In Manukau MPs from different parties have come together because we want to solve a problem. 
I acknowledge the work of my colleagues. We do not always agree. I suppose I seldom agree with Judith Collins and people like Pansy Wong who have been working on this issue. I refer to my colleague Ross Robertson in particular and to Su’a William Sio—he has been here for only a few days but he has been working on this problem for a long long time. It is interesting to note that Dr Sharples and I have different views on graffiti but in some areas we come together. We have to steer youth some of whom may be gang members in a different direction. 
I said earlier that I do not think this legislation alone will solve the problem of graffiti. It is a very complex problem that involves young people having access to alcohol. I know of one dairy in South Auckland—and I have mentioned it to the police—that sells liquor to kids in school uniform. These are the same young people that we see running around the streets at 2 o’clock in the morning. Drugs come into it too and I think that is one of the problems. 
It is a very complex situation and we need answers. Of course what has happened is that people in Manukau City are frustrated by it. We see elderly people going to get the  
New Zealand Herald  
in the morning who see the tags of various people sprayed all over their fence and they do not have the money to get the tags removed. A large number of people in South Auckland in particular cannot afford to buy fence stain. 
I pay tribute to the Manukau Beautification Charitable Trust whose volunteers paint out other people’s tags. That shows us something about the spirit of Manukau which I think is really great and we can also see it in this Chamber where members from different parties have come together to try to solve the problem. 
I want to mention my gratitude to Dr Richard Worth— 
H V Ross Robertson 
: Are you sure? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: Yes. I am sure he knows that I will be here longer than him and that I will keep my seat. I am sure that he is gracious enough to lend his vote to helping a community like Manukau. 
I do not know what happens to people who have their photograph on hoardings. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: I do! 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: Clayton Cosgrove did but I have never been bold enough to have my photograph on my hoardings and I have been lucky enough to have them left alone. 
Tagging is a community problem and I think that the media has to be more responsive to what is happening. Instead of just seeing it as a problem the media should perhaps be doing some research to see how the problem of tagging has been solved in other countries. I know that Manukau looked at what happened in Australia. 
The bill has taken some time to get through the House but I think that people like Mark Blumsky who has been the Mayor of Wellington and who along with other members came and saw the problem realise that Manukau is different from many other centres. That is because we have a very young population. We have to find ways of redirecting these young people and this bill is one short step on what I think is unfortunately a very long journey. 
MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West) 
: 
 I rise to take another call on the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill. I want to acknowledge that contribution by George Hawkins and I want to acknowledge the fact that not only has he been a member of this Parliament for a number of years but he has 30 years of public service experience. He was the former mayor of Papakura and he brings a cumulative weight of knowledge and community experience to this Parliament. I know that the now former Deputy Mayor of Manukau City our good colleague Su’a William Sio who is with us tonight will support that. 
I spoke before about the former Mayor of Manukau City Barry Curtis and his very strong entreaty to us as a select committee when we went up there and his strong lobbying. I take this opportunity to acknowledge George Hawkins obviously for his work in presenting the bill with the support of Ross Robertson. But if ever a mayor has had an impact in this country and in this Parliament it is Barry Curtis; he marshalled together all of those forces to really bring this problem home to us. Certainly although it is fair to say that Hamilton does not have the degree of graffiti and tagging problem that Manukau has it still has a serious problem. In that sense I acknowledge the people who say that legislation on its own is not the magic bullet but it is part of the tool box. Its part of that tool box is obviously the community buy-in and involvement to basically clean up neighbourhoods and create a sense of community. 
I acknowledge the many good schemes in Manukau which I alluded to in a tribute I paid to the people who are out there working in the community after we have gone to bed—I talked about the Maori wardens still out at 1 o’clock in the morning and about other people who are really involved in rebuilding neighbourhoods. I also take the opportunity to acknowledge the community of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in my city who of course as part of a nationwide community day put out in Hamilton 1600-plus members of their church community. They went all throughout the city particularly in the Five Crossroads area of Hamilton East but also specifically in parts of my electorate of Hamilton West as well. I pay a huge tribute to the members of the church. The scale of their organisation was amazing but so was what they achieved with the neighbourhoods. In particular when they left the neighbourhood of Five Crossroads the place was spick and span; it was scrubbed up and it was kind of year zero—there was a sense of starting again. The community was really buying in saying it was great and that they wanted to keep it like that. There was a wonderful wonderful spirit. Now that was not legislation it was not law; that was just a community church organisation getting out there and working with the city council. That is the other dynamic. Certainly I will acknowledge that Manukau has many examples of that community spirit. The law comes in and underpins that spirit and gives a legal protection—a legal oomph—and then we put that across to the Stop Tagging Our Place strategy as well which is a multi-agency multi-range strategy that also comes into play. 
