How begging and rough sleeping made it into the move-on orders bill
Friday, 10 July 2026
Officials from multiple government agencies advised Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith against using move-on orders to target survival behaviours like begging and rough sleeping.
Goldsmith overrode those recommendations and directed officials to include begging as a behaviour covered by the move-on powers.
The proposals were heavily steered by the Ministerial Advisory Group for Victims of Retail Crime, which was ultimately disbanded four months ahead of schedule after three of its five members resigned.
More than 600 pages of documents about the Government’s proposed move-on orders have been made public under the Official Information Act, exposing emails sent between agencies and draft advice prepared as officials sought to design a ban that satisfied ministers’ goals. Stuff’s political reporter Emma Ricketts looked through them to bring you the highlights. Today, how begging and rough sleeping made it into the bill.
When the Government announced plans to provide police with powers to issue move-on orders in February, the list of behaviours that would warrant orders caused immediate controversy.
Despite presenting them as “a tool to deal with disorderly behaviour in public places”, ministers had chosen to include all forms of begging and rough sleeping in the bill as well.
On Tuesday Stuff reported that even Police, who have consistently been held up by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith as capable of using the new powers fairly, did not support including those behaviours.
But that leaves the question - how did begging and rough sleeping come to be included, when nearly all of the government agencies consulted on the policy raised concerns?
2024
Development of the move-on orders began in 2024, with policy staff from the Ministry of Justice preparing a paper for Goldsmith, titled “Options for new tools to address anti-social behaviour in city centres”.
An email sent from a manager at the ministry to their police counterparts said Goldsmith had asked them to look at “retail crime initiatives” following the establishment of the (now-scrapped) Ministerial Advisory Group for Victims of Retail Crime.
The focus areas for the advice were anti-social behaviour, crime prevention technology and security guards, the manager said.
Five days later, another ministry employee followed up. They were also working on a briefing about options to tackle homelessness in city centres, and wanted to talk to police about the tools they had to manage homelessness or anti-social behaviour.
In response, a police policy manager acknowledged there “may be potential for creating public nuisance legislation”, but noted “this is made in the context of alcohol harm and street disorder, not homelessness”.
“The intent is for Police to be able to issue a notice to offenders to move and stay away from an area,” they said.
The work circulated by ministry officials at this stage was accompanied by a draft piece of legislation - the Safe Streets Bill.
“In addition to the draft briefing, you will find attached a copy of the draft Safe Streets Bill (please do not share this),” an email between ministry workers said.
That bill would have allowed police to issue “nuisance obstruction of public place” or “nuisance begging” directions. These would have required recipients to leave specified areas for a certain amount of time - like move-on orders.
In this iteration of the policy, “nuisance obstruction of a public place” meant occupying a public place in a way that caused disturbance to another, “lodging in the open air” in a public place, intimidating another person and more.
“Nuisance begging” included begging on or near public transport, within 10m of any businesses, ATMs and vending machines, or in a way that caused distress to others.
The advice that officials prepared for Goldsmith strongly recommended not moving forward with this bill.
“We consider that move-on orders, with appropriate penalties for non-compliance, would be a more effective tool in supporting Police to manage certain aggressive anti-social behaviours in city centres compared to the new offences in the Safe Streets Bill,” it read.
“Move-on orders could help Police to address certain anti-social behaviours like aggressive begging and threatening, or dangerous public intoxication. However, Police and councils agree that move-on orders should not be used to address survival behaviours associated with homelessness, like rough sleeping, general begging, or people experiencing mental health distress.”
2025
In August 2025, Goldsmith’s Ministerial Advisory Group on retail crime sent a draft options paper to government agencies for comment. The suggested options included move-on orders to deal with anti-social behaviour, a new offence for assaulting, threatening, or abusing retail workers, and geographical bans on begging.
A response from the Ministry of Justice - after extensive consultation across its policy teams - suggested “further consideration be given to how the application of move-on orders could be constrained to limit the potential net-widening effect as much as possible”.
Criminal justice responses should not be applied to non-criminal behaviours, they advised.
Around the same time, the ministry was preparing a paper for Goldsmith on “the intersection between homelessness and public disorder” for an upcoming meeting with ministers Upston (social development), Bishop (housing) and Potaka (emergency housing).
