Government stands by including rough sleeping in move-on orders

The government is refusing to budge on including rough sleeping as part of its move-on orders, and denies the legislation would criminalise rough sleeping.

It comes after Labour leader Chris Hipkins in his Tuesday Morning Report interview promised to end "the criminalisation of homelessness" if his party won power.

Legislation now at select committee would give police the power to order people as young as 14 to move elsewhere or face a possible jail sentence if they were being disorderly, begging, rough sleeping or attempting to inhabit a public place.

Heading to the weekly caucus meeting later in the morning, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said he was "comfortable" with the legislation including rough sleeping.

"We need to make sure that people coming into our cities do not feel intimidated, that there isn't disruption, that there isn't disturbance ... I think we've got the balance right, I trust our police to operationalise that sensitively and well," he said.

"Move on orders are broader than just dealing with rough sleeping, they're actually dealing with disorderly and disruptive behaviour in our downtowns and our city areas."

He was confident in police's ability to handle homelessness situations with care.

"I trust our police, they're well connected into social services, every homeless situation is different, it's a complex set of needs and actually our police have good, good relationships with social services and can plug people into them."

Housing Minister Chris Bishop appeared more open to change, saying the government would listen to feedback from the select committee.

He pushed back hard against the suggestion the bill would criminalise rough sleeping.

"It doesn't criminalise rough sleeping," he said. "That is not accurate. I'm comfortable with where we've landed on the move on orders. I'm also comfortable with what we're doing around making sure that people in need get access to support."

He said the government had put "a lot of extra money" into dealing with rough sleeping in major cities which was starting to show good results.

"I'm not pretending the problem's solved, I would never claim victory - but we're starting to see some encouraging improvements."

Pushed to explain how introducing a law that could lead to jail for sleeping on the street and returning there after being given an order to was not criminalising rough sleeping, Bishop simply repeated that the law did not do that.

"It does not criminalise rough sleeping, it does not do that .... it does not criminalise rough sleeping ... it does not criminalise the idea of rough sleeping," he insisted.

Labour's Housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said that was misleading the public.

"Do they think people are thick? They can see what they're proposing here, and it's not what they are saying publicly," he said.

"Their rationale is that they want to have a tool available to the police to deal with antisocial behaviour. So, make the bill about antisocial behaviour - don't include rough sleepers, don't include a provision that would allow you to fine them $2000, and for goodness sake don't allow children as young as 14 to be included."

He said the idea of move-on orders was a "hobby horse" of Paul Goldsmith from when he was an Auckland councillor.

"There is no requirement in this bill to actually find these people accommodation. It's just simply move them away, out of sight, out of mind."

McAnulty also questioned what Luxon had meant in Monday's post-Cabinet media briefing when he said the disturbance and disorderly behaviours the move-on orders were designed to tackle should be compartmentalised from rough sleeping and homelessness.

"I heard him suggest that, I'm still not 100 percent sure what he means," McAnulty said.

"They've made a deliberate decision to block people in need from entering emergency housing that has led to the highest level of homelessness we've ever seen," a claim he attributed to Auckland City Missioner Helen Robinson.

He said Robinson was as credible a figure as could be found on the matter, and "when she says homelessness is the worst we've ever seen, I believe her".

"Nobody was arguing that the emergency housing was a solution to the housing problem, but it did mean that fewer people were on the street, and the rationale was that it was a temporary measure, but you have to build houses while they're in there."

He said Labour was putting together a "suite of policies, a total package" when it came to housing.

Hipkins had also committed to scrapping the government's emergency housing target of reducing the number of people in emergency housing by 75 percent.

The coalition in January 2025 claimed to have met the target five years early, but on Sunday TVNZ's Q+A revealed officials were being routinely monitored on the number of people they allowed to access emergency housing.

McAnulty said it was "outrageous", pointing to examples raised where "their policies have been shutting out people in genuine need".

"Pregnant women, people being discharged from hospital, and - I think the most egregious example - women and children escaping domestic violence that were deemed to have contributed to their own homelessness because they had a home and chose to leave it.

"The whole time the ministers denied it, and now we find out that actually because of the government's policies MSD staff have been instructed to keep their targets and basically threatened with performance management if they don't.

Social Development Minister Louise Upston said responsibility for that lay with social housing minister Tama Potaka, but acknowledged requirement was MSD's way of achieving the target.

"Yes, similar to the way they do with a jobseeker target, there would have to be mechanisms for them to work through with their staff what that means.

"I would expect that MSD would operationalise government targets. How they do that is obviously up to them, but yes, they are government targets. We want them to focus on it."

Asked if she was comfortable with the approach taken, she said it was a "great outcome".

"The outcome is we do not want children growing up in motels. It was a lousy life. We have focused on it, and we have delivered way better outcomes for those children."

"There's a lot more assistance that is being provided to those families who come in, they come in seeking emergency housing support. Going into a motel isn't always the best option, and that's what the frontline staff are looking at.

"It's great to see the number of children in emergency housing has significantly reduced since that target was introduced."