Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Today, the Government is building on its commitment to restore law and order, to fix the basics in law and order, and to build a future where all New Zealanders feel safe in our communities. The critical part of that is ensuring that our streets and our town squares feel safe for everybody who visits, works, and lives there—

💬 Tamatha Paul: Not in Wellington.

—and every New Zealander should be able to walk through their local town centre, visit a park—in Wellington, in Auckland, in Napier, or in Taupō—take their children to a public place, get to work, and run a business without being subjected to intimidation, disruption, or disorder.

Public places belong to everyone and they should be welcoming, accessible, and safe, and yet for too many New Zealanders, that has not been the case for a while. Across our cities our business communities, residents, workers, and visitors have voiced growing concerns about persistent disorder in our public places. We’ve spoken about behaviour that makes people feel unsafe, discourages families from spending time in the town centres, deters customers from local businesses, and undermines confidence in our public places. This legislation represents part of this Government’s efforts to turn that around.

The bill amends the Summary Offences Act to provide police with the power to issue move-on orders to somebody engaging in disorderly, disruptive, or threatening behaviours; interfering with business; breaching the peace; begging that interferes with the public; or rough sleeping, or to someone who is continually occupying a public place. The move-on order will require a person to leave a specified area for 24 hours. People who are begging or rough sleeping could return to the area while the order is in force for other purposes.

Let me make one point clear. It will be a criminal offence only if a person does not comply with the move-on order, and we’ll hear a lot of nonsense about this topic, but that’s the reality. Move-on orders are a practical tool for police to intervene early, restore order, and prevent situations from worsening. They’re certainly not criminalising homelessness. It’s about reclaiming our town squares, our CBDs, and our central business districts for the enjoyment of people who live there, who work there, and who visit there.

On that basis, it’s about restoring confidence to our public places, and it is part of the three years of effort we’ve had, in this Government, to restore law and order. The choice that people have in the election coming up is whether to stay strong on law and order, or go back to where Labour, the Greens, and Te Pāti Māori took us in the years before. On that basis, I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Tangi Utikere): The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I feel a weight of responsibility today because we are about to pass a bill through the House that targets our most vulnerable. Now, it’s often been said that the mark of a society is how you treat your most vulnerable, and if this is how we treat our most vulnerable—by moving them along when they’re in their hour of need and by telling them they need to be somewhere else when they’re in our public spaces—we’re not focusing our resources, as we should be today, on providing them with homes, with help, and with support, then this is a very, very shameful day for our Parliament.

We’ve heard a lot about how the bill works and we’ve been through an extensive process of analysing this at the committee of the whole House stage and also at the Justice Committee. I want to again acknowledge everyone who attended the select committee and made a submission on this bill. We had thousands of people oppose this bill. Thousands of New Zealanders came to this Parliament to asked the Government to listen. They asked it to listen to the lived experiences of people who work with homeless people, asked it to listen to their lived experience of people who are homeless or rough sleeping, and asked it to listen to the lived experience of people who work with our New Zealanders who are living in poverty, which has, unfortunately, got worse under this Government. But, instead of listening to New Zealanders, this Government has turned away, and on the most pressing issue that we heard in select committee, this Government’s silence has been deafening.

There was no change to any of the provisions in relation to rough sleeping. There was no change to recognise that many people who are rough sleeping in New Zealand or homeless are not there because of choice; they’re there because of poverty and they’re there because of terrible life circumstances. They are there because they have no choice, and instead of providing them with things that we know that work, like a warm, dry home, we are saying, “We don’t want to see you; we want you out of our sight.” That is absolutely shameful.

I want to reflect for a moment on the people who brought the lived experience of those who have been homeless on the streets of New Zealand. Now, for most people that may see homelessness, they may see it as being someone who is homeless, but for those people, they are actually experiencing something that will kill them. Homelessness kills people in New Zealand. People who are homeless pass away 30 percent sooner than the general population, and that is a huge reduction in life expectancy for people living on our streets. Living outside in the cold is so bad for you and kills you in such a slow, painful way that the experience of listening to some of those people was very harrowing, and so I want to acknowledge all of those people who tried to get the Government to remove the begging and homelessness provisions from this bill.

We acknowledge that when this bill was first introduced, it included children. The fact that that, in and of itself, was a provision in this bill should be of total shame to this Government—that this was even a proposal put forward. But the people spoke on that and, thankfully, in relation to children, that provision will no longer go forward, and I want to thank everyone who made strong submissions on that.

We know that this won’t work, and the reason we know that it won’t work towards addressing some of the issues that the Government has raised in terms of antisocial behaviour in our cities is because other countries have tried it and it hasn’t worked. In fact, just recently, the UK has got rid of its vagrancy law, which has been in place for such a long time, and decided to have a goal of ending homelessness. This Government has gone down the totally opposite track and brought in an archaic law that decades and decades of experience in other countries shows does not work.

Another reason why this particular proposal should not move forward is that we went through in detail about the powers that the police already have, and this is not about saying that there isn’t antisocial behaviour in our cities or that it isn’t important. We all want safe city centres, we all want all of our public spaces to be safe and secure, and we want to make sure that every person who utilises those areas feels safe, and that includes the people who are homeless. It was brought to my attention by community housing providers that those who are homeless are actually, statistically, more likely to have a crime committed against them than to commit a crime against other people. When we consider who we are as a society, we need to include those people who are homeless or rough sleeping as well, because they, statistically speaking, are actually more at risk.

We know that the police already have powers and we know that police officers can tell people to move on. Police officers have a lot of mana within our society and our community. Most people, if they’re told to move on by a police officer orally will do so.

