Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill

First Reading Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Justice) (16:32): I move, That the Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 3 September 2026 and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day in which there has been a sitting of the House, on a Friday in a week in which there’s been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196. Our Government’s committed to fixing the basics in law and order and building a future where everyone feels safe to visit, work in, and live in our central cities. Our streets and our town centres have enjoyed unprecedented levels of disruption in recent years. Many people no longer want to be there. Businesses, residents, and visitors are paying the price. You’d be hard pressed to find anybody who lives in, works in, or visits our city centres who hasn’t witnessed disorderly behaviour, and that’s why so many people in the central city businesses support move-on orders as an option for police. Many are trying to just make a living. They have to face disruptive people camped outside their store day in and day out. We currently have many tools to help those who are in need, including access to one of the most generous welfare systems in the world. Hon Carmel Sepuloni: Oh my goodness! Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: Among this—well, it is. Under this Government alone, we’ve also funded 300 additional Housing First homes targeted on rough sleepers. We’ve released private market homes to enable immediate placements. We’re provided $10 million in additional funding for proven front-line services. We’ve expanded outreach and wraparound support in major urban centres. We’ve deployed a Ministry of Social Development tactical team to directly engage and house rough sleepers. All of those things we have done, so we’ve got many tools available to help those fellow New Zealanders who are genuinely in need. What we don’t have is many tools to deal with disorderly behaviour in our town squares, and it means that many disruptive, distressing, and potentially harmful acts can occur before police officers have any means of intervention. This legislation changes that. It’s often said, “Oh, well, what about your empathy for those who are in genuine need?”, and I’d just say this: my empathy lies particularly with those New Zealanders who have put their life savings into a small business, who get up every day to do their business to provide for their family and for their community and for their customers, and that they find a number of people lined up outside their businesses abusing those who come and go and making it difficult for them to succeed and to live and to provide for their families. That’s where my empathy lies. There’s much said about this legislation. Let me set the record straight. The Government has no policy to criminalise homelessness. What we do have is a policy to give the police the power to issue move-on orders to people displaying disorderly behaviour in public places, and only people who refuse to follow those orders will face prosecution. The bill amends the Summary Offences Act to create a power for police to issue move-on orders to manage low-level disorderly behaviour taking place in public places and prevent escalation. It enables front-line officers—[Interruption] DEPUTY SPEAKER: Excuse me, we’re not going to have people shouting at each other across the House. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —to issue move-on orders for a range of behaviours including being disorderly, intimidating, threatening, or disruptive; obstructing entry to a trade or business; breaching the peace; begging; rough sleeping; or activities that indicate an intent to inhabit a public place. Importantly, move-on orders apply to a behaviour that’s below the criminal threshold or to low-level criminal behaviour that relates to public disorder. Move-on orders provide an immediate and effective tool for police to de-escalate situations and to disrupt concerning behaviour as it’s happening. The bill provides that move-on orders can be issued to people aged 14 years or older, people engaging in the stated behaviours, who will be required to leave the area and not return for up to 24 hours. The people that receive a move-on order will be required to move a reasonable distance away from the area as specified by the constable. Naturally, every situation will be different. Some people may require support services; some may not. Police have the expertise to determine what support is required, if any; they do this every day. People are also free to use public spaces in a range of ways, and I recognise the need for some activities to be exempt from this. The bill specifies that move-on orders do not apply to people who are lawfully protesting or conducting charitable or not-for-profit fundraising. New Zealanders are fair-minded people, and our culture is one that seeks to help those who are in need, but that does not mean that we should accept that our city centres, our town squares, particularly our showcase tourist spots, become places of intimidation and dysfunction. Since day one, we’ve worked tirelessly to restore real consequences for crime and to place victims back at the heart of the justice system. Just briefly, I’ll just remind you: we’ve reformed the sentencing regime so that those who cause most harm are given stronger consequences. We’ve given the police effective tools to deal with gangs. We’ve stopped taxpayer funding for the