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10:00 am, February 23rd, 2026 - 20 comments
Categories: crime, Economy, law, law and "order", paul goldsmith, poverty, Social issues, uncategorized -
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I remember being a Duty Solicitor in the Auckland District Court a few decades ago.
The Police had decided to round up all the prostitutes on Karangahape Road and charge them with soliciting.
The offence was punishable by a fine only. It was as low level as the Summary Offences Act allowed. It is difficult to comprehend why so many of the Police’s finest should be sent in to regulate pretty minor offending.
One defendant who after having spent a night in the cells and having been given a fine said to the Judge words to the effect of …
You mean another hard night on the streets just to pay the fine?”
It was thirty plus years ago. I can’t remember the exact words used. But the response summed up for me perfectly how ludicrous it was to give poor people fines when they were trying to keep their heads above water.
The lawyers in tbe Court silently laughed. The Judge seethed. The defendant walked out of the dock with her mana significantly enhanced. I hope she went on to live a very fulfilling life.
Poor people have to do all sorts of things to survive. Sleeping rough, begging, solicitation, petty crime, they are all good people who have struck hard times. There but for the grace of God go all of us. And the longer we allow them to live in abject poverty the harder it is for them to return to a normal life.
This is not a recent problem. For centuries the right have imagined that being homeless suggests some sort of moral unworthiness.
As stated in that famous saying by Anatole France “[t]he law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich and the poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread”.
It seems that the wealthy, or at least the right wing wealthy, have a dim view of the poor.
They are somehow morally unworthy. Because of some personal flaw they were not born in rich families, they did not attend Auckland Grammar, they are not members of the Northern Club and they are not National Party members.
I struggle with the right’s hatred of them. I share a comparable hatred for wealthy businessmen who attack unions, industry oligarchs who fund anti climate change campaigns, and Atlas sorts who just want to watch the world burn because it is more profitable for them. I have never felt the same about homeless people.
National’s recently announced policy concerning move on orders is practised cruelty.
They have created a situation where the number of homeless has increased significantly.
Now they want to exercise institutional cruelty on them because this is good for their re-election chances.
So National’s policy proposal will mean that poor people will be either moved on or criminalised or both.
Whatever happens rich people will not be affected.
As said by Kieran McAnaulty about the policy:
It doesn’t create a single new bed, it doesn’t provide support, and it doesn’t deliver a permanent roof over someone’s head. It just shifts the problem out of sight. Without real solutions to the homelessness problem, this further penalises people who have little or nothing.”
And it appears that for a long time Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has had a problem with homeless people. In 2008 as an Auckland City Councillor he championed a bylaw under which someone found begging without a permit could be required to leave the area. Failure to do so would constitute an offence punishable a fine of up to $20,000.
At the time the Council budgeted $220,000 for security guards to move the homeless on. The problem was not huge at the time and this sum could have provided shelter for many of them. As noted at the time by then Councillor Cathy Casey:
[D]o Aucklanders really want to have police clear the central business district of beggars and homeless people? The sad fact is there is nowhere for them to be moved on to.
The poor house closed down many years ago. The police would just end up displacing the problem to the suburbs. In the end, the only option that’s left is to arrest them. Do we really want our jails filling up with itinerants, as they once were under the Vagrancy Act?
This is typical National Party. Address a problem by hiding it. And show no understanding and no compassion but use the forces of the state in the cruellest way imaginable.
No surprise to see goldsmith finally enacting what he's longed for since his days as John Banks PA.
Homeless has grown in an entirely predictable way after they smashed social housing also it's a poor use of scarce police resources.
Another cynical election year move from the no boats, no growth, no ideas coalition of cruelty.
A problem with the right's model is it assumes everyone is the same and is able to participate in the rules-based wage economy the way it is. Yet another example of people who can't participate being punished by people who make those rules.
Seems to me this government has done all measure of things to stuff up the economy. No point repeating them here.
Rather than face the tribulations they've caused all but a few of us, they pretend the economy has turned the corner and so it's people's own fault if they haven't drunk the Koolaid.
