MOVE ALONG, NOTHING TO SEE — EXCEPT THE HOMELESSNESS
Moving people on may make town centres look tidier. It does not necessarily mean fewer people have nowhere to go.
New Zealand is debating a new police power to move people out of public places at the same moment the emergency-housing system is being measured on getting its numbers down. That is the uncomfortable machinery behind this week’s spike in coverage[1][2].
The substantive trigger is the Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill, introduced by Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith on 14 May and now before select committee after submissions closed on 2 July.[3] The bill would amend the Summary Offences Act 1981 to let police issue written orders requiring a person aged 14 or over to leave a specified public place and stay away, or keep a specified distance away, for up to 24 hours.[4]
The Government says the purpose is to manage “low-level disorderly behaviour”, prevent escalation, and support urban centres and economies.[5] Goldsmith has said the policy is not designed to “criminalise homelessness” but to give police a “non-criminal” tool to respond before conduct becomes more serious.[6] Police Minister Mark Mitchell has also argued officers will use judgement, including to identify people who need support services, and will work with social and housing providers.[7]
But the bill’s text is more revealing than the reassurance wrapped around it. A constable may issue an order where they have reasonable grounds to suspect a person is, or has been, engaged in specified conduct, including disorderly, intimidating or threatening behaviour; disruptive behaviour; unreasonable obstruction of entry to a business; breach of the peace; begging; or rough sleeping, including erecting personal possessions or makeshift shelters with an intention to inhabit a public place.[4] The word “homeless” may not appear. Rough sleeping does. Begging does. This is not a dog whistle; it is written in the bill.
Failure to comply is where the “non-criminal” comfort starts to wobble. The order itself is not a charge, but a person who knowingly or recklessly refuses or fails to comply without reasonable excuse commits an offence punishable by up to three months’ imprisonment or a $2000 fine.[4] A lesser identity-related offence carries a fine of up to $500.[4] In plain English: being told to leave is not a conviction, but staying put can become one.
The support test is the part Parliament should not be allowed to skate past. The bill requires a written order and details such as name, date of birth, location, expiry time, distance and the penalty for breach.[4] It does not require police to check whether the person has somewhere safe to go. It does not require an accommodation offer, a social-worker referral, transport, storage for belongings, contact with Māori providers, mental-health or addiction support, or follow-up. It does not prohibit an order where no alternative accommodation exists. The policy relies on police discretion and relationships with providers, not a legal duty to help.
That matters because the same week brought a separate but closely connected story: emergency housing targets. 1News reported MSD’s latest figures showed 471 households in emergency housing in May 2026, down sharply from the end of 2024, and that MSD performance measures included emergency-housing numbers as part of a suite of targets.[8] The weekly scan also recorded that TVNZ’s Q+A had reported on 28 June that MSD managers or staff were graded across measures including the number of people in their region receiving emergency-housing grants, prompting perverse-incentive concerns from Auckland City Missioner Helen Robinson and Christchurch Methodist Mission’s Jill Hawkey.[9]
MSD chief executive Debbie Power defended the targets as implementation of Government policy, saying the Government had set a target to reduce the number of people in emergency housing.[8] Graham Allpress, MSD’s head of operational finance, said the metric did not alone trigger performance management.[8]Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka said staff performance settings were ultimately for MSD’s chief executive.[8] That may be administratively tidy, but it does not answer the human question: if the system is rewarded for fewer emergency-housing grants, and police are empowered to move rough sleepers on, where exactly are people meant to go?
The background is not a housing market overflowing with spare beds. RNZ reported that emergency-housing rules were tightened from August 2024, with more documentation required and obligations more actively enforced.[10] The 2023 Census counted 450 people nationally as roofless or rough sleepers, up from 132 in 2018, while Auckland’s figure was 120.[11] Broader provider counts suggest a larger and more volatile problem: a Salvation Army and Community Housing Aotearoa survey reported 940 homeless people in Auckland by September 2025, before a later Auckland report put the number at 668 by January 2026 after new Housing First places came online.[12]
Auckland Council’s published position complicates the easy “law and order versus soft council” story. In 2024, the council described a homelessness compliance approach built around outreach, Māori provider partnerships and “empathy before enforcement”, saying its team had helped about 25 rough sleepers into shelter over five months.[13] There is no public evidence in the brief that Auckland Council formally requested the central-government move-on power. Business groups, however, have welcomed the proposal; the Auckland Business Chamber described it as filling a “missing piece” for safety in the city centre.[14]
Opponents say the missing piece is not enforcement but housing. Labour’s Carmel Sepuloni said “moving someone from one doorstep to the next does not fix homelessness”, while Kieran McAnulty said move-on powers do not build homes or connect people with support.[15] Te Matapihi and Community Housing Aotearoa have called for a housing-led approach, with Te Matapihi chief executive Ali Hamlin-Paenga describing the powers as ineffective and discriminatory and warning they would criminalise poverty and displace whānau into unsafe places.[16]
The equity risk is not theoretical. Māori are over-represented in homelessness, including among homeless women, according to reporting on national homelessness data.[12] Yet the bill does not require police to record housing status, ethnicity, disability, gender, age, whether a referral was offered, whether it was accepted, or what happened next. If the data is not collected and published, the public will be asked to trust that the power is not being used mainly against homeless, Māori, disabled or mentally unwell people. Trust is lovely. Oversight is better.
Civil-liberties groups have also warned that the bill lacks safeguards for access to essential places such as medical care, courts, counsel, work, worship or home, and raises Bill of Rights concerns around movement and other freedoms.[17] Overseas evidence offers little comfort. A critical analysis of UK Public Spaces Protection Orders found such tools can marginalise vulnerable people and risk criminalising poverty without solving the underlying problems.[18]
So far, the strongest evidence for the bill is political and public-order evidence: complaints about disorder, business unease, and a desire for police to intervene earlier. Those are not imaginary concerns. People should be safe in public places. Shop workers should not have to manage intimidation as an unpaid side hustle.
But safety policy still has to pass a basic test: does it reduce harm, or merely relocate it? On the text available now, the move-on bill creates a clear power to displace and a clear penalty for refusing. It does not create a clear route to shelter. Combined with emergency-housing targets and tighter access rules, that looks less like a housing strategy than civic housekeeping with uniforms — tidy streets, messier lives, and a spreadsheet somewhere showing progress.
References
Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill — New Zealand Parliament
Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill — New Zealand Legislation
Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill — purpose and explanatory material
MSD boss defends linking staff performance with cutting emergency housing — 1News
Q+A: “Perverse incentive”: MSD staff metrics include emergency housing grants — 1News
What you need to know about the new rules “tightening the gateway” into emergency housing — RNZ
Homelessness in Auckland more than doubles to 940 people in year to September — NZ Herald
Addressing homelessness calls for empathy before enforcement — OurAuckland
Government move-on orders: Police to target begging and rough sleeping — NZ Herald
“Move on” orders penalise those with the least — New Zealand Labour Party
Opposition to move-on powers, calls for housing-led action to address homelessness — Scoop
Submission: Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill — NZ Council for Civil Liberties