proliferation of cultural reports. We’ve given victims of sexual assaults the power to determine if offenders are granted permanent name suppression. We’ve restored three strikes, and we’ve criminalised stalking, which is actually taking effect next week. The good news is that we’re making progress. Our focus is on reducing the number of victims of crime, and the number of victims of serious violent crime is now 49,000 fewer than when we came into Government. But the work is far from over, and this is one area that still requires attention—urgent attention—and that is disorderly behaviour on our town squares and in our streets. So our focus is ensuring that we reclaim those streets and those town centres for the enjoyment of people who live there, who work there, and who visit there. On that basis, I commend this bill to the House. DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to. Hon CARMEL SEPULONI (Deputy Leader—Labour) (16:39): We will not be supporting this bill, and I’m going to go into great detail as to why. It’s very difficult to listen to the Minister speak to this bill and promote this bill, particularly given we have had the Ministry of Justice saying that there was no evidence that move-on orders would reduce crime, we have had the Police come out opposed to criminalising rough sleeping, and we have had Treasury state very clearly that the costs of this would outweigh the benefits. Why would the Government, when presented with all of this advice and evidence against what they are doing, still move ahead with their move-on orders? It is purely ideological, and it is sad that this is the state of the Government that we have at the moment leading the country. Today, we had Paul Goldsmith stand up and talk about the fact that we have the most generous welfare system, as if all the poor people who are living on welfare are wealthy or doing well and they should be grateful. Earlier today, I saw that Nicola Willis was talking about those being in social housing having won Lotto, as if being poor and having to rely on social welfare or social housing is a Lotto win. What is this Government up to? It is crazy. It’s crazy that Paul Goldsmith would stand here today and talk about how these move-on orders are about addressing disorderly behaviour when two of the categories that people can be moved on for are simply being homeless and begging. Homelessness and begging, according to the definition of that Minister, is disorderly behaviour and requires the attention of the justice system. The only injustice to those people being homeless is the fact that they are homeless and they are living in poverty. They are not causing any injustice against Minister Paul Goldsmith and general members of the public. Is it nice for us and our whānau to be walking in public places and to see homelessness in real life at our shopping malls and in our CBD? No. It’s not nice, and it’s hard when you have to explain it to your kids, but it’s even worse for the people that are actually living as homeless people because they have nowhere to lie down and no roof over their heads at night-time. What really saddens me and frustrates me is how we have got here. The social services in Auckland have been very clear with the Government. They have seen increased homelessness as a result of that Government’s policies. The Government decided to restrict the number of people who could get access to emergency accommodation, and, now, we have the City Mission and other social services saying that is why there’s more people on the street. That Government decided to cut the public housing build that was under way from the previous Government when we were in charge. Then we wonder why we don’t have the social housing for those people that need it. They sing their own praises by standing there and saying that they’ve invested in 207 additional Housing First places, when they’ve been told really clearly that there are 940 people that are homeless. Then, what do they do when their policies fail New Zealanders for housing? They go and they criminalise those that are homeless. Do not talk to us about this being disorderly behaviour, and, yes, in here, it says that anyone that poses a threat is going to be asked to move on. But you have made the conscious decision to include in this legislation people who are homeless or are begging, and then you stand up in this House and you say you’re not criminalising, despite the fact that if they don’t move on, they can be fined or they can be sentenced. Please don’t try and tell us on the side of the House that we are wrong. We know exactly what we’re reading. It is wrong. The Government is wrong to do it, and we will not be supporting this bill. TAMATHA PAUL (Green—Wellington Central) (16:44): How dare the Minister of Justice get up and tell the House, not just today but yesterday as well, that this is not criminalising homelessness and that if they comply and go home, they’re not going to be charged. The Minister realises they don’t have a home, right? Where exactly are they supposed to move on to? Should they go to your house? Don’t mislead the public by saying that this isn’t exactly what it is. The New Zealand public is smart enough to understand exactly what it is, and the Minister knows exactly what it is too. When he was an Auckland city councillor 10 years ago—or whenever it was—he was trying to pass a by-law that made homelessness criminal, and when that didn’t work, he moved up to Government and is trying it again, but, this time, it affects people as young as 