Then we looked at the Summary Offences Act and we went through almost every provision in relation to the antisocial behaviour aspects of this bill, and that is already a power that exists within New Zealand law. It was almost mirrored in the Summary Offences Act, and so not only do police, obviously, have powers to ask people to move on, they also have powers within the Summary Offences Act.

And that means that there is very little policy impetus for actually bringing this bill, in terms of the antisocial behaviour aspect, which is what the Government has asked us to focus on.

I have to say, it did grate me when I heard the Prime Minister say what we need to be thinking about when we’re looking at move-on orders is Chuck and Mary getting off their cruise ship and walking down Queen Street and seeing something that they didn’t want to see. That person is part of our community that Chuck and Mary may see and not be comfortable about. That person is a New Zealander. We need to be looking after their interests and making sure that we provide a solution for them.

The frustrating thing about this is we know what the answer to that is. It’s programmes like Housing First. It’s making sure that Kāinga Ora is well-funded. It’s making sure that we fund community housing. It’s making sure that we have emergency housing that is actually being able to be practically used. It’s making sure that we have things like emergency housing special needs grants available to people.

We know what works. If the Prime Minister is concerned about that, those are the kind of things that he should be focusing on: providing that person with help so they can make sure that they’re living in a safe environment. He should not be focusing on the perceptions of others when they come to New Zealand, because if he’s just focused on moving a problem away, that is not solving it; that is just moving it on to somewhere else.

It’s been said again and again in this debate: move on to where? Move on to a suburb? Move on to a place that’s adjacent to a city centre? All of the local MPs—if this bill has the effect that the Government intends it to—will soon be hearing about some of the issues that have been raised in our city centres in their own backyards, and that is just pointless. Let’s look at the root of the issue here and support people.

We didn’t have a lot of time to talk about it in committee stage, but almost every party in Opposition put forward a proposal to amend the bill which would provide some kind of duty to assist the people when they interact with someone from the Government or a provider. We had proposals that when police interact with people who are homeless or rough sleeping or begging, that there is a reference to the Ministry of Social Development and that those Government agencies actually take responsibility for making sure that something happens to ensure that that person is safe and that they receive stable accommodation. Now, this isn’t a big ask. These services are already available, but somebody needs to take responsibility for that.

When we look at people who are struggling in our community, when we look at people who are the most vulnerable, when we look at people who our society has failed, what we say is our answer should not be “move on”. Our answer should be “How can we help you? How can we get you out of this place which has got you to such a terrible situation where you have nowhere to live, you have nowhere to go, you are asking for money on the street, you have no future being here unless you are assisted to move your life forwards.”

This is a shameful day for our Parliament. It’s a shameful way to treat our most vulnerable.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is a bill that criminalises homelessness. This is a fact. This has been a fact since the beginning.

Let the record show that this Government has made choices to increase homelessness. They changed the criteria for the most vulnerable people in Aotearoa seeking to access emergency housing and made the criteria of those making decisions to assess whether that person contributed to their own homelessness. They do not collect any reliable data on who is experiencing homelessness and where, which means that all of the front-line housing organisations have had to come together and pool together every scrap and shred that they have from the front lines to try and paint a picture of what is being experienced in Aotearoa right now. Even then, that reality is denied by the Ministers in this country.

Let the record show that this Government chose to cancel thousands of State houses. Let the record show that this Government chose to reinstate no-cause evictions—the provisions by which a renter can be kicked out of their home for no reason at all. Let us look over to the UK and see that no-fault evictions are the leading cause of homelessness in that country and that that was what was stated in the regulatory impact statement when it came to no-cause evictions and that they still did it anyway. And the UK has actually just repealed no-fault evictions because it is so disastrous.

Let the record show that they did not fund the Housing First need that existed, that front-line organisations from Auckland to Christchurch to Wellington to Dunedin said, “If you fund us, we will be able to get every single person off the streets.”, and that their requests were denied. Meanwhile, they hand out massive tax cuts for landlords. Meanwhile, they themselves accumulate more houses at a time of record homelessness. Shame—shame on them.

💬 Ryan Hamilton: You’ve already lied about that one. Are you going to apologise?

Let the record show that they sanctioned benefits of the most vulnerable people in this country—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Tangi Utikere): My apologies to interrupt the member, but interjections coming from my right should not be bringing the Speaker into the debate. Please refrain from doing so.

Let the record show how shameless they are that they can’t handle the truth, they can’t shut their mouths and listen to the consequences of their actions. Because these are the choices that they made and this is the response to the homelessness that they caused and they can’t handle it—they can’t handle it.

They are the ones who chose to use unemployment and unemployed people as a tool to manage interest rates while talented and skilled people in this country languish on the jobseeker benefit. They cannot handle the consequences of their own decisions. That is why they want to render the people that they have made vulnerable invisible.

But this will not solve the problem. This will not end homelessness because they did not even attempt to address the root factors of why there is record-level homelessness in this country. It makes them uncomfortable to see what they have created. That is what we are talking about here today.

Let the record show that Police do not have their back. Let the record show Corrections, the Ministry of Justice do not have their back; the front-line organisations, the officials, and every single ministry did not have their back on this decision. Let the record show that businesses do not support what they are doing today. Let the record show that over 50 businesses in Wellington City do not support what they are doing. Let the record show that Karangahape Road Business Association in Auckland Central do not support what they’re doing. They don’t have the support of businesses. They do not—not in our name here in Wellington Central, not in any city across this country because they are so far out of touch.