I also take the opportunity again in the context of this bill to pay tribute to people like Olly Te Ua a member of our Hamilton City Council staff and other members of the Hamilton City Council for their excellent work. We have to say that we cannot see this in some kind of social isolation. For example dare I say I think that the Government’s recent major funding boost for community-based organisations will help. The extra funding and emphasis we have put into education and into schools giving every kid the right to go to a decent neighbourhood school will help as well. The B4 School checks will help and the work we have done to have greater rights for victims of crime is also important in this regard. Dare I say even stability in terms of housing helps—and yes we have some huge challenges around housing affordability in this country. I do not want to sound partisan but that issue is not helped by the former National Government selling a whole stack of State houses during its tenure. 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I do not think I can let tonight go without mentioning one person in particular. 
Hon Shane Jones 
: Shane Jones? 
RON MARK 
: I think we will hear a lot more about the Hon Shane Jones over the next few years I say to the member. I will mention a lady by the name of Lindy Palmer. I say to her and to all of the residents in Tuakau that help is on the way; there are some people in this House listening. Specifically the work that the Hon George Hawkins has done thus far with this bill the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill is an indication that some people are listening. 
The reason I mention Lindy Palmer is that she is one of a number of residents in Tuakau who have written to New Zealand First saying that at the end of the day they are simply terrified of living in their own neighbourhoods because of taggers who are defiling their property. She described to me an incident where her fence and her neighbours’ fences were tagged. On the couple of occasions when she and her neighbours actually confronted the young people who were doing this work they were physically threatened. On one particular day a group of young girls were out in front of her home simply picking all the blooms off her roses throwing them straight on to the footpath and crushing them. She told them to stop it and the response from those young girls was: “Bleep bleep bleep. You can’t tell us what to bleep bleep do. If you do we’ll smash you over.” Now this is a middle-aged lady—a mother with children—in her own home being threatened by young people on the footpath. Imagine how terrifying it is for a woman such as her to wake one morning and find there is a tag under her bedroom window. 
I just ask Dr Pita Sharples to think about that for a moment. How would he feel if a female member of his family were threatened in such a way? How would he feel if a female member of his family lived in a neighbourhood where young people who were running riot with their tagging were so bold and so brazen that if anybody objected to their behaviour he or she was threatened with physical violence? How would he feel if a female member of his family were to wake up one morning and find tagging under her bedroom window on her home? Does Dr Sharples think that would make her feel a part of her community or safe in her community? Would Dr Sharples feel that he should be loving caring and sharing to all these young brats that are up and down the footpath destroying his neighbourhood? Here is the irony. It is not just our neighbourhood; it is their neighbourhood. I draw a comparison with what has happened in Hampshire Street in Christchurch over the last few years—that is in Lianne Dalziel’s electorate. I ask members to consider Hampshire Street as it was a few years ago and then look at it as it is now. 
I say to members that this bill does not obliterate all of the good projects that are currently in hand be it Project Legit Stop Tagging Our Place or the flying squads. The bill does not in its passing say that we shall not do any of these things; no one is saying to not do the good work of which members have spoken. We are saying that we should do that and do this because this is necessary. 
I think one of the greatest tragedies is that we seem to have people in our midst who do not like putting in boundaries to protect our young people. The great irony is that if members talk to young people they will hear that one of the things that young people do not respect is adults who are weak who do not show them boundaries and who do not act when they cross those boundaries. Having been a young person myself not so long ago I too pushed boundaries. I think there are many members in this Committee who in their youth pushed the boundaries to see how far they could go. It requires a strong community and more than that strong Government strong local government strong leaders of those communities and strong members of Parliament who are prepared to say to these young people: “We will help you in doing some of the things you want to do that are non-destructive and productive and that keep you occupied and give you pleasure. But we have boundaries; should you decide to cross them we will not hesitate to act.” That is what this bill seeks to do. 