14. Where exactly are these kids meant to go? Would you like them to go sleep in a bush? Would you like them to go and sleep under a bridge? They have nowhere to go. They have no parents, they have no responsible adults, and, now, they will be caught up in the justice system for the rest of their life. How dare the Minister get up and say that they care about victims, that they care about intimidation, and that they care about safety in the very same week they cut funding to front-line sexual violence prevention organisations, who work with people who have been raped and sexually assaulted. They don’t care about safety, and they don’t care about victims. What exactly is intimidation anyway? Is that going to be a little brown kid wearing a hoodie who someone walking into town sees and feels intimidated by because they’re not supposed to be there? When, in our justice system, could you punish someone before they’ve even broken the law because someone looks at them and makes an assessment that they are probably going to cause harm? You can’t do that. That’s exactly why there is a report that’s come out from the Attorney-General, saying that this bill contradicts people’s human rights. I don’t see the ACT Party, the party of freedom over there, standing up for all New Zealanders’ freedom of movement, expression, or speech, when that is exactly what this bill contravenes. I bet they’re going to stand up and support this bill as well. This gallery, right now, is filled with people who know more about homelessness and how to actually deal with it than the Government does. These are people who are actually on the front line, who do the outreach, and who build up the trust of people who are rough sleeping and actually house them. I don’t know if the Minister ever listens to what these organisations say, but it is far cheaper and more humane to house people. It costs $200,000 to put someone in prison for a year. The Minister knows that. It is far cheaper to house them and to give them the mental health and drug addiction support that they desperately need. These are people who have fallen through the cracks of every single system, and the organisations that are there, ready to help them, are not getting the financial assistance that they need to do so. They’re not asking the Government to end homelessness overnight; they’re asking the Government to financially support the people who know how to end homelessness. This bill, move-on orders, will not end homelessness. It is more expensive, and it is more cruel. Even the Police do not support what you’re trying to do. The Police do not support criminalising homelessness. There were other options put in front of the Minister that didn’t involve locking up and giving a $2,000 fine to people who have got nothing. Even the Police, the people who are expected to enforce these move-on orders, don’t support what the Government is doing. Let’s remember that homeless people are in fact the most unsafe people on the street. They are the most at risk. Let’s not forget that, and let’s not forget why homelessness has increased in the first place. Homelessness has shot up because the Government decided to restrict access to emergency housing. Homelessness has gone up because the Government has used all of their power and resources to reinstate no-cause evictions and to cancel the building of hundreds, if not thousands, of public homes. That is why there is homelessness. It’s a cruel injustice to arrest and move on people, but especially with those 14- to 18-year-olds, it’s disgusting. Then, today, announcing that you’ll be making it more expensive to live in public housing and easier to kick people out of public housing. This gallery in here right now is ashamed of what this Government is doing. SIMON COURT (ACT) (16:50): Madam Speaker—[Applause from gallery] ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Can I just remind the gallery that the gallery members are here to listen, and so we are now disrupting the speeches by that noise. Just please respect the process that we are going through. I’ve called Simon Court. We will start again. SIMON COURT: Thank you, Madam Speaker. What you’ve heard from Labour and the Greens is an exercise in the most disgusting act of political gaslighting that I’ve heard in my six years in Parliament. This bill is intended to ensure that police are adequately equipped to address public disorder— Tamatha Paul: And what did they say? SIMON COURT: —increase the public’s sense of safety, Tamatha Paul, and support urban centres and economies. They’re acting—Labour and the Greens—like the experiences of small shop owners and the experiences of commuters and people who live in our urban centres and who experience some of the most appalling behaviours, disruptive behaviours, which this bill seeks to address, are not real. You are denying the lived reality of young people who I’ve worked with in the central city in K Road and other businesses who told me they were afraid to come to work until it was light because of the intimidation and fear they felt from people who they could identify as being regularly occupying public spaces. You’re denying the lived reality of people who live— ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The Speaker is not. SIMON COURT: Madam Speaker, the Greens and Labour are denying the reality of people who choose to live in our urban centres, where, with all the enormous investments in infrastructure like the City Rail Link in Auckland, we want people to come and live. So to be able to make