Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill
Thank you, Mr Chair. My question relates to the commencement date, but specifically in terms of the advisory group that the New Zealand Police have assembled, who are operationalising the move-on orders. Obviously, this is a specialist task force of experts who specialise in supporting people who are experiencing homelessness. I believe there might be people representing retail. I know that Judge Tony Fitzgerald is also on that group. Obviously, their group and advice to the Police about how they operationalise the move-on orders is really important. My question is, by the time this bill meets Royal assent, does the Minister know how many meetings the advisory group might have had by that point, or would they have been able to meet to inform these being executed in real life.
Thank you, Mr Chair. I think, following on from the previous question, the response that the Minister has given us wasn’t a response. “I have full confidence—” is a slogan; it’s not a response to a genuine question.
Let me ask it a different way: has the Police been preparing for the implementation of this bill currently, before the bill passes through third reading? Has the Police been actively working on guidelines for how this will be implemented, including guidelines on things like: what distance can a person move on to? At what point is that distance going to matter when it comes to potentially any subsequent infringement? Are they currently working on this?
Simply to say that the operations of the Police are a matter for them; they are operationally independent. The simple point of this clause is that it gives them a month after the bill is passed before the Act takes effect, and that gives them an extra month to be prepared.
I move, That debate on this question now close.
Thank you, Mr Chair. I appreciate being able to take the call as I did yield some of my previous time to a very enthusiastic colleague on the other side. I do have some additional questions in relation to commencement. I was interested in the Minister’s answers in relation to why he considered a month to be sufficient. I accept that that’s what he chose. But when we actually look at one month, we see that, for example, if the bill was to pass in the next couple of days, maybe it’s given Royal assent next week, then we count forward to when a month would be, and it ends up being around about two weeks before the general election.
To me, for something that is so controversial and so significant, it seems that that does not appear to be the ideal time for this Act to come into force. For example, if the Minister was to, say, make it for two months, or even for six weeks, possibly it would come in after the election, and that’s probably a much quieter time for the Police to be able to consider the impact of move-on orders. We do know that, regretfully, during election campaigns, there sometimes are additional tasks for police, and that is the reality of the current political situation. We know that the Police are often ensuring and protecting our democracy—they do have a role in protecting our democracy, and it’s regretful that that’s the case, but it’s a reality. So putting an additional task on police just before the general election appears to be not the most useful decision, and it’s totally up to this House to determine that.
I would suggest, and I don’t think I have particular tabled amendment on this, but I would put to the committee that we replace clause 2 with “This Act comes into force two months after the date that it receives its Royal assent,” and that would at least get us past the general election. I actually think that’s very pragmatic.
We do know that the Police will need to issue some guidance. We may think that everyone in the world watches the proceedings of this House, and understands what we’re going through, and what bills are coming through, but to be fair, all of our loyal constabulary and constables in New Zealand—they’re not watching the House of Representatives. They rely on Police HQ telling them: “This is a new law. This is what it means. This is what we expect you to do.” That’s actually not unreasonable at all. I don’t know if there is sufficient amount of time for that to happen.
The second point in relation to the election is probably more of the argument that you might expect me to make, which is that this is a very unpopular bill, and there isn’t a lot of support. We have evidence for that, in the sense that we saw at select committee that we had 98 percent of people opposing these bills and less than 1 percent supporting. We have lots of people saying that this is not going to be a good thing for New Zealand.
I speculate that this is not the best decision that could be made for our democracy—to pass this in urgency, in a way that would mean that it would come into effect two weeks before the general election. There isn’t time; there just simply isn’t time for the Police to operationalise it. And no matter what happens, the voter is always right: if the mood of the country is that move-on orders are not something that we want, or not something that we want in this form, they should have the opportunity to elect a Government that reflects that. So it might be that this Government is returned; it might be that this Government is not returned. But certainly, there needs to be a sufficient period of time, probably longer than two months, in respect of my second point, and I do have a tabled amendment that would take commencement to 12 months, which would be my ideal situation. Two months would be better than the status quo in clause 2, but 12 months, I think, would be even better, because that would allow guidance, it would allow a new Government to, perhaps, change or repeal or go ahead with the move-on orders.
We had a four-month select committee process. I didn’t hear the colleague before. He said it’s not a target, but certainly, when we have rushed lawmaking, we end up sometimes making mistakes. I think we can all accept that. We know that the advisers were rushed too. Now we’re rushing it through the House. So, this is the third time, in relation to a process of this bill, that things have been rushed. I ask the Minister: would he consider a small amendment to the commencement to actually make this practically implementable for the New Zealand Police, and with regards to the upcoming general election.
I move, That debate on this question now close.
CHAIRPERSON (Tom Rutherford): Members, I am looking for questions related to the commencement. Tamatha Paul.
Thank you for your guidance, Mr Chair. One thing that I think should be taken into consideration, in terms of the commencement, is how much the bill has evolved over the last year, or this year alone. There have been some pretty substantial changes made to this bill, and I think we’ve got to consider those in a context where the Police Association, in their submission on the bill, said, “This is effectively an onus on the officer without clear statutory guidance as to how compliance is to be achieved in practical terms.” I’m not satisfied with the Minister of Justice’s answer. I don’t think anybody is satisfied with the Minister’s answer that that is an operational matter, because what we are discussing is the bill, and the bill needs to be as clear as possible to those discharging those powers so that they know what they’re doing.