But I also say that this bill actually seeks to protect some young people. Some people cannot help themselves. If they can get access to things like spray-cans knives bottles and alcohol they will self-destruct. As responsible legislators we cannot ignore that fact. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Chairperson. Tena tatou katoa e te Whare i tenei po. Kua oti ke i a au te korero mo etahi take. Kua ara ake ki te korero mo te wa poto nei mo tenei take. 
[ 
Greetings to you Mr Chairperson and to all of us in the Chamber tonight. I have already addressed other matters but rise for a brief moment to talk about this one 
.] 
I have chosen to take a short call following on from our party’s co-leader Pita Sharples. I will not take very long but I will try to highlight a few issues that I have heard talked about in the debate. The debate has been good in some parts and lousy in others. In my own town of Rotorua the premier ancestral house of Te Arawa—Tama te Kapua—was tagged about a month ago. When reporters came to see me about that tagging they asked for my response and inevitably I gave them one which was not all that nice in the sense that I did not endorse any actions by any taggers. I do not think that very many of us are in the game of endorsing tagging. So members should take it as mentioned by our co-leader that it is not as though our stand with regard to this bill is about the notion of endorsing tagging in any way shape or form. 
As I have been listening to the korero about the question of what a tagger is my colleague Pita Sharples referred to the fact that taggers are not gang members yet on the other side of the Chamber other members have said taggers are gang members. Some members have said they are of a certain age bracket. My colleague Pita Sharples who has been associated with some projects to look at these sorts of issues says taggers are probably young. I think the member in the chair Mr Hawkins mentioned the notion of many of them being involved in using drugs and alcohol. Or really are they just as Maori would say plain haututu—or hoha for some of us? Are they looking for something to do? It could be any of those issues. 
We have not necessarily come to grips with where tagging sits but the biggest question for me is whether giving the police in any way shape or form the opportunity to round up these—probably—young ones will really solve the problem. Is it really about that? Mr Gallagher said that many church groups and others—and Mr Mark referred to this as well—have positive initiatives that deal with the issue after the fact. That is probably the real issue. But I do not know whether the notion of having the police deal with these sorts of issues will do very much for the notion of police relationships with people who possibly already have negative attitudes towards the police. It could become like what happened with regard to the Tuhoe nation at the end of last year. Does anyone really think that the police action over their arrival in the Tuhoe nation will develop positive relationships with Tuhoe? I do not think so. 
The big thing for me is the question of whether we really think the actions we are taking tonight will stop the problem. Does this legislation really mean to say that people will not go and get spray-cans or access to those sorts of things in order to enable them to tag? For my part I do not think so. Therefore we need to look a lot wider at the issue. Firstly we need to deal with the issue before it happens such that we take care of that issue and the concerns that people like Mr Mark talked about. Secondly we need to deal with what happens to those people afterwards. Other members have talked about some initiatives with regard to that. 
I note that students at one particular school in Auckland apparently decided for one reason or another to put each other into the world of technology through Bebo and to show the world how they are beating each other up at their school—I think it was St Paul’s College. Those images were shown to the whole wide world on television this evening. I think to myself: “Well is it just about tagging or do we have a bigger issue here?”. If young people at school in a controlled environment are able to go about doing that sort of stuff with no teachers or staff around and not just once or twice but on many occasions then I suggest to the Committee that the issues we are talking about are far bigger than those that have been discussed tonight. 
We need to look at the bigger picture. We are dealing with this one notion about tagging and sure it happens in Manukau. To me this bill is a piecemeal approach to something that is far and away a bigger problem. We should look at that picture as opposed to looking at just this one thing in isolation. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Minister of Immigration) 
: 
 I will just take a short call. I was not intending to but I feel it is appropriate to address something that Mr Sharples said towards the conclusion of his speech. I do not think that he or his colleague Te Ururoa Flavell who has just spoken once mentioned the victim of this sort of insidious offence; the victim in these debates always gets sort of lost in a bunch of rhetoric. We do forget about the victim—the person who has been dealt to. 
But Dr Sharples made an interesting comment. He said there is no cost to the individual. I think Mr Sharples would acknowledge he said that. He said that the cost when people’s property is tagged or graffitied is a sort of esoteric mystical community cost. Well I invite him to have a think about that statement because I suspect that every electorate MP and the other MPs in the Chamber who have had constituents who have been graffitied would understand that there is not only a monetary cost—the cost of the clean up—but there is an emotional cost to graffiti. There is also the problem of property value cost in many parts of the country such as what happened in Hampshire Street a decade ago as mentioned by Mr Mark. A suburb or a particular part of a community becomes a magnet for this sort of stuff and that becomes an issue of property value cost. But to stand up in the Chamber and say there is no cost to an individual—that the cost of graffiti is somehow an esoteric community cost—is something I reject. 