those places and spaces feel safe and welcoming and encouraging for those who we want to enjoy our cities is part of what we’re doing here today. It is— Tamatha Paul: All good. Just house them. SIMON COURT: Look, let’s recognise that many of the people who are on our streets and who are regulars on our streets can be housed but sometimes with great difficulty because of their incredibly complex needs. We should never, ever resile from that. We know that this requires a great deal of effort from Government, local government, social agencies, and NGOs, and we should always be prepared to support these people to find safe places to live, to get help for mental health and addiction issues— Steve Abel: Why aren’t you? SIMON COURT: —and to help them. For Steve Abel to ask why we aren’t assumes nothing’s been done, and that is not the case. There are many agencies involved in engaging with people who have tough lives and who may, for no fault of their own or for some poor decisions, have ended up on the streets. We need to be able to help them, but we should not pretend in any way that providing police with the power to say, “Hey, look, you can’t sleep in the shopkeeper’s doorway, because they can’t get into their premises with you out here.”, to individuals who are hanging outside a public transport facility calling out to passers-by or, what I’ve seen, walking in the side streets of K Road—where my construction project officers were starting early in the morning—people half-clothed who had defecated in doorways, and those are the actual lived experiences for people I work with, particularly for young staff, graduates, and interns coming into construction businesses. It puts them off—it doesn’t just put them off; it makes them doubt whether Government, councils, and police actually care about their safety. I can tell all of those people who are in the gallery here tonight and who might be watching or listening at home that Governments and councils and police do care, but they do need these additional powers in order to be able to move these people on, direct them to get help, and not to tolerate—tolerate—the kind of behaviours that these people are showing now. Now, ACT also recognises that there are issues that the Attorney-General has raised about the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and that is why it is important that this bill is referred to the Justice Committee. The Justice Committee has a great deal of experience in exploring these New Zealand Bill of Rights Act issues and resolving them. I look forward to this bill going to the Justice Committee and for that committee to report back to the House on how to resolve some of these critical issues, particularly when it comes to freedom of speech and association. They are important ACT values, and they’re important to this coalition Government. With that, I commend this bill to the House. Hon CASEY COSTELLO (Associate Minister of Police) (16:55): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak in support of the Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill. Unlike some across the other side of this House, New Zealand First knows what quality police officers patrol our streets and the great decision makers they are in enforcing law. I am not going to be performative and decry that this is a homeless bill. That is not what this bill is about. This bill is about providing powers to intervene to prevent a certain type of conduct and behaviour. I’m the Minister for Seniors. I understand how important it is for older people to feel connected and engaged in their communities and how important it is that they can feel like they’re part of the cities they live in. They have the right, just as everyone does, to be able to enjoy those inner-city spaces. That is exactly what this bill is doing. It is returning our streets to the communities that own them, not allowing us to be intimidated and to be frightened just for being in our own cities. This is not a homelessness attack; this is an attack on certain types of conduct that intimidate and refuse to allow our cities to be free and open spaces for those who belong to those towns to enjoy, for those that work in the cities, for those that commute, and for those that just want to be in the cities and enjoy those spaces. New Zealand First knows the quality of our police force. They know that this is not uncontrolled powers. This is about having a conversation with people and telling them to move on and that their conduct is not appropriate. If they refuse to move on, if they refuse to provide their details, and if they refuse to comply, then it is their choice to have the situation escalated by the powers that this bill presents. Tamatha Paul: They’ve got no home. Hon CASEY COSTELLO: This is not about telling you to go home, as the member from the Green Party suggests; this is about not being in a place that is causing intimidation to the public. That is exactly what it is. Those who like to live in this fantasy world and think we don’t know what it’s like out there; I live in South Auckland. I know exactly the situations we’re trying to deal with. I know the need to ensure that our communities are connected, engaged, and supported. I am the Minister for Seniors, and I speak to the older people who feel that they can no longer use their inner-city centres and who feel intimidated, so this is about a power that allows the police to intervene, allows the police to do something, rather than wait for criminal offences to occur, and to pre-emptively take action to