Robertson H V Ross: Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill — In Committee 
Robertson H V Ross: Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:646;Page:15315] 
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.