Let the record show that we put forward an Amendment Paper for a duty to assist, that we put forward a pragmatic solution which would require the Ministry of Social Development to provide assistance to every person who had been moved on—a provision that exists in other countries around the world and helps people who are experiencing homelessness access the support that they need urgently. Let the record show that they had the opportunity and they said no—they said no.

Paul Goldsmith is the only Minister I have ever heard talk proudly about this bill. He is the only one that I have seen get up in the media and talk proudly about criminalising homelessness. When I have engaged with Chris Bishop, the Minister of Housing, in my housing portfolio, he has never talked proudly about the move-on orders, and that is because, actually, I think that Cabinet Ministers in this Government are ashamed of this policy.

It’s an idea that Paul Goldsmith has been pushing for decades—for decades—but it does not reflect the communities that he lives in or that he wants to represent, which is probably why he’s never won an electorate in his life. Guess what! He won’t be back here after the election because their party numbers will not get him back in there. So this is his last cruel attempt to punch down on people he has always hated. He has always hated homeless people. He tried to do this as an Auckland City councillor. He had to wait until he got himself in here on the list—on the list. Because let’s be real, an electorate MP could never say the things that he’s saying, which is why his colleagues don’t repeat the things that he says.

Let the record show that that Minister who has brought this bill through does not even understand the system that he is in charge of. Let the record show how petty and pathetic this response is compared to what other people during his time as a councillor did. I brought this example up in the second reading of this bill. At the time when Paul Goldsmith was an Auckland City councillor pushing to ban homeless people from the inner city, there was another man in Auckland City that saw the rise in homelessness and chose to do something different. That man was Judge Tony Fitzgerald, who established the homelessness court. It shows that you’ve got two different people here. You’ve got Judge Tony, who understands the criminal justice system and understands the complexity of homelessness and what is required to fix it, and then you have cruel, mean-spirited, nasty pieces of work like Paul Goldsmith, who turns around and decides to rally up all the homeless people, send them to prison, and lock them up. It is disgusting.

This is one of the most shameful days in our country, because you can end homelessness. As I said in the second reading, it is possible to end homelessness. The evidence-based solutions to ending homelessness are abundantly clear. If only this House would not be so ignorant and would listen to the actual people who are working on the front line, and what they have told us will work, if only we just supported them, we gave them the resources necessary to open more emergency accommodation across the country, to provide the wraparound care that people need.

I want to finally acknowledge the fact that the age that applies to move-on orders has been increased because of the Police, actually, and because—

💬 Rima Nakhle: Well, no, because we were lobbying as well.

—of advice from the Police—because of advice from the Police that you heard, Rima Nakhle. We heard that advice—

💬 Rima Nakhle: You don’t know the conversations that take place behind closed doors, Tamatha.

—so I thank them for making that change.

💬 Rima Nakhle: You’re not omnipresent and know everything going on.

I wish that the Government—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Tangi Utikere): Order! Order!

Oh, cut it out.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Tangi Utikere): Members, interruptions should not bring the Speaker into the debate, and it is not an opportunity to have an extended period of sentence structure. They should be discreet interjections and to the point. Apologies, Tamatha Paul.

Could I please have my—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Tangi Utikere): We’ll reset it to one minute.

Thank you. What this is is defensiveness from the Government. They cannot control themselves from responding, from the truth. But guess what! You’re not just gonna hear it in here; you are gonna hear it over the next two months. They are gonna hear it for the next two months. When we come into Government and when we reverse this cruel, punishing law, they will hang their heads in shame and will for ever be remembered as the cruel Government that chose to put the cruel ideas of a few over the wellbeing, potential, and humanity and dignity of the most vulnerable people in this country that they will never speak to—they will never speak to. They get into their limousines, they drive through the city centres, they go through the tunnel to the Koru Lounge, and then they go back to their mansions. That’s how it works.

Have a conversation with the people that you are making decisions on behalf of. Have a conversation to the people who are on the front line, who know this better than they will ever do, because they were born with silver spoons in their mouths and they have no empathy at all.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Tangi Utikere): Yeah, the member’s time has expired.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Look, I rise on behalf of ACT to speak in support of the Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill.

Look, in ACT, we make no apology for having the backs of New Zealanders in regards to law and order issues. As I said yesterday, still the same day in parliamentary time, we came in, we inherited a mess in law and order, and this is yet another tool that we’re putting in place to deal with anti-social behaviour.

Let’s be clear: ACT secured the changes in this bill and we worked through it with our colleagues to do that. We believe it strikes the right balance. Look, we want to make sure that our streets and towns are safe for New Zealanders, and we’ll be campaigning on that just like we did last election. I commend this bill to the House.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to talk on the Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill.

New Zealand First strongly supports this piece of legislation. Putting aside some of the performance that we’ve seen so far this morning, I think we could reflect on the similar speeches that were reflected during the gang patch ban: “This will never work; this is the worst piece of legislation.” Actually, as we see in the streets, it has worked perfectly. The police who reflected concerns have been applauding the piece of legislation. Every meeting I go to with the police, they reflect on how positive that piece of legislation is.

This piece of legislation, despite this idea that we are all born with silver spoons in our mouths, I can assure you that we were not. As for riding around in our limousines, I can assure you I walk the Wellington streets every single day. This is not about punching down; this is about providing an opportunity to allow our communities to use our inner city centres. When there is an issue—and this is where we have great faith in our police, across this side of the House—the police have the powers to intervene. We’ve asked the police to do something. They have outlined the restrictions on doing anything practical, and this Government has delivered a piece of legislation that will give them the practical tools they need.

