Ratbag game of tags

Public transport routes appeal to the tagger's desire for maximum exposure. Picture / Greg Bowker

A friend suggests, blood boiling, "Do a story on graffiti."

"Why? Doesn't bother me, I never notice it." So, friend suggests, practically shouting, take her train route and then see if you notice.

The 2.34pm from Britomart to Waitakere is an eye-opener. Just leaving Britomart: four bits on the right, then all along the wall. It looks like a foreign script. Posts, poles, a little shed, are all covered.

Some of it is colourful and artistic, but mostly it's scribble. New apartments being built on the left - scribble. A tunnel - lots of scribble. A cream fence - scribble. Just outside Newmarket Station an old spray can lies, rusty and abandoned. The station itself looks as though every centimetre has been painted over but still the original black scrawl bleeds through.

In fact, almost every bit of wall or fence along this rail corridor has been scribbled on, or has scribble which has been painted over. But it's not restricted to the rail corridors. People's homes are under nightly attack, as are fences and even vehicles.

The train trip is representative of the graffiti problem in greater Auckland - councils, which means ratepayers, spend more than $5 million a year to keep on top of it. People have had a gutsful. The council in Manukau has gone so far as to call for law changes which would make it an offence to graffiti in the city.

To the people who hate what the scribblers do, this is vandalism and an eyesore which enrages. Say graffiti to them and their blood pressure rises.

One man said a suggested solution of banning the sale of spray cans to likely taggers might be a good idea - but what he'd really like to do is chop their hands off. He was only half joking. His house has been scribbled on, no wonder he's mad.

On the trip back to Britomart, still mulling over whether the graffiti enhances or spoils the urban landscape, there are flashes of annoyance.

Tree trunks have been scribbled on and even the black tarpaulins protecting growing shrubs, planted presumably to beautify the route, have been attacked. And, the last straw, Carlaw Park is covered in scribble. Though the site is derelict now and will be redeveloped, this is the spiritual home of rugby league and once roared with crowds and excitement.

It seems a defilement - but to the taggers who come here, the park has become their own spiritual home.

Tagging emerged out of hip-hop culture. New Zealand has a website for youth workers trying to understand where this culture fits in to society. The Next explains that hip-hop, which originated in New York's Bronx area in the 1970s, is the voice of marginalised youth around the world. There are four main elements - MCing and rap, break-dancing, DJing, and graff - or, aerosol art.

The Next project manager Gino Maresca points out there is a clear distinction between tagging vandalism and the graffiti art movement which has been around for 30 years. Graffiti art is skilful but gets lumped together with the tagging, which so infuriates people.

Like anything, there are going to be young people who are "just ratbags," Maresca says.

But it's a hard one, "because what role do young people play in society? What role do they have in terms of shaping the environment they live in?" he asks. "Overseas, you see environments where graffiti's been embraced - not tagging - and it's become part of the urban landscape and it's just accepted as being part of that landscape because it represents the people who live in the community."

If art and skill motivate the graffiti artist, fame and notoriety motivate the taggers, mainly 13 to 20-year-olds who come out at night armed with spray cans to daub their signatures, known as tags. The idea is to be famous among peers or gangs - to get a tag on a bridge or along a transport route raises status because it will be seen by more people. And they don't care who they offend.

These young people, often male but sometimes female, live in a different world and speak a different language. A skinny youth wearing a black beanie and slouching in clothes which seem way too big for him approaches at Britomart trying to cadge a cigarette. He looks about the right age group. I ask "are you a tagger?" and he asks "are you a cop?"

He says nah, he doesn't tag, but knows people who do. Whether he does or not, he knows why his peers tag: "To keep your name 'phat'," he says, pronouncing the word "fat". Translation: to keep your name famous.

"I'm keeping phat around my boys," he explains. He says if you are a tagger "basically, you're broke".

Taggers come out at night and during the day they "earns", meaning they might have a job or they might steal but either way they are earning money.

Conversations on a New Zealand hip-hop website between taggers are a revelation. "The reason I do graffiti is because society hates it," says one. He in turn hates society. "... NOTHING BRINGS A SMILE TO MY FACE LIKE SEEING GRANNY WAKE UP IN THE MORNING TO SEE HER FENCE HAS BEEN DONE TOP TO BOTTOM END TO END IN SUPERCHEAP BLACK ARHHHHHH AHAHAHAHAHAHAH," he writes.

Another defaced a car: "I've done tags on a late model silver Mercedes Benz towards last year, done a huge black tag with a fat cap across the whole side, I thought it was a nice touch how parts of my tag went up the window and the end bit went across the wheels and boy I had a grin on my face from ear to ear all night long!!!..."

Nola Bennett, 76, of Epsom, is not laughing. The elderly woman knows the emotional cost of being tagged by youths who do not give a damn. She says her house, next to a walkway, has been hit five times and she is "brassed off with these rotten little cowards".

"It makes you feel frightened, it makes you feel alone, you come out in the morning and there it is on your house, it's horrible."

Police say taggers are not targeting the elderly; their homes or fences are probably just good canvases. The concern is that like any petty crime, tagging can be a doorway to more serious offences. It often goes hand in hand with bad behaviour - groups of youths get drunk, cause damage, break into cars and intimidate people.

Says New Lynn police officer Warren Strand: "It's a wide problem and it's a visible sign of a bit of a breakdown in society in terms of parental control and the traditional values of respect for other people's property."