de-escalate. That is exactly what this bill is producing, and that is why we fully commend this bill to the House. ORIINI KAIPARA (Te Pāti Māori—Tāmaki Makaurau) (16:58): I give rise to the voices of those silenced across my rohe of Tāmaki Makaurau, in particular the 940 people that we know of who are without warm, dry, safe, and stable homes. I stand to speak to a bill that Minister Goldsmith himself said just a couple of hours ago during question time, in this very House, criminalises a refusal to move on. That’s exactly what makes this legislation absolutely flawed. It doesn’t address homelessness; it criminalises it. I’m not debating this bill as if it concerns people I’ve not met. I know the faces of those it targets. I’ve sat with them on Queen Street. I’ve shared kai with them at Mood Cafe on Karangahape Road. I’ve listened to their stories alongside the Māori Wardens of Matarora by the downtown car park. I keep connected with our rangatahi who were once homeless but are now thriving under the manaakitanga of organisations like Manaaki Rangatahi and Mā Te Huruhuru. I know these people because they are my electorate, my community, my whānau. The truth is this: most of the people sleeping rough in Tāmaki Makaurau are Māori—they are Māori. This bill is mean spirited. It’s short sighted. It treats homelessness as a matter of compliance rather than a matter of survival. It assumes that if you threaten people with $2,000 fines and the rest—ha!—they’ll simply disappear. But people don’t disappear because Parliament tells them to; they move because they have somewhere safe to go. Right now, too many of our people do not. The cost of living is pushing more whānau into crisis. Rents are rising. Food prices are crazy. Power bills are rising. Everything is rising, except for incomes. When people can’t afford to live, they lose their homes; when they lose their homes, they end up in the street, or they end up in overcrowded situations, which impacts a lot of Pasifika and Māori families right across this motu. That is the reality. When this Government cuts emergency housing funding, it doesn’t reduce homelessness; it reduces support, it reduces the safety that it craves so much and it reduces the chance for people to get back on their feet. Homelessness is not only about the absence of housing; it’s also about the absence of investment needed to turn houses into homes. It’s about the lack of wraparound support, mental health care, addiction services, and culturally grounded pathways that restore stability and dignity. Homelessness is complex and it requires more than a roof. We also cannot fix what we cannot measure. Aotearoa still doesn’t have actual comprehensive data on homelessness. We don’t know the true scale of this crisis. We rely on partial counts and overstretched front-line providers. How can we legislate effectively when we don’t even know how many people really are affected? Te Pāti Māori, our movement, believes in real solutions that last for generations and not just for three years. We believe that everyone—everyone—in Aotearoa should be fed, should be housed, and should have enough income to live meaningful lives. That’s why we support making the minimum wage a living wage, that is why we support removing GST from kai so that whānau can afford to eat, and that is why we believe the 112,000 empty homes across this country should be made available to those who need the homes right now. We will never end homelessness, or even poverty, by punishing people. Our movement is about being hard on healing, rather than being hard on crime. There is a real solution sitting right here in this Parliament, it is called the Youth Homelessness Prevention Bill. That is the bill I introduced in the first 70 days of my term here as an MP, a bill that this Government has ignored, a bill that focuses on early intervention, on enacting the duty to assist across all agencies, and on coordinated support that puts our people first. The system is continuing to fail us and our people. It is not a symbolic gesture, this bill; it’s a practical, evidence-based pathway to ending homelessness, not just managing it, not just shifting it out of sight, but ending it once and for all. It’s a long-term solution grounded in dignity, community, and the lived realities of our rangatahi. Our rangatahi need better rangatira than what we have in this Whare right now. I look you straight in the eye and I tell you that our people need to register to vote this year. That is the only way we can make a great impact right now. Vote this Government out. CARL BATES (National—Whanganui) (17:03): I say to the Opposition, read my lips: the Government is not criminalising homelessness. You see, the problem that the Opposition has is that they can’t do basic arithmetic: one plus one doesn’t equal four. Tamatha Paul: You have 25 homes—25 homes. CARL BATES: You know what? Tomorrow morning, you come down to the City Mission with me and actually do some mahi and help raise the money from the people who pay the taxes to make this country work and provide the support that we need to be able to deliver the social services we need to deliver in this country. You come down, 7.30 tomorrow morning, City Mission in Whanganui, and let’s raise the funds—not you, but them, Madam Speaker—and let’s actually do the work that helps, and not create unnecessary scaremongering about what this bill does. I commend it to the House. CAMILLA BELICH (Labour) (17:04): Thank you, Madam Speaker. This is a terrible bill. It goes much too far in addressing