For a long time, law-abiding citizens of this country have watched our city centres, the hearts of our communities and economies, be handed over to those who think civilised society does not apply to them. So this bill takes our streets back. It gives an opportunity to put some common-sense tools in the hands of police. It ensures that constables are able to intervene. This idea that we are criminalising homelessness is just naïve, performative nonsense from the other side of the House. This is about allowing us to engage, to move people, and to intervene—provide those necessary supports that they’re saying we’re not providing. This is a really essential tool to give to the police.

This is the performance that we see on that side of the House where they make a lot of noise and recite a lot of performative nonsense because they won’t get challenged, because it’ll be put on YouTube, and then they get to say, “Look how powerful and strong we are.” What we’re actually doing is practical steps.

I’m the Minister for Seniors, and I recognise the concerns that older people have about even using a money machine in the town centre because they feel unsafe and uneasy. They talk about the issues they have about getting their access. So this is about ensuring that we can say to them that we’re doing things. This isn’t arresting people. This isn’t making people criminalised, as that side of the House would like to do. This is about providing an opportunity for them to move on. If they return, yes, then there’s an issue. Why would they return to where they’ve been told to move on unless they’re refusing to acknowledge the rights of other New Zealanders?

Absolutely, New Zealand First fully endorses this bill and commends it to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Tangi Utikere): This is a split call.

The heart is heavy today, this morning, waking up to messages from whānau on the streets who have accessed some form of device to message me direct to say, “Please save us. If this bill goes through, our lives will be 10 times worse than what it is already now.” By-laws across Tāmaki Makaurau have already been enacted. People have already been moved on for the last few months. Ask Aaron Hendry from Kick Back. He has been screaming from the rooftops of Tāmaki-makau-rau, on K Road specifically, that this bill is going to cause more damage than do anymore good.

Last night, this House had a choice: remove harmful behaviour from our streets or remove poor people from out of sight. The Government chose the second. It was offered a clean amendment: begging and rough sleeping could have been removed as stand-alone triggers, while every power dealing with threats, intimidation, disruption, obstruction, and breaches of the peace remained. Government members voted to keep poverty in the clause. That vote tells us what this bill is really about and who it’s really for.

A person may now be ordered away, not for harming anyone, but for asking for kai. In a cost of living crisis where no food banks have been replenished with the necessary funding that they need, begging for kai should not be criminalised. For sleeping, they will be criminalised for arranging the only positions they have in a way that suggests they may stay. Then comes the legal machinery: the order, the duty to leave, the risk of the breach, a fine of up to $1,000, and possible jail time. No home, no money, but here’s a fine, and dare to challenge the fine or refuse to move—go to jail. That’s the logic this House is about to make law, and that is heavy.

The Justice Committee did remove under-18s, and we supported that correction, but an 18th birthday is not a housing intervention. It doesn’t make the person safe, nor does it cure a trauma, produce a tenancy, or return whenua. In the words of a rangatahi living on the streets of Tāmaki-makau-rau through the More Than a Home report by Manaaki Rangatahi: “My moko will have a whare.” That’s the promise of intergenerational repair. This bill offers intergenerational displacement.

For Māori, homelessness didn’t arrive without history. Whenua was taken, communities were fragmented, te reo and mātauranga were attacked, and economic policy channelled Māori into insecurity and then blamed whānau for the outcomes. Dr Kathie Irwin describes that path across generations. You don’t arrive at old age without economic security by chance. Policy walked wāhine Māori there, and now, on their own whenua, wāhine Māori may be told to move. Wāhine Māori are actually disproportionately represented in today’s population of homeless across Aotearoa. The Coalition to End Women’s Homelessness names the truth.

Aotearoa is home for Māori. Wāhine Māori are not without a homeland; they are unhoused through a process of colonisation that failed to protect their rights. Te Pāti Māori will not call that failure neutral, and we will not accept another coercive Crown response as the cure. We put practical safeguards before this House: somewhere safe and accessible to go; a duty of care; protected access to healthcare, food, transport, and outreach; a necessity and proportionality test; protection against repeated orders; early independent review; and transparent Māori data, which is needed. The Government refused every single path from displacement to support—shame! Shame on you.

The Youth Homelessness Prevention Bill, which I put through this House, would require action before homelessness. It’s about preventing the problem. You cannot hide nor disguise the truth that exists across our streets. You cannot hide, and you should address the problem and face it head on. Stop hiding the truth. We have more than 100,000 people in desperate need of housing. You have more than 160,000 homes across this motu with no people living in them. Unlock them and house our whānau. House them directly now. The solutions already exist.

You had only one shot and you’ve failed to deliver it. That is the same on your record, and I thank the member to my right who noted every single attempt that we, on the left side, have made.

We will continue to fight, despite the fact that the House rises—7 November is our chance to make the necessary change to create a better future for Aotearoa and for all our mokopuna. We absolutely oppose this bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is a shameful bill, not simply because it criminalises homelessness, but the fact is that this Government has proven yet again that they in the pockets of the few. They are in the pocket of lobbyists and not of New Zealanders. They are a Government that does not care about you, as New Zealanders, and your interests.

This is a Government that doesn’t care about evidence or about data. This is a Government that see itself as being above the law. This is a Government that perpetuates schoolyard bullying behaviour in trying to oppress the people of Aotearoa, and trying to befuddle them and gaslighting them into thinking that they are the ones who are the reason for the situation and the circumstances they’ve found themselves in. That is false, and those members know it. I don’t know how any member of this Government can look at themselves in the mirror in the morning and think about what they have done. How do any of them face themselves? How do any of them face their families, or face their communities, for those of them who are electorate MPs?

