NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Politics

Paul Little: Jail time buoys taggers' rebellion

By Paul Little
Herald on Sunday·
25 Oct, 2014 04:00 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Tagging may be an artform; it's also a crime.

Tagging may be an artform; it's also a crime.

Opinion by Paul LittleLearn more

Tagging, it's easy to forget, is a form of theft. Anyone who tags someone else's property without their permission, whether with a magnificent mural or a crude signature, is as good as removing from their bank account the money that will be required to repair the damage.

The more self-confident taggers will proclaim their work to be art - which it certainly is - and tell you that the property owners they favour with their creations are lucky to have it, which is less certain. If so, they should be able to inform the owners in advance of their plans to receive face-to-face their grateful thanks and a box of Roses for their trouble.

Tagging as an art form is so popular that many people pay to have their properties so decorated. We once commissioned a tag on our home that a zealous council functionary painted over in a fit of anti-tagging enthusiasm.

We had quite the laugh over the phone to council about that one.

So it's surprising it has taken this long for the prospect of jailing Ross Goode, a persistently reoffending tagger with more than 800 tags to his name, to come up. That said, a jail sentence for this crime is foolish because it won't change anything and will merely reinforce a rebellious mindset.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Tagging will only stop when it ceases to be cool. The overreaction of a jail sentence will not achieve that result.

The nation has been spellbound for nigh on three weeks now over a cliffhanger with all the suspense of a bus arriving on time - who will be the new leader of the Labour party?

But if you are a Labour voter, why do you care? In this, the second Golden Age of Television, when there are so many more first-rate entertainment options available, why do you bother taking this contest seriously?

Read a book. Go for a walk.

Obviously professional stirrers, such as Bob Jones, and amateur ones such as Tau Henare, who is forever bothering Facebook and Twitter over the question, do so for their own amusement. But unless you are a Labour voter, you have no stake in the outcome.

Discover more

Opinion

Paul Little: Flag debate shields dirty House

27 Sep 07:06 PM
Opinion

Paul Little: When dogs go bad, put them down

11 Oct 04:00 PM
Opinion

Paul Little: Lettuce pray for safe fresh veges

18 Oct 04:00 PM
Opinion

Paul Little: It's bullying by another name

01 Nov 09:29 PM

And if you're a Labour opponent, then it's in your interests to have the worst possible candidate secure the job and doom his party to another three years of pretending nothing is wrong as they dawdle along the road to oblivion.

But then, people are forever failing to behave in ways I predict. When reports surfaced of the couple who had conceived a child to harvest stem cells to cure an otherwise fatal disease suffered by another of their children, I was awestruck that such a miracle of science is possible. With all that's going wrong and seemingly intractable in the world, it's a welcome reminder that the human ability to create and innovate and make the impossible possible is still at work.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

I expected to be deafened by squeals from 21st-century Luddites proclaiming this was Frankenstein science. But they were hard to find.

"Critics say the process is a slippery slope towards treating children as commodities," muttered one curmudgeon half-heartedly. As if they aren't already - treated like dolls and pets, targeted by advertisers as young as possible, flung around social media like wriggling pink badges of honour.

Is saving a life a good reason to bring a child into the world? I would have thought so. It's certainly better than many other motives: revenge, the need to fill an emotional void, an attempt to keep a marriage together, bucket lists. This has not created one unnecessary life - it has secured two important and, I am sure, equally valued ones.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Politics

Premium
Politics

Revealed: The four people charged with reviewing every Treaty clause

10 Jul 05:31 AM
Premium
Politics

'Miscommunication': DoC backtracks over call that could have cost 700 jobs at Otago mine

10 Jul 05:01 AM
New Zealand|politics

David Seymour responds to migration statistics

From early mornings to easy living

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Politics

Premium
Revealed: The four people charged with reviewing every Treaty clause

Revealed: The four people charged with reviewing every Treaty clause

10 Jul 05:31 AM

Four-person panel, led by an ex-Waitangi Tribunal member, will review every Treaty clause.

Premium
'Miscommunication': DoC backtracks over call that could have cost 700 jobs at Otago mine

'Miscommunication': DoC backtracks over call that could have cost 700 jobs at Otago mine

10 Jul 05:01 AM
David Seymour responds to migration statistics

David Seymour responds to migration statistics

NZ First surges past Act in new political poll

NZ First surges past Act in new political poll

10 Jul 01:58 AM
Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP