Bradford Sue: Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill — Third Reading 
Bradford Sue: Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill — Third Reading 
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SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 On behalf of the Green Party I will take a brief call to reiterate that we will continue our position of opposing this bill. I had the privilege of sitting on the Local Government and Environment Committee all those years ago when we heard submissions in Manukau. We heard about the despair desperation and anger of many of the people of Manukau not just of prominent citizens like Sir Barry Curtis councillors and others but also of ordinary people who were totally fed up with what was happening in their neighbourhoods every single day of the year. I and the Green Party have enormous sympathy for them. I do not buy into the argument that defacing a local shop fence or garage is in any way a form of art that should be cherished and supported but at the same time I tell the House that the Green Party was part of the vote on that select committee to turn this bill back. It is quite amazing that Parliament has reversed its decision on it. 
This is a very odd occasion on which I find myself in almost total agreement with Mr Rodney Hide from ACT. We do have legislation—we have the Crimes Act—that makes vandalism in its various forms an offence that can be dealt with under the criminal law now. We do not need a new law and in particular we do not need a new law that carves out one particular local body district of this country and says we will impose a particular criminal law on that one district. 
I understand that this legislation is a precursor for a bill that will be nationally applied but I still think it is a really unfortunate precedent to say that we should pass any kind of criminal legislation that applies to only one part of the country. It reminds me very much of apartheid in South Africa and of other forms of separate application of citizenship. I can see a situation where perhaps we would have a different kind of law to deal with crime in Northland or in the Kaitaia-Kaikohe district. Would we have a different law that would apply to Porirua or to Fendalton? Do we make different criminal laws for different parts of the country? That was certainly one of the main reasons I believe why the majority on the original select committee turned this bill back in the first place. I think that the parties that are supporting this bill tonight are setting a very dangerous precedent no matter what their opinions are about graffiti. 
In relation to graffiti itself although I do not agree with the opinion that all graffiti around Manukau or anywhere else is art—and I do not believe that Cindy Kiro believes that either—the Green Party does believe that graffiti is a symptom of much deeper problems. It is a symptom of things like social alienation and like poverty including the generations of poverty that have existed in Manukau City. It is also a symptom of many Maori and Pacific Island young people feeling very alienated from mainstream or upside culture from education from our health system and from employment even in this time of high employment. Many of those young people feel they have no stake in our society so they turn to gangs and express themselves in ways that the rest of us find understandably to be totally abhorrent. 
The solution to this issue is not to crack down with heavier laws that apply to taggers but to look for real solutions and real answers. Those answers lie partly in dealing with poverty issues housing issues and the reasons that those people feel alienated. The solutions lie partly in changing the education system so that thousands of young people do not drop out or are not pushed out of the education system into nothingness. The answers also lie in providing more opportunities for young people to express themselves through activities whether through art sport or a myriad of other activities that are more productive for them and for all of us than vandalising the neighbours’ fences and shops. 
I would encourage this Parliament to think a little more deeply about why we are debating this bill tonight and about why graffiti is such a huge issue in some parts of the country. I congratulate ACT and the Maori Party on joining with the Green Party in opposing this bill on making a stand for common sense and on not continuing to demonise young people and the young people of South Auckland in particular for something that I believe is a product—often—of their desperation and lack of a stake in our society.