I also reject the idea that when anybody does this offence it is the community’s responsibility. Well the community has not done this; individuals have perpetrated these offences and there is a huge cost to individuals in terms of property and emotion. And I suppose there is an intangible cost to the community. I invite Dr Sharples to reflect on that because in my part of the world in Waimakariri the taggers have even gone the next step now along with spray-cans of getting out the glass cutters. They etch graffiti into shop-front windows and then the insurance companies after repeated claims to replace the windows start to turn around and say: “Sorry there is nothing structurally wrong with the glass. It’s just been scratched or etched and therefore the policy does not cover it and we’re not paying.” 
So I invite Mr Sharples as I conclude to reflect on his statement. It is all very well to get up and use all the rhetoric and to say there is no cost and it is all the community’s problem and not to mention the victim once but I invite him to go and visit a constituent in an ordinary home in any part of New Zealand that has been dealt to with this. There may not have been any violence; it is a crime of vandalism often. But he should put to that person the notion that there is no cost for the person. I invite him to reflect on that. 
I conclude by congratulating Mr Hawkins who in his way along with the Government’s legislation is attempting to address the facts that there are victims out there that it does impact on them that there is a huge cost emotionally and financially and that he intends to do and has done—along with the Government’s bill—something to correct that. It may not solve every problem. It may not stop every young hoon from graffitiing somebody’s property but I invite Dr Sharples to reflect on the alternative: do we simply raise the white flag and say that we will do nothing about it because it will not stop everyone? Do we raise the white flag surrender and say: “Well everybody is doing it therefore we may not be able to stop at 100 percent and therefore we shouldn’t do anything about it.”? 
Dr Sharples’ colleague who has just spoken—who made I think a good contribution—said we should get on to it before it starts. He used some very eloquent phrases but did not actually propose what they meant in reality. He talked about the relationships of young people with the police as being negative. I invite him to think about and contemplate on the relationships of young people with the victims or the victim’s relationship with his or her community after having been impacted on by this. Does anybody remember as I conclude the victim in this debate? I invite those members to reflect on that issue when they talk very eloquently about young people and the perpetrators of these offences. There is a cost; it is being addressed through this legislation and that of the Government. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 In response to some of the questions that Mr Cosgrove raised I want to make two points in respect of the costs back to those who might well have been the target of tagging. I reflected for a very short space of time and thought that in Maoridom we have a tikanga that goes back in history to the notion of utu and that is not utu in the sense of killing people off in any way shape or form; it is more the notion of payback. 
I was thinking about how I might address in my case in Rotorua the notion that somebody would come and tag my tupuna whare. I was thinking about those people whom Mr Cosgrove just referred to. I thought that a good idea would be to bring those people once caught—with their families—to face the people they had transgressed namely in this case all of Te Arawa to front up to my tribe and explain why they thought it was appropriate to deface and to tag my tupuna whare and to work it through in that way. In Te Ao Maori there is a saying that goes: “Waiho ma te whakama e patu.”: let embarrassment be the enforcer—the enforcer of crime. 
Pita Paraone 
: That used to be the case. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL 
: My colleague the member from Te Tai Tokerau is right. We would hope if one can imagine that that person came in front of all of Te Arawa on one day that certainly ka riro ma te whakama a ia e patu. 
[ 
embarrassment will be his downfall 
] 
But that is not always the case for everyone and that is acknowledged. 
I suppose what I am trying to get at is yes there is some payback and we tend to forget about many of the ones who are left after the damage has been done. I hope that maybe we would be thinking about as Dr Pita Sharples has raised in a number of speeches the notion of taking those people back to face those who have suffered at the hands of various crimes and in this case tagging. 
What would it be like if we developed the notion of taking those people who have been caught back to face those people who have unfortunately had property defaced and letting them work with those families and with those individuals on their property—to fix it up to tidy it up and to make it better? Would that not be a more positive way of dealing with this sort of issue? 