Internal emails showed officials had to scramble for information.
“We do not have a good evidence base to set out the scale of the issue and recent trends of anti-social behaviour in public places across New Zealand,” one said.
According to the document that was pulled together, the public perception that disorder is a prevalent issue in city centres came despite publicly available data on police proceedings indicating that public order, health, and safety offences were at a 10-year low.
The following month - and two days after the minsters’ meeting - a policy manager from the Ministry of Justice’s law enforcement team circulated an internal memo on the Ministerial Advisory Group’s proposals.
“We are currently preparing advice for the Minister on the MAG report, and on ways to strengthen responses to public disorder. It will likely propose: there is merit in progressing move-on powers in the Summary Offences Act, [but] we do not recommend progressing new offences for targeting retail workers and for begging in 'relevant areas',” she wrote.
The ministry then sought input from Police, Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, MSD, Oranga Tamariki, Crown Law and Corrections.
The resulting advice largely affirmed the position outlined in the internal memo.
New offences for targeting retail workers and begging in “relevant areas” were not recommended, but move-on orders, “with appropriate penalties for non-compliance”, could help to maintain public order.
However, “Police, councils, and social service agencies have advised that law enforcement responses to [survival behaviours undertaken by homeless people] are generally ineffective,” officials advised Goldsmith.
In October, Goldsmith was given a list of decisions to make. While he accepted most of the ministry’s recommendations on questions like establishing move-on powers in the Summary Offences Act (yes) and whether to progress with a new offence for targeting retail workers (no), he differed on the following:
Agree that move-on orders apply to behaviour that occurs in public places only. “Include places easily viewed from public places,” Goldsmith noted.
Agree that the threshold for issuing move-on orders would not include causing anxiety to another person. Goldsmith rejected this recommendation, although this did not ultimately end up in the bill.
Agree not to progress the MAG's proposal to create a criminal offence for begging in “relevant areas”. Goldsmith asked for further advice.
Ministry officials set about collecting advice from a range of government agencies again - all of which opposed creating a criminal offence for begging and raised reservations about move-on orders - and provided a document, titled “Responses to public disorder - outstanding policy decisions”, to Goldsmith’s office within the month.
On the proposed begging offence, this briefing noted there would be “little material difference to the public between sitting idly with a cup/sign out but not directly asking people for a contribution and the passive presence of a person (ie, sitting on the footpath without a sign/cup or loitering)”.
“The impact that this type of passive behaviour has on other people, including the harm it causes, is negligible,” officials wrote.
They also said the offence could be “an unjustified intrusion into people's rights”, and “viewed as an attempt to criminalise poverty”.
That was sent to Goldsmith’s office on a Friday. The following Tuesday, an email recorded the minister’s decision: “As discussed in Monday's Officials hui, the Minister would like begging to be included as a behaviour for which a move-on order can be issued. He does not want to create a separate offence for begging.”
Ministerial advisory group’s involvement
As outlined above, suggestions from the Ministerial Advisory Group for Victims of Retail Crime played a key role in this policy’s development.
Its recommendations steered officials’ advice and influenced the minister’s decisions.
However, the same day that Goldsmith directed officials to include begging as a behaviour for which a move-on order could be issued, RNZ revealed he had been warned of “concerning behaviour” from the group’s chair - Sunny Kaushal.
The group had previously faced criticism for its spending, including on catered meetings around New Zealand and for its inner-city Auckland office space.
RNZ said that in response to an official information request for any concerning behaviour from Kaushal, the Ministry of Justice confirmed one document fell within the scope. It refused to release the document or any information about it, but Goldsmith said it related to a “private matter” and he had complete confidence in Kaushal.
Two months later, three of the advisory group’s five members resigned with one citing a “very unpleasant environment”.
In February, the group was disbanded, four months earlier than planned.
Goldsmith said at the time that “the MAG has been very successful in getting all the work done.
“They’ve provided advice on, sort of, anti-social behaviour, which we’ll have more to say on the next couple of weeks,” he said.
The scope of the Government’s proposed move-on powers was announced 12 days later.