The Minister of Justice has said that this is a bill that is for every New Zealander. We have heard through the Justice Committee about the people who will be harmed as a result of this bill. Where is the so-called every New Zealander who will be hurt by this bill? What about the seniors, who have seen a massive increase in homelessness? We have heard from Housing First Ōtautahi that seniors make up the highest proportion and the highest increase in the social housing register. Not only are they more vulnerable but there’s also the added stigma of asking for help.

Where is the so-called every New Zealander when women and children are going to be hurt by this bill? We’ve heard that they are in city centres, in well-lit places, because they are the places that they feel safe. They are the places where they can find support.

What about the youth who will be harmed by this bill, particularly rangatahi Māori? What about the rainbow youth who will be harmed by this bill? What about the disabled youth who will be harmed by this bill?

Now, you hear members of that Government talking about “Well, they just need to move on.” Move on where? Where are they going to be moving on to? We have yet to hear the Minister or anyone definitively tell us where are they going to be moving on to.

Our co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick, our Auckland Central MP, put in an amendment for a duty to assist. We’re not asking for the moon. All we are asking for is a requirement that if they get moved on, that there is a requirement that they be directed to the support that they need. That should be basic—that should be fundamental—and yet the Minister doesn’t give a crap.

We reiterate again that nobody wants this bill. The police don’t want it. Members of the communities, Retail New Zealand—I want to thank those people who came out, including the seniors and the elders, and said, “I have never experienced homelessness, but I know this bill is wrong.”

This Government doesn’t care about the voices of our communities because—I reiterate again—the only housing policy of this Government is prison. That is their only housing policy, and they will continue to tinker with the data and they will continue to reject people because that is their performance indicator for the Ministry of Social Development to reject people for emergency housing. The Greens will not support this bill, because we know there’s a win-win situation if we have warm, dry, and safe housing for all of us.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I want to take a little bit of time with my contribution this morning to talk about what transpired at our select committee process, because I actually think that there is a lot of emotion, and I recognise why that is the case across the House in many different forms. But I actually want to talk about why I think the select committee process—

💬 Tamatha Paul: Some of us do care, actually. But that’s hard for you to comprehend.

No, no. Tamatha Paul, I didn’t criticise or yell out once during your contribution. I listened.

💬 Tamatha Paul: Did you talk to your colleagues?

I listened—I listened. And I like to think that I’m standing here and I’m about to talk about what we did at the select committee. We had nearly 8,000 submissions. We undertook over four days of full oral hearings from submitters—recognising that there was a large amount who had issues with the legislation. We took those views seriously. We, as the Justice Committee, did what I think New Zealanders would expect of us as a committee to do: read the submissions, listened, worked collaboratively in the select committee, but then also—not just there but then also outside of that committee with our ministerial colleagues to say, “These are the issues we as a committee are hearing from the general public. Please can we look to see if we can make some recommended changes there.”

I’m really proud where we landed. One of the first things we heard was that the age that this legislation, when it was first introduced, was for anyone of 14 years or over. By far, a number of submitters from across the country told us that that was not right. So we took that back with us, as members of the committee, took that to our Ministers, we took that to our colleagues and said, “We’d love to see it increased to 18.” I’m glad we got to that right place. That’s what I think New Zealanders expect of the select committee.

Then we had things like whether the fine was too high—$2,000. There’s many, many Kiwis out there who simply would not be able to afford the $2,000. We got that changed to $1,000. Then there were the things about the provisions for freedom campers and if they got caught up in this—or people out there who collect for charities. Many of us in this House have stood out in public places and collected for organisations like the Breast Cancer Foundation, on Daffodil Day. I collected, a couple of weeks ago, for my local Dementia and Alzheimer’s. There was never any intention of this bill applying to people undertaking that work. We remedied and corrected that.

Then there were discussions around begging and unreasonable begging. The ability for people after receiving a move-on order to come back to the area. Whether police needed to actually believe someone provided false information or needed to be able to prove that they had provided false information. Those are the things that we, as a collective Justice Committee, fixed and tidied up in this legislation.

We did our job. Not just “we” as in the National Party and the ACT Party and New Zealand First but “we” as a House. I say thank you to those members who engaged and worked collaboratively on the select committee to get the bill to a place where we think we can be happy to progress it in this House. That is what we are focused on. That’s what I’m proud of as the chair of the Justice Committee that we’ve delivered for the House and for the people of New Zealand. That’s why I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Good to hear that kōrero from the chair of the Justice Committee. I accept some of that kōrero in terms of wanting to at least address some of the issue that people had brought up. There’s no doubt the select committees work better when there is a bipartisan approach.

I think, though, with this particular one, while there are a few things like that the chairman has talked about—and rightfully so, and I’m pleased they came out with the right result—the reality is that it is still not enough. It is still not enough. I acknowledge the chair addressing those areas, and I’m pleased to hear that, but it’s not enough.

You can hear the pain and the frustration from members on this side of the House today because the reality is that more than 98 percent of the 7,680 submissions opposed the bill. So we can’t get away from the fact that, while there was some work done to address a few issues, a huge majority—98 percent of the submissions—said no to this bill. They say no to this bill because it’s a cruel bill.

The Attorney-General himself—or was it herself at the time? Was it Judith? I’m not sure—identified New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 issues. It may well have been Judith Collins.

💬 Todd Stephenson: It was Chris Bishop.

Oh, it was Chris Bishop. OK. Thanks for that. So there we go, one of the most senior Ministers in this Government, if not, close to the most senior Minister, the Attorney-General identifies New Zealand Bill of Rights Act issues, and what is the response from the committee? What is the response from the Government? They continue with this nonsense.

