Walker Holly: Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill — First Reading 
Walker Holly: Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill — First Reading 
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HOLLY WALKER (Green) 
: 
 Mr Deputy Speaker may I take this opportunity first of all to congratulate you and your fellow presiding officers as this is the first time I have risen to speak on a bill in this House. I look forward to you holding us all to the very high standards expected of us by the New Zealand public.  
It is a great pleasure to take my first call on a piece of legislation for the Hutt Valley since that is my home where I grew up and where I stood as candidate in the recent election. I have had very productive conversations already with the Hon Trevor Mallard who is sponsoring this bill the Hutt City Council (Graffiti Removal) Bill and with the Mayor of Lower Hutt Ray Wallace and I am confident that we can work constructively together to advance this legislation. The Greens broadly support this bill and will be supporting it to select committee. However that support is not guaranteed past that stage as there are a number of issues we would like to see teased out at the Local Government and Environment Committee and a number of those have been referred to already.  
We do acknowledge that graffiti is problematic and particularly tagging is problematic and in parts of Lower Hutt and particularly in abandoned buildings that is a real problem. We have heard that it is especially a problem on empty and abandoned buildings where the owners do not have the willingness or the inclination to do anything about cleaning it up. It is detrimental to residents’ perception of social cohesion in their neighbourhoods. It feeds concerns about safety and discourages community engagement and as we have heard a number of residents have identified it as an issue that they feel is of concern. We know that swift removal of graffiti is the best way to discourage further for example competitive tagging where a building has been tagged and other taggers come to add their tags as well.  
However when the House last considered local legislation to tackle graffiti which was the very problematic Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill we the Green Party found ourselves unable to support that legislation. It was very Draconian. It had a much wider reach than this particular bill and provisions that we felt really scapegoated young people and were quite unacceptable. So I am pleased that this bill is not modelled on that more extensive bill.  
 There were some provisions in that bill—in fact I had a look at the  
Hansard 
 and my former colleague Nandor Tanczos spoke in favour of those parts of that bill—that do what this bill does which is allow council officers or council contractors on to private property for the purposes of cleaning up graffiti when the owners are unwilling or unable to do so themselves. Those are the types of provisions that the Green Party is happy to support in legislation dealing with graffiti removal. However as I have mentioned we do have problems with wider more Draconian legislation and I am very pleased that that is not the case with this legislation.  
We do have as has been alluded to already a number of concerns that we hope will be addressed at the select committee stage and our support is conditional on those being addressed. One we have heard is about the definition of “graffiti” which is something I raised with Trevor Mallard and with the mayor earlier when the legislation was tabled. I do think it is important that it be defined. For example the Manukau legislation I referred to earlier defines “marking graffiti” as “defacing property in any way” whereas a dictionary definition of “graffiti” is “writings or drawings scribbled scratched or sprayed illicitly on a wall or other surface in a public place”. There is quite a big difference between those two definitions and I think it is important to be clear so that types of expression are not captured that are not intended to be. I think it is good lawmaking to ensure that the terms that are crucial to the legislation are clearly defined and I think it is very important that that is teased out at the select committee.  
For example we want to make sure that legitimate forms of political and artistic expression—like the mural referred to earlier or for a property owner perhaps to display something on their fence that may make a political point or draw on graffiti art techniques—are not considered graffiti for the purposes of this bill and removed by the council. I would also like to echo the concerns raised by the previous speaker about the protection from civil liability for council staff when they enter property to clean graffiti off. For example if they were to accidentally drive their truck into the fence of the property owner they would not be liable for the damages caused. I think that is unacceptable so I would like to see that explored further.  
Finally I just want to acknowledge that there are forms of graffiti art that are legitimate forms of expression and it is very important that in the discussion of this legislation we do not forget that. Thank you.