The second issue that I raised a little bit earlier was this notion that is caught up in Part 6 “Powers of police”. This is one of the real concerns that we in the Maori Party have. There are two clauses in this part namely clause 15 “Police or authorised person may require certain information” and clause 16 in respect of the notion of arrest. Clause 16 states: “Any police officer and all persons whom he or she calls to his or her assistance may arrest and take into custody without a warrant any person whom he or she has good cause to suspect of having committed an offence …”. 
With those words the definitions are so far and wide that one could take on many people walking down the street. I suspect that in the case of Manukau City many of those suspects may well be brown. That is the concern. It is not to say that they all are; it is simply to say that there is an element of history here that many of those people may be suspected and may well be brown. That is where the concern is. We need to look at that issue about the arrest and in particular about authorising police simply to pick up people grab their names and addresses and any other details. That for us is a real concern. 
The last thing I will say is that as I understand it the Attorney-General’s report did not give much attention to this bill at all and said that it needed to be written. If it is talking about reflecting as Mr Cosgrove talked about earlier one would hope that perhaps the Labour Government and indeed Mr Hawkins would reflect on the Attorney-General’s report. If it is good enough for him to say that it is not up there then maybe we need to reflect on it but nevertheless come up with some scenarios that may in fact address the problem across the board. Kia ora tatou. 
Hon SHANE JONES (Minister for Building and Construction) 
: 
 Kia ora ano tatou. 
Nathan Guy 
: No! 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: Ah the man from Horowhenua has returned. “Horowhenua” means to gallop very quickly over the land. He will need to do that if he is to have any prospect of dislodging te matenga whero my colleague Darren Hughes who is 30 years old and a very very adroit man in a range of fields. 
I need to respond to Dr Sharples and say that Dr Sharples made a point or three that deserved support. He pointed out that we must not cast aside the youth and I agree with Dr Sharples about that point. He also pointed out that those who are tagging are showing the habits of a kuri or in my own dialect in the far north a kirehe—a dog that wanders around having a mimi on every lamppost tree or vacant spot. In that sense he is on the button but he must accept that underlying this tagging activity is the force of the gang. 
Gangs use tagging not only to recruit but also to intimidate and not only to intimidate but also to frighten families so that they get to a point where they have less control over the rangatahi—their young children—than the gangs which use tagging as either a badge of honour or a form of staking out territory. Gangs need territories and just as we use 1080 to bomb possums I look forward to the day when we can use 1080 in South Auckland and in my own Ngapuhi rohe to ban and get rid of gangs. 
It is not right to say as Dr Sharples has intimated that gangs are not involved in tagging. Mr Hawkins Judith Collins and a variety of others—and indeed my huanga here from Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa the proud representative of our Pasifika people in South Auckland—know through their efforts that behind all the misguided activities of the rangatahi lies a more potent force. The force that stands to gain as a consequence of this delinquency and criminality is not necessarily the young people but the gangs because they need fresh members. They know that as long as we in the community or the elected representatives show any softness or any indulgence or do not put down the aukati the line in the sand then they will treat us as a soft touch. 
That is why despite the fact that Dr Sharples says we must allow the young people to redeem themselves and I thoroughly support that we should have absolutely no fear in saying to the gangs that they have no place—and in fact they do not even belong—in civil society. What gangs represent is threatening and frightening mothers and fathers to the point that they cannot even counsel or offer an opportunity to their own young people without those opportunities being corrupted and distorted through gangs. That is why we must never normalise them and we must make a stand against tagging and support the initiatives that Mr Hawkins along with other Manukau MPs has struggled to bring to the attention of this House. 
To be staunch against gangs is not to turn or whakaparahako our backs on young people but it is to show young people that if they associate with gang culture then they are going to only one place—in the hinaki likely to end up at Ngawha. Kia ora tatou katoa. 
MARK BLUMSKY (National) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. It is just a debate between these guys now to be perfectly honest. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Yes it is. But we will allow Dr Pita Sharples to have a say. 
Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 I would like to correct some of the things that Mr Jones said. This House is full of people who are sick of gangs; I can accept that. They are sick of the drug problem youth gang fighting and much of the stuff that is going on in communities. But let us be real about defining what tagging is. Taggers are not gangs—members should understand that. 
Hon Shane Jones 
: Oh oh! 
Dr PITA SHARPLES 
: I tell Mr Jones that he can groan all he likes— 
Mark Blumsky 
: So if they spray “Mongrel Mob” they don’t mean that? 