No one wants the police to have these arrest powers for the homeless. These rough sleepers need support, need help; they don’t need prison. This is what people are saying. We’re also clear, too, and you’ve heard that today, the Government created the homelessness we’re seeing. Every single housing advocate warned this Government their re-definition of who could apply for the emergency would result in more homelessness. We said this to the Minister of Housing—he happens to be the Attorney-General too. We’ve said this to Tama Potaka. But it’s just on deaf ears all the time.

What happened after the Government ignored every voice in the sector and changed who was eligible for emergency housing? Well, we had the exact spike in homelessness that was predicted. Our advocates were saying that.

I saw Helen Robinson in the gallery last night. I want to acknowledge her work; tremendous work, in terms of what’s happening on the streets in terms of what’s happening from Helen and the City Mission, who are doing the business, having relationships still with this Government, as they must—as they must. But their budgets are being cut back. They’re living off the smell of an oily rag, and this passionate advocate Helen Robinson, who sat in the gallery last night and watched all the kōrero, continues despite the continued attacks from this Government.

How did the Government go about dealing with the homelessness their policy manufactured? Well, I’ve said it before with Minister Goldsmith, they’ve criminalised being homeless. It’s as simple as that. He won’t accept it and the Government won’t accept it, but they’ve criminalised a whole area of homelessness to gloss over—to gloss over—their social policy failure.

Like everyone else on this side of the House, we believe that this Government should be ashamed of the actions they’ve taken—so ashamed at the poverty they’ve caused, and now they prefer to arrest the homeless so that they won’t be embarrassed in front of the cruise ship tourists. This is what it’s coming down to. Of course we want to support business people in Auckland. Everyone on this side of the House wants to do that. But we must show some humanity, and humanity is not being shown in this instance. It’s shameful.

These Kiwis, these people, some of them are down on their luck—we all know that. But many of them are our whānau, our community, and we throw them into the street and then we criminalise them on to the street. Of all the malice and spite that the Government has overseen in the last three years, arresting the homeless is surely one of the most obscene strategies and actions that a Government could roll out with.

But I do want to congratulate Minister Goldsmith. I think he deserves congratulations here. We should salute what he’s done, because back in 2008, when he was an Auckland City councillor—he’s actually been trying to arrest the homeless for 18 years. In a Radio New Zealand report from 2008, Minister Goldsmith was quoted as saying, “It’s unacceptable for vagrants to be seen on the city streets” ,and he wanted the police to move them on. Well, congratulations, Minister Goldsmith—18 years later, you finally got your wish. You can finally arrest the homeless for offending your sensibilities. It’s a shame he’s not here—it’s a shame he’s not here. Minister Goldsmith is proof-positive that if you’re mean-spirited for almost two decades, you too can rise through the National Party ranks to kick someone out who is weaker than you—to kick someone in the guts who is weaker than you.

So I want to congratulate Minister Goldsmith! He and I do a few things together, and I forgot to congratulate him this morning in terms of achieving a lifelong ambition in terms of criminalising the homeless. Well done to “Goldie”! Well done to Minister Goldsmith. And to any other young aspiring National Party candidates out there, this is the way forward for you. Declare war on the vulnerable, declare war on the weak, and you too can rise up to be one of the most senior members, if not the most senior-portfolio holder, in the National Party. Well done, “Goldie”—you should be ashamed of yourself.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Not me—not me.

My apologies, Mr Speaker. Not you, of course; Minister Goldsmith should be totally ashamed of himself.

You can’t move on someone who has nowhere to move to. That’s the point that everyone’s making. You know, it’s like, “We’ll move them on, kick these ones out, kick this one out,” Move to where? Why don’t they move to Minister Goldsmith’s house or go to Minister Potaka’s house? Where are these people going to go? It is such a ruthless, cold, heartless strategy, and I’m sure that if you’re not going to listen to Helen Robinson, who has the feel of the streets in the Auckland inner city, then who are you going to listen to? All this bill is doing is criminalising poverty by another name. Fining desperately poor people is nonsensical. Under this bill the homeless can be fined $2,000. Where are people who are homeless going to find 2,000? [Interruption] Oh, from the ACT Party?

💬 Todd Stephenson: No—you got the number wrong.

Well, what’s the number?

💬 Todd Stephenson: It’s $1,000.

Well, I say it’s $2,000.

💬 Todd Stephenson: Well, you’re wrong.

I’ll still say it. I reckon it’s $2,000, so let’s debate it. I’m sure it’s $2,000. Maybe it’s not. Who cares anyway? You are still attacking the homeless, and who’s going to be paying the fines in terms of the homeless? The ACT Party donors? We know that there are hundreds of them. It is such a sad state of affairs here. In the last couple of weeks of Parliament, we have an unprecedented attack on vulnerable people.

💬 Todd Stephenson: Yeah, like the Speaker!

Yeah, we heard what you said. We heard when your ACT member played up in the House. You didn’t say a word, did you? Gutless wonder.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Back to the bill.

Anyway, coming back to the topic—

💬 Hon Member: That’s out of order.

Well, you’ve got to be out of order sometimes—I have to put you in your place. These ACT members who breach rules all the time don’t say a word when their members break the rules. But I come back to the homeless—

💬 Todd Stephenson: He’s a joke.

