The Local Government and Environment Committee has reported back [PDF] on the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill and recommended that it not proceed. The bill would have restricted the sale of spraypaint to minors (those under 18), criminalised the carrying of "graffiti implements", and required those suspected of an offence to provide the police with their name and address, as well as the name and address and whereabouts of anyone connected with it. In addition to concerns about the creation of a patchwork of local jurisdictions with different laws in each, and the creation of new offences already well-covered by existing law, the committee recognised that this violated the Bill of Rights Act's bar on discrimination, as well as the right to silence. And hopefully, that will be the end of it - though in the current Parliament, anything is a possibility. Still, the Maori Party voted against at the First Reading, and their opposition should be enough to sink it.
Meanwhile, what is it with Manukau and draconian "moral panic" bills? Is it something in the water up there, or just a particularly authoritarian mayor?
1 comments:
I've seen kids beating shit out of each other with big staves in Otahuhu. In broad daylight.
Obviously the cops wouldn't want to get involved in anything like that and need some form of displacement activity - like nicking prozzies, or a 14 year old kid with a spraycan.
Posted by Rich : 11/20/2006 07:41:00 PM
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