Sometimes taggers so enrage they inspire vigilante action. A taxi driver told Weekend Review he caught a tagger red-handed on a Saturday night spraying a wall in Newmarket and found five spray cans in the boy's bag. By the time he had finished with the youth, there was no spray left: "I emptied them down [his pants] front and back."

Most greater Auckland councils have adopted attitudes of Zero Tolerance. The main attack is sending trucks out day in, day out, to paint over the latest tags. It is costly and frustrating, especially as most of the worst tagging is carried out by a small number of youths. Because tagging is a claim to fame, the principle is to get rid of it quickly so the so-called fame is minimal.

Somewhere in Waitakere is a group called the Tag Out Trust. They don't want the location identified because they would get tagged. At a table sits Iris Donoghue, 64, who was awarded the MNZM in the New Year's Honours List for services to the environment, and Carl Bryant, 37, who has taken over from Donoghue in running the day to day activities of the trust.

Six trucks work the streets, painting walls, fences and public toilets. While the waste makes him angry, Bryant concedes there is a sadness to the youths who tag. They are usually from single parent families and have often been expelled from school. They are unemployable because they have criminal records already, for shoplifting or theft. The worst go out religiously on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Others will tag occasionally and some are school students who use felt tip pens.

Others are into etching, leaving their tags inscribed on shop windows or bus shelters.

Tagging with spray paint can also become an addiction, says Bryant. "Once they get it into the system it's very hard for them to stop, you know, the smell of the paint, the rush of doing something illegal and possibly getting caught, or even being seen and being chased, it's all an adrenalin rush."

Parents know if their child is up to no good with a spray can, or should know. They should intervene, he says. "You only have to walk into their room and you'll soon see they're taggers, it will be all over their books, their bags, the walls, the posters, everything."

Donoghue - who got into the anti-tagging business because of her hatred of it - says often the trust and the police know who the taggers are. Tags are photographed and entered into a database and can help lead to convictions. One kid with a spray can can do a "hell of a lot of damage in one night," says Bryant.

Auckland City Council's chief graffiti buster is a former policeman. Rob Shields has no doubt tagging is a stepping stone to more serious crime - "Every bad crook's gotta start somewhere."

Taggers also travel, from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, city to city. The answer lies in eradicating the results immediately, in educating young people - some cities have school age graffiti busters - and the public getting in behind zero tolerance. His message: "Don't stand for it, get involved, we'll supply you with paint free of charge."

Eight out of 10 taggers are not such bad kids, he says. What they need is discipline and role models. Put them in the Army. "They'd have something to be proud of, they'd have some self-esteem, self-respect, they could even learn some skills or a trade and they would really benefit.

"If they haven't got any self-respect or self-esteem for themselves they sure as hell aren't going to have it for anyone else."

Manukau City Council's anti-tagging bill would make carrying a spray can or a marker pen with the intention of writing graffiti an offence and would restrict the sale of spray cans. The bill has passed its first reading in Parliament. Public written submissions closed yesterday and it will now head to the Local Government and Environment Select Committee for oral submissions.

While some argue the bill will penalise certain groups of young people [the Greens and the Maori Party voted against it], the relaxed vicar of Clendon, the Reverend Mark Beale, does not agree.

Beale is also chairman of the Manukau Beautification Trust, which paints out the city's tagging. In sandals, shorts and a white shirt with small gold crosses on each collar, he surveys stacks of empty paint pots at the depot and talks about why the bill is important.

All law cuts across freedoms, he says, but the freedom of the person who tags must be balanced with the person whose freedom has been trampled on - like the old folk who ring up in tears after their house or fence has been tagged yet again. The freedom of the majority in Manukau is being trampled on by the few who tag.

The trust gets $800,000 a year and removes 30,000 tags a month, employing around 30 staff, and also has volunteers who help: "This is not a small enterprise."

Beale rattles through the sums. One square metre of tagging costs $25 to clean up. A person with a $3 can of spray paint can cause $10,000 damage in one night. What he would like is for people to grasp the sheer immensity of the damage.

Penalties - consequences for actions - are all important, he says. Beale travelled to Phoenix in America and found a city which has reduced a $5 million bill a year to around $150,000. In Phoenix taggers can have their driver's licence removed for two years. It is a deterrent because taggers have wheels - otherwise, asks Beale, how does a tag which starts in Queen St in central Auckland end up in Manurewa the same night?

Any suburb, poor or posh, is at the mercy of taggers. At Herne Bay, in central Auckland, there is no let-up for Ardmore Dairy owner Abraham Ismail. The first thing he does in the morning is check for new tagging: "It's depressing."

Along Jervois Rd, the Community Constable's sign has been tagged. Along another street a primary school caretaker is painting out a large tag which stretches almost across the bottom of the building. Not far away a parked truck has been tagged side and back.

The owner of another truck says his has been tagged several times. Damn right, it's annoying, he says. He has sat on his roof with a camera at night hoping to catch the tagger at it but so far has had no luck.

Yet another resident spoke of 90 - he counted them - cars being tagged in one street in one night.

The rage of people all around the region has become understandable. Once you begin to notice tagging, you see it everywhere. It's at the bus stop, the ferry terminal, on the steps into work. It's on a neighbour's fence and all over a road sign. It becomes infuriating. It is annoying enough to, almost, want to chop hands off. Or at least ban the sale of spray cans.

To report damage and graffiti at train stations: 0800 467 536

To report a tagger in action: (09) 374 3873.

To report graffiti in Waitakere: (09) 839 8400; Auckland City (09) 379 2020; Manukau (09) 262 5104; North Shore (09) 486 8600.
Or call your local police station.