It is a joke, you are a joke, and the ACT Party is a joke. This bill is a joke. Shame on the ACT Party for supporting it. Shame on New Zealand First. Shame on this useless, rotten Government who continue to attack the vulnerable. So go jump in the lake.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to speak on this bill. I was actually involved at the start of it as a member’s bill after conversations with my area commander in Hamilton, Andrea McBeth. So for members opposite to be saying that the Police are opposed to it isn’t really accurate, because the area commander Andrea McBeth had done a paper to support this right across the country, and, in fact, the district commander was also very supportive of it. In every state in Australia, they use move-on orders in different ways and with different strengths and jurisdictions.

There is this thing called Summary Offences Act 1981. If someone is displaying anti-social behaviour—for example, they are drunk and their behaviour is starting to escalate—the police can’t do anything. They can’t do anything until the behaviour escalates to such a point that they can then arrest the person. The problem is that by then, violence has often been undertaken, and there has been damage to property and damage to people, and the move-on order is a way to intervene early to prevent behaviour escalating.

So the move-on order is actually quite broad. It is about anti-social behaviour. You could even, for example, have a creepy dude in a van scoping out school children, which is completely inappropriate and disgusting behaviour but there is nothing the police can do. But with a move-on order, they can ascertain that that’s inappropriate behaviour and issue a move-on order on that vehicle. So the point is that although this bill has been weaponised by the Opposition as being against the homeless and the rough sleeping and the begging, that is a very small part of a very broad and holistic bill.

Police have a range of skills and discretions that they can use and deploy. One of the worst things we can do for those that are sleeping rough and begging is to do nothing. The Opposition would just like to point the finger at the Government and say that we’re being mean and we’re being cruel, but the reality of it is that leaving them in those conditions is being cruel. The move-on order is an opportunity to intervene, to ascertain why they are there, and to actually say, “This is not acceptable for you and for anyone in the community.” It is an opportunity to offer support.

So this bill is far broader than what the Opposition would have us believe. It’s another tool in the tool box for our police force, and I am pleased to commend it to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The next call is a split five-minute call—Dan Rosewarne.

As this debate comes to a close, I just want to acknowledge the thousands of New Zealanders who took the time to make a submission, appear before the Justice Committee, and share their experiences. Their contribution actually made this a better bill than the one that first arrived in the House.

This legislation as introduced would have allowed move-on orders to be issued to vulnerable 14-, 15-, 16- and 17-year-olds. It took submitters, officials, Opposition members, and ultimately pressure from within the Government’s own support parties to have that removed. That was the right outcome at the end of the day. A homeless young person needs help; they don’t need a move-on order.

The bill that leaves this House today is less bad than the one that entered it, but the core problem remains unchanged. This legislation is built on the idea that if a social problem becomes less visible, then somehow it is solved—when it hasn’t been. If someone is sleeping rough tonight in Wellington, Christchurch, Auckland, Dunedin, or anywhere else in New Zealand, they will still be sleeping rough tomorrow whether they receive a move-on order or not, and if somebody is struggling with addiction, mental health challenges, family violence, or poverty, those challenges do not disappear simply because a piece of paper tells them to move on down the road.

The Government talks a lot about reclaiming public spaces, but public spaces already belong to all New Zealanders. They belong to the business owner opening their shop in the morning. They belong to the family heading into town for the day, and, yes, they also belong to the person who has nowhere else to go. What troubled me throughout this debate was that the Government seems determined to treat homelessness as a matter of public disorder rather than a sign that something else has gone wrong. Most people sleeping rough are not there because they choose that life; they are there because housing costs have become unaffordable, because relationships have broken down, because of mental illness, and because of addiction. It is also because they have experienced violence and the systems that are meant to be there to help them have failed.

When those failures occur, I don’t think that New Zealanders expect Parliament’s response to be to move them along. I think they expect us to ask how we can actually fix the problem, and the reality is that this bill creates absolutely no housing. It creates no emergency accommodation, it creates no new mental health services, and it creates no new addiction programmes. Also, it creates no duty for anyone to provide assistance. What it does create is another enforcement tool and another consequence for people who are already among the most vulnerable in our communities.

Throughout this process, we heard officials raise a lot of concerns.

We heard legal experts. We heard charities, churches, service providers, and community organisations, and we even heard from people who worked directly with businesses and city centres who questioned whether this approach would actually achieve what the Government claims that it would achieve. At every stage, the same question keeps surfacing: what happens after the move-on order has been issued? The Government has never actually properly answered that question, because if there is nowhere to move on to, then the move-on order becomes little more than a mechanism for shifting people out of sight when the cruise ships arrive, and out of sight should never be confused with out of hardship. The Government will no doubt point to this bill as evidence, as taking action. But legislation should be judged by whether it solves a problem, not whether it actually generates a headline.

Will fewer people be homeless because of this bill? Will people be housed because of this bill? I don’t think so, and for that reason, that’s why we don’t support the bill. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Mr Speaker, thank you. Firstly, I’d like to acknowledge the Justice Committee chair and the members, who went through a process that was not easy for any one of us. The vulnerability that people who are affected by this bill, successive Governments have sought to use tools that they had and that we are now trying to have to help them out of the vulnerable state that they’re in. Move-on orders are a tool for a specific portion of people when they are vulnerable and on the streets.

I acknowledge also the previous speakers who have spoken with civility and dignity, and I acknowledge the politics from which they speak. However, when people in this House speak and perform in a way that inflames the public, I think that it is really quite unreasonable and they take advantage of people who are out there and who are vulnerable. It’s sad. I understand the politics behind it, but I don’t understand when things are misrepresented and mis-declared, and mainly to incense a public that’s already vulnerable.