Dr PITA SHARPLES 
: No just a minute—the Mongrel Mob are not the taggers mate. Let us get this straight. There are strings of young people who form little groups—two from that community two from that one—and they have a club. They go to mark a church in Te Atatu a hall in another place and so on. 
Pita Paraone 
: They’re prospects. 
Dr PITA SHARPLES 
: I work with these people; they are not. They are totally a tagging group. 
Pita Paraone 
: Then control them. 
Dr PITA SHARPLES 
: If the member is going to stay fixed like that about gangs then we are not going to solve the gang problem in itself—if he is going to tie everything into one. Someone wants to tie the drug problem to gangs and another wants to tie tagging to them. 
Gangs are gangs and we can disagree or agree in part on how to deal with them but the tagging thing is a youth thing a very young thing and we should accept that. That has been my work; working with these people catching them and putting up groups mostly in west and central Auckland to clean up the tagging and stuff like this. I know these taggers so when members say I am indulging gangs I point out that I know of them— 
Pita Paraone 
: Stop them then. 
Dr PITA SHARPLES 
: Well that is what we are doing. 
Ron Mark 
: You’re not; they’re tagging everything. 
Dr PITA SHARPLES 
: You know this is the kind of talk that I would expect from Ron Mark. 
I simply say that if this society is going to keep creating communities that lack resources that lack industry that lack after-school activities for young people and that lack proper programmes of education for parents on after-school activities and on their responsibilities for their children then we can expect trouble from the youth. So I am saying now that it is time to stop the punishment mode that we seem to have been in all year and it is time to look at ways of investing in communities and building a strong spirit so that those communities take care of the problem themselves. Kia ora koutou. 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 I rise to take a call in respect of this bill because I think it is only fair for people who are listening in to know exactly what is going on here. We have heard some weaselly words coming from the other side of the Chamber endorsing the sterling work of the member of Parliament for Manurewa George Hawkins. And so members should endorse his work. He has taken a local initiative that came out of Manurewa and has brought it to this House in the form of this Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill. 
What really annoys the Government is the fact that it never wanted to back the bill—it never wanted to back it at all. Government members spoke against it and did everything they could to not back it. But what happened? The bill gained some traction so we have a situation tonight where a vast majority of people in this Parliament are supporting this legislation and Mr Hawkins wants it to go through but it will not go through tonight. If it does not complete the process tonight as it had the opportunity to do earlier it will not go through before the report back of the Government’s own graffiti bill which was raised only to try to counter Mr Hawkins’ bill. The Government wants to put its own stamp on the issue. 
So those members are perpetuating this debate—knowing that it is clear-cut knowing where it is going and knowing that it could have been done and dusted tonight—in order to prevent the bill passing through purely so that this Government can shaft Mr Hawkins and create its own piece of legislation to overshadow his. As sure as eggs what will happen is that when that report-back date—which at the moment is at the end of April but with the leave of the Business Committee will be allowed to go through to the Monday before we come back after the next adjournment which is 2 days before the next members’— 
Ron Mark 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. As the chairman of the Law and Order Committee I have to advise that matters before the committee and that are discussed in committee are in committee. They are not for debate in this Chamber and they are not for wider publication. The member needs to be strenuously cautioned as to the boundaries that he is permitted to operate within and the consequences of going outside those boundaries. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Thank you for raising that Mr Mark. If any of the work in the select committee were open to the public then it could be commented on. I ask the member to be aware of that please. 
CHESTER BORROWS 
: Thank you for the note of caution. In any event it is public knowledge that the report-back day for the Government’s graffiti bill is prior to the next members’ day which is the next day this legislation can be debated. This is the Government’s way of shafting its own honourable member George Hawkins who did not take a fall who did not take a bullet and who is standing again in the next election much to the Government’s chagrin. 