what everyone would acknowledge is sometimes a problem, which is, obviously, something that is very difficult within our cities, which is when we see antisocial behaviour. That is the problem that the Government says that they are trying to address. Unfortunately, this bill doesn’t address antisocial behaviour; it goes further than that and it criminalises—and I can point members to the exact clause, which is new section 8F(2), inserted by clause 5 of the bill, which says that if you breach a move-on order, you can go to prison. How you breach a move-on order is simply by being homeless and staying in one place—being homeless, begging, asking for food: these are reasons for people to be issued a move-on order under this bill, and this bill is a terrible reflection on our society. There are so many people who oppose this bill—not just members of the Opposition. We have the Government’s own Attorney-General stating that this bill is inconsistent with two important rights under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act: the freedom of expression and the freedom of movement. I have to say, it is very disappointing to hear from what was once a libertarian party standing up and saying that your freedom of movement can only be where we say it can be in public places. It is shameful. We had the Ministry of Justice saying there is no evidence that move-on orders would reduce crime. We had the Treasury saying the costs of implementing move-on orders would outweigh the benefits. We had the Ministry of Urban Development stating the bill has the potential to cause further harm to people experiencing homelessness. We have Hāpai te Hauora stating that this bill will not reduce homelessness, but it will shift the problem without addressing why people are there in the first place. We have the New Zealand Criminal Bar Association stating that it is shocked that the Government would attack what little dignity the homeless community has left at a time when emergency housing is cut and State housing is at its least accessible. We have Lifewise saying that we have more than 900 individuals currently sleeping rough, and these measures fail to address the underlying causes of homelessness. Rather than offering meaningful solutions, this bill simply moves vulnerable people from one area to another. And, yes, it criminalises homelessness. This bill is an absolute shame on this society. I ask those opposite: how do we justify our response as a society to seeing a homeless 14-year-old on the street and knowing that they are homeless, issuing them with a move-on order? A 14-year-old is a child. They are children. We cannot have our first response to seeing a homeless child be to hand them a piece of paper, potentially detain them—they’re also allowed to be detained under this bill—and then issuing them with a move-on order, with a fine, and potentially imprisonment under this Act, if they don’t comply. This goes much further than dealing with the antisocial behaviour that those on the other side of the House have identified. It goes much further than that because it does put in summary offences which can turn into imprisonment for begging and for rough sleeping. The definition of “begging” is really important. The definition of “begging” in this bill is asking for food. Our response to someone asking for food, to being hungry, under this Government, is to issue them with a move-on order. It is often said that society should be judged by the way we treat our most vulnerable, and this is a shameful way to treat our most vulnerable. One of my proudest moments of being an Aucklander was when I went to the opening of Homeground. Those types of solutions that actually provide a community response to homelessness are what the Government should be investing in. They shouldn’t be criminalising people who are homeless. They shouldn’t be issuing move-on orders to 14-year-olds. They shouldn’t be issuing move-on orders to people who are simply hungry. RIMA NAKHLE (National—Takanini) (17:09): We’ve spoken about what causes homelessness. I’ve worked in our family business that deals with people that are either homeless or borderline homeless, an emergency and transitional housing facility, so I’ve seen over the years what causes homelessness: unaddressed mental health issues. I’m proud of the fact that we’ve got Minister Matt Doocey, the first mental health Minister ever to address mental health issues. Drug and alcohol addictions cause homelessness. Being sucked into the vortex of a miserable, awful life because of being sexually or violently assaulted—that causes homelessness. Becoming disenfranchised with whānau—and, yes, your iwi as well—causes homelessness. Someone on the other side of the House said that this bill is not going to solve homelessness. It’s not intended to solve homelessness, but I’ll tell you what will solve homelessness: addressing mental health issues in our country; addressing a lack of proper education, which we are doing; going after gangs for the brokenness that they cause amongst families; and, yes, growing our country so that we can give people a hand up, not a hand down. We are not criminalising children. I’ll never ever forget when two police officers told me about two young children they had to pick up. These children begged, “Please don’t take me home.” because they were scared of being bashed by their parents. We are simply saying we need to help people to get to the proper care they need to get to. I commend this bill. Hon WILLIE JACKSON (Labour) (17:11): Absolutely