I myself thought through this bill and took the time and asked many people about it, and I have come to the point that I can stand here and commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wonder if Paulo Garcia spoke to any homeless people or people who were on the brink of homelessness, because, as a central city MP, Christchurch Central city MP, we have a homelessness problem, as do many central cities and other places in New Zealand. And it’s got worse, you know. This Government has made homelessness worse. It’s extraordinary to hear Tama Potaka come to this House and celebrate that he has cleared out emergency housing, and he doesn’t know where they’ve gone. Sure, some have gone into social housing or private housing, but we know, and I know, that a number of our homeless people could be housed, but this Government chooses not to house them. This is what they choose to do.

I had a person come into my office who had once been a scaffolder, had fallen off the scaffolding, had very seriously injured his back and went to hospital, lost his job, lost his accommodation while he was in hospital, turned up at my office in his car for housing assistance. He was told that he didn’t need emergency housing, so he went and slept in his car in a car park until his back got so infected that he went back to hospital. It was only at that point that we managed to persuade the Ministry of Social Development that this man needed a place to sleep. That is Government policy. That is not an administrative error. That is a direction from the Government about when they’ll provide housing.

So is it any surprise that retailers are concerned, that people are troubled when they see people on the street? No, it’s not a surprise, but the cause of it is these Government policies. They have chosen that. They have chosen to put a squeeze on our economy and people. The car park at the Holy Trinity Church was being used as a place for people to sleep, a place that was relatively safe, that had running water and sanitation. I went down there and spoke to people, the number of people who had had jobs but lost their jobs and couldn’t keep paying their rent. So to make ends meet, they left their rental, rather than running up rent bills, and whilst they tried to sort themselves out, they were living in that car park.

Now, the sad fact is that it’s pretty hard to sort yourself out, find a new job, look good for your job interview, keep good nutrition, keep yourself looking tidy from a church car park in a ute. But they were doing their best. But that is a choice that this Government has made. They have chosen to increase unemployment. They have chosen to squeeze the Public Service. They have chosen to make it harder to get a job in this economy.

And you know what they’re doing in housing? Here’s a frightening fact—here’s a frightening fact. In Christchurch, they have built more prison cells than houses. That is the kind of approach that this Government has to problems around homelessness in New Zealand.

So what we’ve now got is that when someone is without shelter, when someone is hungry and alone, what’s the response of this Government? Is it a compassionate response that says, “Brother, I will feed you. Sister, I will give you a roof.”? No, it’s not—let’s move on; move out of sight. It’s entirely unworkable. The fact of the matter is that here we are. Someone is sitting on the street and they want some food, some money to help them with their rent.

Look, we know; we’re not going to pretend that all of these people are easy to deal with. We know that they sometimes have mental health, addiction issues. They have criminal records. They’ve come through the State system, perhaps through State care institutions and prisons. They’re people who have suffered harm and trauma, and they themselves may have caused that as well. But there is no one who is undeserving of our help. There is no one who is undeserving of our help.

Here we have a Government that says, “If you beg, we can move you out of sight. And if you come back and beg again, you’re a criminal.” You’re a criminal for being in need, for not going away and getting out of my sight when I want you to. It’s like an evil Victorian parent—“Get out of my sight. I don’t want to see you.” It doesn’t disappear the problem. In fact, it exacerbates it. We know that these people, that the people who need our help, are vulnerable. We know, and we accept—on this side of the House, we accept—that there is social harm going on here.

But we want to address the cause of the harm. This is a sticking plaster over a wound. This needs genuine attention. There are ways—we know there are ways—to address this. We know that the mental health issues can be addressed. We know that the housing issues, even for the most difficult to house, can be addressed. We know that the addiction issues can be addressed. We know that the income issues can be addressed.

But this Government is making choices. It’s making choices not to address the causes of this harm. It’s making the choice to appeal to the least-attractive instincts of the public, to say, “Those people are not us, they are somebody else”; to say that they are not deserving of compassion and care; they’re deserving of punishment and exclusion. Those are the principles that I would hope are most foreign to this House.

Look, the select committee did listen to a lot of the submissions, and changes were made. It was interesting, and, in some ways, gratifying, in a sense, to see the change in demeanour of the members of Parliament from the other side who were listening, who came in thinking one thing, but when they listened to the stories—when they listened to the stories, and when they listened to the evidence—they came around.

And, of course, one of the most compelling was about the Minister’s initial idea, that you could move on and then fine or possibly imprison a 14-year-old for not having somewhere to sleep—a 14-year-old for asking for something to eat. The mind boggles that someone, somewhere thought that was a good idea. That person was Paul Goldsmith. That person, Paul Goldsmith, is the person who’s entrusted with our justice system. And his initial idea was to criminalise 14-year-olds because they don’t move on and they beg more than once. That is the person that we think—well, that this Government thinks—is best trusted with the justice portfolio.

So here we have a bill—it’s not as bad as it was, but it is a bad bill. It doesn’t fix the problem. It doesn’t provide a roof over anyone’s head. It doesn’t fill an empty tummy. What it does is it moves the problem away, out of sight, out of the Government’s mind—but I hope it’s never out of our mind.

I’ve heard a lot of talk about the champagne socialists on K Road and all of those over there and how bad this is—they’ve said this is awful.

I haven’t heard anyone on the other side talk about the business owners in South Auckland—the migrant business owners that are trying to pay off a mortgage. I haven’t heard anyone talk about the Indian Business Association that gave a submission in support of this bill. No, they only go over there when they want votes—when they want to harvest votes. This is helping our migrant communities as well. I commend this bill to the House.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Ayes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 47

New Zealand Labour 30; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 12; Te Pāti Māori 4; Kapa-Kingi.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill

Legislative Statement