However, how could any police force prepare for a bill that has changed so much? It has changed in terms of the age of people who are captured under the move-on orders, as the Minister knows, but it’s also, I think, really importantly, changed in terms of some of the more interpretive terms in this bill, specifically around begging and rough sleeping, and it might change even more tonight because I know the Minister has some amendments to reverse some of those changes that were implemented in the Justice Committee. And it’s not just police; it’s also the courts and the judges, and all of the people—the lawyers who are defending people who have been charged under this law—who have to interpret this law. We have to make sure that it’s in the Hansard as clear as day, about what the Minister intends to do under this bill. How can anybody—how can any of those people that I just named—interpret what the bill means in such a short period of time when such substantial parts of the bill have changed.
For example, in terms of the parameters that have been set aside in terms of rough sleeping, they don’t even know right now—which is, as you say, a month away from commencement—whether they will be serving somebody a move-on order for simply begging or for unreasonable begging. Even if that’s the case, we still need to talk about, and make clear in the Hansard, what those terms mean. We are kind of doing this all on the smell of an oily rag tonight, and then we’re giving them a month to interpret a bill that has had such major changes and is open to so much interpretation. That is too much of a responsibility to put on any officer who might not have legal experience, who might not know what the interpretation of these words are, and we haven’t had any assurances that the police have been given adequate support to actually operationalise these, even if it’s in the way that the Minister intended the bill to be in the first place. That is a really important consideration—that there is so much uncertainty and not enough time to determine that.
We’ve had a really good day in the House today in terms of the committee of the whole House. We had the Minister for Children who was engaging, I think, in good faith, answering our questions and being constructive, so it would be appreciated if the Minister of Justice could answer these questions fully, and not just with sound bites and lines, and tell us why we couldn’t just have a bit of extra time so that that certainty is clarified even further, due to the big changes that this bill has been through and will go through tonight.
I won’t be extending it to two months, or 12 months, as one member indicated. I do think one month is sufficient for the police to be ready. The police, of course, have contributed to the development of the bill, including its implementation throughout the policy process. They’ve been deeply involved with that, and I understand that they have already been preparing for the implementation of this bill. Once it is finalised, of course, they will then have an extra month for any final preparations before it takes effect, and I think that is sufficient time.
I move, That debate on this question now close.
A party vote was called for on the question, That debate on this question now close.
Ayes 67
New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.
Noes 53
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 13; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.
Motion agreed to.
CHAIRPERSON (Tom Rutherford): The question is that Tamatha Paul’s amendment to clause 2 set out on Amendment Paper 775 be agreed to.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.
Ayes 53
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 13; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.
Noes 67
New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.
Amendment not agreed to.
CHAIRPERSON (Tom Rutherford): The question is that Tamatha Paul’s amendment to clause 2 set out on Amendment Paper 776 be agreed to.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.
Ayes 53
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 13; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.
Noes 67
New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.
Amendment not agreed to.
CHAIRPERSON (Tom Rutherford): The question is that Tamatha Paul’s amendment to clause 2 set out on Amendment Paper 777 be agreed to.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.
Ayes 53
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 13; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.
Noes 67
New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.
Amendment not agreed to.
CHAIRPERSON (Tom Rutherford): The question is that Tamatha Paul’s amendment to clause 2 set out on Amendment 790 be agreed to.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.
Ayes 53
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 13; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.
Noes 67
New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.
Amendment not agreed to.
CHAIRPERSON (Tom Rutherford): Camilla Belich’s and Oriini Kaipara’s tabled amendments to clause 2 providing for the Act to come into force 12 months after Royal assent are out of order as being the same as a previous amendment.
The question is that Camilla Belich’s tabled amendment to clause 2 providing for new section 8A(1)(e) and (f) to come into force 12 months after Royal assent be agreed to.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.
Ayes 53
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 13; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.
Noes 67
New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.
Amendment not agreed to.
CHAIRPERSON (Tom Rutherford): The question is that Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan’s tabled amendment to clause 2 providing for the Act to come into force on a date set by Order in Council be agreed to.
A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.
Ayes 53
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 13; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.
Noes 67
New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.
Amendment not agreed to.
CHAIRPERSON (Tom Rutherford): Oriini Kaipara’s tabled amendment inserting a new clause 2A is out of order as not being in the correct form of legislation.
A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 2 be agreed to.
Ayes 67
New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.
Noes 53
New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 13; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Committee of the whole House
Clause 3 Principal Act
CHAIRPERSON (Tom Rutherford): Members, we now come to clause 3, “Principal Act”. The question is that clause 3 stand part.
🗣️ Spoke in this debate (6)
- Carl Bates (New Zealand National Party — Member for Whanganui)
- Camilla Belich (New Zealand Labour Party — List Member)
- Hon Paul Goldsmith (New Zealand National Party — List Member)
- Tamatha Paul (Green Party of Aotearoa / New Zealand — Member for Wellington Central)
- Sam Uffindell (New Zealand National Party — Member for Tauranga)
- Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan (Green Party of Aotearoa / New Zealand — List Member)