shameful. I stand not just as a Labour MP but as a Kiwi who is disgusted—disgusted—by this terrible law, disgusted by this other lot on the other side of the House. This Parliament—and I’m glad all our communities are here—has an obligation to look after the weak, to look after the vulnerable. But you get this lot over here. This one should be ashamed to listen to this type of kōrero coming today. Look after our people. Look after our community, the vulnerable. This Government has breached that obligation—they have breached that obligation. It is shameful, disgusting stuff we’re getting from this Government. But we should probably congratulate Minister Goldsmith over here for finally getting his chance to finally kick the homeless. Back in 2008, the Minister was an Auckland city councillor and on Radio New Zealand, he publicly pushed for stronger powers to remove the homeless and vagrants from central Auckland. In fact, Radio New Zealand reported at the time that the former Minister wanted officials to investigate how homeless people could be removed from the central city area and did not rule out arrests. Well, he got his wish. Almost 20 years later, Minister Goldsmith finally gets something done, and it’s bashing the vulnerable. Congratulations, Minister Goldsmith; well done. What a political achievement. Hold on to anger towards the poor long enough and you too can be a National Cabinet Minister—no doubt about it. Every single organisation that works with the homeless has warned this Government that their policy would create homelessness, but what do they do? They carry on with this law. They don’t accept that it’s their emergency stinking housing policy that has created the mess. We all know, except them. They don’t want to know. Every single organisation is saying that all they want to do is hide the social damage. Why is this Government doing this? What drives these people? That’s what we are saying today. Why move it along and hide their shameful harvest of poverty from our streets because the homeless embarrass them in front of their cruise ships? That’s the reality. Only this Government could look at people sleeping on the streets and decide that the real problem is their visibility, not the poverty that put them there. Simon Court: Absolute nonsense. Hon WILLIE JACKSON: You don’t solve homelessness, “Mr ACT person”, by criminalising it. Why can’t they get it through their thick heads? It’s beyond me. You solve the problem, Government, by building homes. You’ve built no homes. You’ve built nothing—built nothing. Kicking people off the streets without giving them somewhere to go isn’t leadership; it’s just moving misery out of your sight. That’s all you’re doing. Look, we’re sympathetic to the long-suffering business owners just trying to earn a living. We get that and we are empathetic. We understand what’s happening there. We’ve made statements. We support them. We want our small-business owners to succeed, but moving-on powers merely address the symptom of poverty, not its cause. Unless there’s significant investment and outreach, food banks, and social housing, for every homeless person the police move along, two more—[Interruption] ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Order! We don’t need that across-the-House argument going on. There is one speaker speaking. Thank you, Mr Jackson. Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Thank you, Madam Speaker. You don’t solve homelessness by criminalising it. Our small-business owners deserve policies that will solve the problem rather than gloss over it. That side of the House talked tough on the homeless because it’s easier than admitting they are a failure in terms of housing, they’re a failure in terms of their community. You should be ashamed of yourselves. That’s why you’re all squealing and howling, particularly this woman who says she comes from Takanini. Rima Nakhle: I do come from “Tak-aah-nini”, actually—“Tak-aah-nini”. Hon WILLIE JACKSON: Yeah, you’re a disgrace to Takanini. You’re using the power of the House to bash homeless, vulnerable people. Our people in South Auckland should disown people like that MP over there. You should hang your collective heads in shame. Labour will never support this filthy bill. RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East) (17:16): It’s a pleasure to have played a small part in this bill through a member’s bill, which was actually worked up by the area commander of Waikato, Andrea McBeth. I pay tribute to the work she did in making sure that this was an example of a halfway house that police could use all over the country. It’s used in every state of Australia as a proactive tool of de-escalating behaviour. There’s been a lot of weaponisation from the Opposition, saying it’s about homelessness. Homelessness is not even in the bill, so I don’t know how many of the members opposite have read it. The Opposition harp on. The worst thing they could do for homelessness and begging is nothing. It’s the most mana-reducing, soul-destroying thing. The move-on orders actually give our police the tool to plug them in with NGOs, local government, central government agencies and make a difference to their life, because, unlike the Opposition, we’ve actually got aspiration for the most vulnerable people in this country. 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 first time. Ayes 67 New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8. Noes 55 New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi. Motion agreed to. Bill read a first time.