The interesting thing is that the huge endorsement for instance that was given by the member for Waimakariri the Hon Clayton Cosgrove about the movement of a local member to promote a local bill on behalf of his community is exactly what this debate is preventing in respect of the debate around the Wanganui District Council (Prohibition of Gang Insignia) Bill. This bill will also enjoy the support of the House but the Government does not want to pledge that support tonight within the full hearing of the House. 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I take on board the comments of the member Chester Borrows and I respect that member’s view. I am looking at the clock now and I see that he has just used 5 minutes of the time when we could have been voting on the bill. We have another 15 minutes to go. We could still vote and we could progress the bill but I cannot agree to that. I say to Mr Borrows that I am sorry but I am not rising in order to eat up time; I am rising to comment on and debate the bill because this is the House of Representatives. This is a democratic Committee of the whole House. Actually this is one of the rare occasions I say to Chester Borrows when we have been able to engage in debate and it has not been controlled by the member’s party in collusion with the Labour Party. If the member wants to broach questions about limiting the debate then I would draw his attention to his party’s refusal to let New Zealand First participate fully in the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee. 
Simon Power 
: Get over it Ron. 
RON MARK 
: “Get over it” the member says. Well I would tell him not to come preaching his piety about debate being unnecessary when his own party stifles debate. 
I want to comment on Te Ururoa Flavell’s comments. I would say to Mr Flavell that I do not disagree with most of what he said in his korero but I have to say that when the member gets to the illustrious heights of being in Government and carrying a ministerial portfolio he will be faced with challenges as to how to spend the money he will be given. He tells me that we should be putting more money into more projects and Dr Pita Sharples says that we need to be addressing the after-school hours activities. 
Dr Pita Sharples does not read a lot of real Pakeha history or the history of this place; he reads the history that is convenient to his argument and his long-term objectives. But if he did read that history then he would know that New Zealand First when it was in coalition Government with National instigated the latchkey policies. We poured tens no hundreds of thousands of dollars—wrong; we poured millions of dollars—into latchkey programmes. What were they designed to do? To create activities for young people after school to catch them in the period between 3 o’clock and 6 o’clock while their parents were still at work. Why did we do that? We did it to address the very issues of which Dr Sharples speaks. 
What Dr Sharples is preaching here is not new. It is being done now it has been done for a decade and we are continuing to do more. My question to the member would be how much more money does he think this country can continue to pour into social programmes that are still not generating the results that he says they will magically bring? There is only a finite amount of money and somewhere there has to be a carrot and a stick. Dr Sharples’ policies are all about carrot carrot and more carrot and if that is not enough he would give young people more carrots and cheesecake as well. 
Dr Pita Sharples 
: Building communities. 
RON MARK 
: Building communities is what we have been doing. When we were in coalition Government with National—with Wyatt Creech who was a great Minister of Education—we forced through those policies. With Labour we have taken other initiatives and we have supported initiatives from the Green Party—from Sue Kedgley—and from other parties that speak the same sort of language as Dr Sharples. 
The trouble is that Dr Sharples needs to get off his high horse and stop thinking that he is the saviour and the great messiah. Other people have come to this House and are doing that work and the member should recognise it. He should recognise it and applaud it. But he should also recognise that we cannot do everything that he is asking for forever so we must do both things. 
I give my pledge to Dr Sharples that New Zealand First will continue to support social programmes designed to bring equality to families and young children. We will do that through having free health care for children and if we can get that up to 12-year-olds then we will. If that releases more money to low-income families for them to be able to educate their children better then we will do that too. We will strive for more equality—[ 
Interruption 
] He does not want to listen now. This is typical academic arrogance at its best. The member turns his head—it is on the TV cameras now. He turns his head to one side and turns a deaf ear just like a 12-year-old child with a graffiti pen in his or her hand. “I don’t want to hear. Whatever! Talk to the hand.” says Dr Sharples. That is what he preaches. That is what he is teaching and that is why this bill must go through. 
But I pledge to Dr Sharples that despite all his protestations other parties—National Labour and New Zealand First—have been doing that work for decades and will continue to do it for decades. We will not run around lambasting people and preaching that we are the great brown saviours of this nation and that we have the only solutions to problems. 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Motion agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Papers 182 and 183 in the name of the Hon George Hawkins to Parts 1 to 6 schedules 1 and 2 to omit clause 2 and to insert new clause 1A be agreed to. 
Amendments agreed to and new clause 1A agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Parts 1 to 6 schedules 1 and 2 and clause 1 as amended be agreed to.  
Ayes 109 
New Zealand Labour 49; New Zealand National 48; New Zealand First 7; United Future 2; Progressive 1; Independents: Copeland Field. 
Noes 12 
Green Party 6; Maori Party 4; ACT New Zealand 2. 
Parts 1 to 6 schedules 1 and 2 and clause 1 as amended agreed to.