Below is our submission on the Move On Orders Bill, also known as the Summary Offences (Move on Orders) Amendments Bill. Click here to make your own submission against the Bill. Submissions close 11.59pm, Thursday, 02 July 2026
We also have a bit more information about the Bill here. We have a guide to writing submissions here.
People Against Prisons Aotearoa (PAPA) is a prison abolitionist organisation working for a fairer, safer, and more just Aotearoa. Established in 2015, PAPA advocates for people in prison to ensure their human rights are met. We also push for changes to the Aotearoa New Zealand criminal justice system to create more just outcomes.
People Against Prisons Aotearoa is submitting in opposition to the Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill. We strongly encourage the committee to reject this Bill in its entirety.
The Bill grants police sweeping new powers to issue move-on orders against people engaged in behaviour as vague as “disruptive,” including rough sleeping and begging. These powers will be disproportionately used against Māori, people experiencing homelessness, and those in poverty—people who are already among the most marginalised in Aotearoa. This is not a law-and-order measure. It is the criminalisation of poverty.
Our submission focuses on the following points in detail:
• The Bill criminalises poverty and homelessness
• The Bill will cause disproportionate harm to Māori, in breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi
• The Bill grants excessive police powers with inadequate safeguards against abuse
The Bill criminalises poverty and homelessness
The Bill explicitly lists rough sleeping, setting up makeshift shelters, and begging as grounds for issuing a move-on order. These are not crimes. They are the visible consequences of poverty, housing insecurity, and the failure of the state to adequately resource social services. To respond to these with police powers, detention, and the threat of imprisonment is misguided and harmful. It will only decrease the situation of our most vulnerable. It will also convey the message to the uninformed and young people of our country that it is a crime to be poor. This would be a moral failing of New Zealand society, in the failing to extend grace, protection, and justice to those with the least power.
Aotearoa is in a housing crisis. Thousands of people are without stable homes. Many of those who sleep rough in city centres do so because they have no alternative. This Bill offers no housing, no mental health support, no drug and alcohol treatment—none of the things that actually address primary or secondary causes of homelessness. Instead, it gives police the power to move people on, forcing them out of sight while leaving their circumstances entirely unchanged.
The vague language of the Bill compounds this problem. “Disorderly,” “disruptive,” and “indicating an intent to inhabit” are broad, subjective terms that give police enormous discretion. That discretion will not be exercised evenly. It will fall, as it always does, on those with the least power: the poor, the unhoused, the mentally unwell, young people, and Māori. The Bill does not solve disorder. It displaces it, and punishes those least able to defend themselves.
A penalty of up to three months’ imprisonment for breaching a move-on order—an order that may have been issued for sleeping in a doorway—is not proportionate. It is not just. It deepens entanglement with a criminal justice system that already causes enormous harm to vulnerable people in Aotearoa.
The Bill will cause disproportionate harm to Māori, in breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi
This Bill is a violation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Māori are significantly overrepresented among those experiencing homelessness, poverty, and contact with the justice system in Aotearoa. The move-on order powers created by this Bill will therefore fall disproportionately on Māori. A law that applies formally to all but harms Māori at far greater rates is not a neutral law. It is a discriminatory one.
Article 3 of Te Tiriti guarantees Māori equal rights as citizens of Aotearoa. Article 2 affirms the Crown’s obligation to actively protect Māori tino rangatiratanga. This Bill contradicts both. It deepens structural inequality rather than addressing it, and does so in ways that will be felt most acutely in Māori communities.
The criminal justice system already functions to punish, suppress, and harm Māori at rates entirely inconsistent with Te Tiriti principles. Māori make up over 50% of the prison population while comprising approximately 17% of the general population. Adding new police powers that draw on vague behavioural triggers—the kinds of powers that have historically been exercised in racially unequal ways—will only deepen this injustice. The Crown has an obligation under Te Tiriti to actively protect Māori from harm, not to legislate new mechanisms for it.
The Bill grants excessive police powers with inadequate safeguards against abuse
This Bill creates new powers to detain people, compel them to provide personal information, and issue orders banning them from public places—all below the threshold of a criminal charge and without judicial oversight at the point of issue. A police officer may act on “reasonable grounds to suspect” behaviour. There is no requirement for the behaviour to have been witnessed, no independent check on whether the grounds are sound, and no meaningful avenue for immediate challenge.
The power to detain a person in order to issue an order—combined with the offence of failing to provide biographical details—effectively creates a stop-and-identify regime for people in public spaces. This is a significant expansion of police powers without independent oversight, clear accountability mechanisms or any evidence that such powers are necessary and proportionate.
The Government has not demonstrated that existing powers under the Summary Offences Act 1981 are inadequate to address public safety and avoid disorder. The Regulatory Impact Statement acknowledges significant uncertainty about the effectiveness of move-on orders and their likely impacts on vulnerable people. In the absence of a sound evidence base, and given the serious civil liberties implications, this Bill should not proceed.
The Bill is framed around the interests of “retail and hospitality premises”—it is a commercial interest bill dressed in the language of public safety.
Conclusion
We urge the committee to reject the Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill in full. The Bill criminalises poverty, breaches Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and grants expansive new police powers without adequate evidence, oversight, or safeguards. It will not make communities safer. It will make vulnerable people’s lives harder, push them further from support, and deepen the systemic inequalities that already cause so much harm in Aotearoa.
If the Government is genuinely concerned about public safety and thriving urban centres, it should invest in housing, mental health services, addiction support, and community-led solutions. Prisons and police powers have never kept our communities safe, and never will.