The New Zealand government is defending new police powers to forcibly move homeless people from public spaces, the latest development in a housing crisis that mirrors Australia's struggles with affordability and street homelessness.
The move-on powers allow police to order people to leave specific areas - parks, footpaths, public squares - without needing to charge them with an offense. Opposition politicians and housing advocates say it criminalizes poverty rather than addressing the underlying lack of affordable housing.
Mate, there's a pattern here across the Tasman. Both Australia and New Zealand are choosing enforcement over housing-first solutions, and it's not working.
The policy comes from a coalition government that campaigned on "law and order" and "getting tough" on visible homelessness in city centers. Wellington, Auckland, and Christchurch have all seen increases in rough sleeping over the past five years, driven by the same factors plaguing Australian cities: rising rents, stagnant wages, insufficient social housing stock, and inadequate mental health services.
Defenders argue the powers aren't about persecution - they're about maintaining public order and directing people toward support services. The reality on the ground tends to be messier. Police move people along, they relocate to another spot, police move them again. The cycle repeats without addressing why they're on the streets in the first place.
Australia has seen the same playbook in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. Move-on powers exist in all states, and they're used liberally. Study after study shows they don't reduce homelessness - they just shift it around, making vulnerable people more vulnerable while creating the appearance of action.
The housing affordability crisis in both countries has the same roots: decades of treating housing as an investment vehicle rather than a human right, tax policies that favor property speculation, insufficient public housing construction, and planning systems that restrict supply in areas with high demand.
New Zealand's median house price-to-income ratio hit 10:1 in recent years, among the worst in the developed world. Australia isn't far behind. Both countries have large populations locked out of homeownership, struggling with unaffordable rents, and - for the most vulnerable - ending up on the streets.
Giving police more powers to move people doesn't build houses. It doesn't fund mental health services. It doesn't address the structural inequality that puts people on the street in the first place. What it does is make homelessness less visible to the middle class, which is probably the point.
Opposition MPs in Wellington have called the policy cruel and counterproductive. Housing advocates note that New Zealand has international human rights obligations that include the right to adequate housing. Moving people from public spaces without providing alternatives arguably violates those commitments.
The government's response has been that move-on powers are one tool among many, that support services are available, and that public spaces need to be accessible to everyone - not dominated by rough sleepers. Fair enough, in theory. In practice, enforcement tends to come easier than services.
The comparison with Australia is instructive. Both countries pride themselves on egalitarianism and the "fair go." Both have strong economies and relatively high per-capita incomes. And both have allowed housing policy to become so dysfunctional that police powers are now being used to manage the visible symptoms of systemic failure.
There are alternatives. Finland virtually eliminated rough sleeping through Housing First policies - give people homes unconditionally, then provide support services. It costs money upfront, but it's cheaper than the cycle of emergency services, police interventions, and court appearances that characterize the enforcement approach.
New Zealand and Australia have the resources to do better. What's lacking isn't money - it's political will to treat housing as a right rather than a commodity, and to accept that visible homelessness is a policy failure that requires structural solutions, not police powers.
Moving people along is easy. Actually housing them takes work. The question is which approach we're willing to fund.
