Moving on: The controversial plan to shift people from Auckland city’s streets

Sunday, 23 November 2025

If rough sleepers are pushed out of Auckland’s CBD, Poppy wonders where it will end.

“They’ll move people down, down, down, right to the end of the South Island.”

Poppy’s been rough sleeping in the CBD most of his life and knows its streets like the back of his hand. He’s seen it all.

On Tuesday afternoon he sat quietly outside Woolworths asking politely for food and spare change with signs which said “please”, “thank you” and “God bless”. On the wall behind him was a sign saying begging and busking were prohibited. It didn’t stop him.

More people are living on the streets, he says, because “prices at the moment are bloody ridiculous”.

“The hardest thing in this world is life itself.”

A block away, the owner of Victoria St News Agency is still recovering after being attacked by a rough sleeper at 6.30am. Manager Bharat Patel says incidents now occur weekly.

The store’s 70-year-old owner was recently attacked by a rough sleeper at 6.30am and suffered a jaw injury. He now doesn’t come into his store as much as he used to.

Every week there’s an incident, says Patel.

“I’ve been working here for three years and I have seen it getting worse.”

Tourists can be put off by unpredictable behaviour, Patel says, and that hurts business. But he wants people to get help, not just be shifted along.

“As long as they’re getting moved on and getting a good place to stay for them as well, it’s fine.”

With the City Rail Link and Convention Centre due to open next year, pressure is mounting to make the CBD feel safer. SkyCity chief operating officer Callum Mallett says the city centre should be a “vibrant, safe and clean hub”, but right now “it is not consistently meeting that expectation”.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has said the Government is “definitely” considering move-on orders as part of a wider response, though “we can’t just move people around to different parts of the city”.

Mayor Wayne Brown has been blunter: the town looks good, he says, but “the people in it are scruffy”, and he has suggested police shift homeless people “out into the countryside”.

The Government has confirmed that move-on orders are on the table - sparking backlash from advocates who say pushing people around doesn’t fix the problem and argue the only way to fix homelessness is homes.

Who wants the move-on orders?

Central Auckland business groups have been asking ministers for stronger tools and urgent action to deal with antisocial behaviour. Heart of the City chief executive Viv Beck says police can ask someone to move on - “but that’s the limit”.

“If someone is behaving badly, being able to enforce [rules] would be very helpful,” she says. “There may need to be a strengthening of legislation.

“Think about a motorway; you don’t set up a picnic because you know you’re not allowed to stop there. It’s about having rules and enforcing them.”

Beck said the move-on orders had been largely misunderstood and people were conflating homelessness with people who were being intimidating. As she understood it, they would act as a prevention mechanism to disperse problematic situations before they escalated.

And every discussion she’s had has been in the context of there also being more solutions for social issues, housing and mental health.

“I haven't had any discussion around a homeless person. It's the behaviour that we're trying to have different tools to address.”

In her view, an order might require someone acting anti-socially to leave an area for 24 hours.

Newmarket Business Association chief executive Mark Knoff-Thomas, who has also been in the same meetings as Beck, says current tools like trespass notices don’t work if someone simply moves next door. A move-on order “has a bit more teeth”.

“We are largely supportive of move-on orders, because sometimes they can be used to de-escalate a situation which could be problematic for a whole bunch of reasons, whether it's anti-social behavior or it's causing a disturbance outside of business.

“So we think there's merit in being able to do that.”

But, he insists, such orders must be paired with “comprehensive, holistic” support so problems aren’t just pushed from Queen St to Broadway.

He says homelessness and antisocial behaviour are not to be conflated, but they can be connected.

“We've got a handful of people who are quite problematic because they're not getting the medical help they need, or they're not getting the shelter that they need, or they're not getting the services that they should be able to get access to.”

Where did the move on orders idea come from?

A group of ministers — including Auckland Minister Simeon Brown, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith, Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka — has been meeting with agencies and business groups concerned about rising rough sleeping and antisocial behaviour. The next meeting is in Auckland on Thursday.

Homelessness has more than doubled in the past year and a Heart of the City survey recently found more than 90% of central city businesses say rough sleeping is affecting trade.

The Sunday Star-Times understands move-on orders were brainstormed in one of these meetings and later mentioned publicly by Brown, allowing the idea to snowball before anything reached Cabinet. There is frustration inside the Beehive about how quickly it escalated.

Goldsmith says ministers are considering all options, and “nothing is off the table”. But there appears to be little appetite for criminalising homelessness or targeting people who are quietly sitting or sleeping and not bothering anyone.

Do move-on orders work?

International evidence shows move-on powers are widely used in cities trying to manage visible homelessness and street disorder but the results are mixed and often counter-productive.

Every state and territory in Australia has move-on orders, but several ombudsmen have found the powers are overwhelmingly used against people who are homeless, even when their behaviour is not threatening.

Studies in Queensland and New South Wales show police often issue orders simply to “clear” public spaces, pushing people into less visible and less safe locations. Rough sleepers reported increased fear, disrupted support relationships, and more contact with the justice system, without any reduction in antisocial behaviour.

Criminologists also warn the powers create a “churn” effect: people are continually moved but never stabilised so their problems simply reappear elsewhere. Multiple reviews conclude that housing and intensive support, not dispersal, are the only approaches shown to reduce street homelessness long-term.

How have housing advocates responded?

Housing advocates, which have also been meeting ministers, were alarmed by the idea. Auckland City Missioner Helen Robinson told RNZ move-on orders would be “totally and utterly ineffective”.

“All it simply does is either delay or literally move the person – and therefore all the needs associated with that person – down the road,” she said.

“The answer here is more homes and more support.”

Since the story broke, many advocates have pulled back from commenting while they wait to see the full package of proposals.

On the streets, rough sleepers say they’ve noticed the numbers are rising. Andrew Dean McCluthie, who has been homeless for five years, says people are now bedding down everywhere from the CBD to West Auckland bus stops.

“You’ve got old people living out here … young people with mental health issues,” he says.

He worries about what comes next. Houses and accommodation was the only solution, he said. “That’s all we want.”

– additional reporting Jonathan Killick

What do you think? Email sundayletters@stuff.co.nz. Please include your full name and address.