The punishment they are about to mete out is what should be directed at them, if they had the cahones to admit it.
Performative garbage to throw fresh meat to those who love punishing Luxon's "bottom feeders".
From today it's two hundred and fifty eight days to go and counting down………………
Yes. Counting and talking to the locals who are homeless as well.
Kat. Unfortunately this is a populist policy that won't lose them any votes. And on current polling, they will be returned.
Anybody who goes near our city centres will know what a huge issue this is. Residents, shoppers and business owners don't enjoy walking past homeless people covered in filth asleep at midday.
The problem is the government's policy doesn't fix the problem. It just moves it or hides it.
I am no longer amazed at what the right wing will do to their fellow humans, not to mention the whole biosphere.
Yet if they are ever called out for their lack of moral values, it somehow seems to bounce right off them, and that bodes badly for everybody.
Seriously, if they consider this a solution for homelessness they are dreaming and we all know it. It is clear they do not want to actually SOLVE homelessness. They want them there to use as a punching bag – to teach not just them, but the rest of us as to the consequences of not knuckling down and kowtowing to our masters.
I'm a mental health support worker with very challenging people (more often than not from quite damaging upbringings, brought about by poverty), often we have to lock ourselves in a room while they smash a place up (instead of smashing us up). We got the word a year or so back that the police won't come anymore to help us out but they can find the time to do this? & also, where will the homeless people go once they leave the police station? Courthouse? This govt love chaos & making money ouot of other peoples misery.
The people voted for this, and they keep on voting for it. They want it, then complain when it happens. Once again, this is on the voters, they enable the politicians.
I'm assuming that the intelligent leaders of the national party are ensuring that's these poor people are being taken to a place of safety and having the appropriate services that these people need to help them waiting for them .
If not there obviously just horrible little turds.
It now costs $201480 -or $552 a day – to keep a sentenced inmate in a New Zealand prison each year.
A person can get three years for 'not moving on', meaning $604,440 total cost of imprisonment, plus court costs, police time and resources.
To build a standard to mid-range home, some estimates starting at $2,500 for basic builds per square metre. At a standard $3000 per sq.m. $201480 would build 67 sq m of a basic build.. 70 sq.m. is the size of a granny flat.
What if all those NZ taxpayers who look down their noses at the "bottom feeders" paid their full taxes rather than dodging their social responsibilities? How much of our housing and care for the needy would that extra revenue, nearly $10 billion last year, take care of?
We need to place these law breakers in the context of what they deny their fellow citizens in this debate about how we treat our poorest and needy citizens, rather than threaten three years imprisonment costing $600,000 per individual.
Fining those in poverty is par for the course for these worshippers of Mammon.
Cut the budget for hungry children's lunches.
Take Pay Equity away from the poorly paid.
Yeah right. Fine them up to $2000 and they'll really have to beg harder A better choice would be up to 3 months in one of his majesty's prisons with a bed and meals. Our government are stupids. In Indonesia real beggars have a government certificate of authenticity.
… and Indonesian culture includes the Islamic "pillar" of giving alms.
From Auckland Councillor Richard Hills Facebook
Government changes in 2024 have dramatically increased homelessness, and now the same Govt will arrest, fine, or imprison those harmed by these changes. The Govt are punishing vulnerable people because of the Govt’s own heartless actions.
The Government changed access to social housing, reduced accommodation in Auckland from 890 places to 39 in one year, and cut emergency housing grants by 70-80% ($20m). Since then, individuals rough sleeping in our city have increased by 100%.
There you have the biggest cause of the problem – this damn Government.
It's not stupidity it's evil.
Yes.
and it's intentional
They want it to be like this
A Prime Minister who seldom associated himself too closely with problems, sees sweeping outcomes under the carpet as problem solved.
To see "Moving on" rules "fines" and "imprisonment.' ,,,,,,and then? forced work "to set you free?' This is not NZ. This is another cruel culture.
This Government does not accept they have caused the homelessness. Vote this CoC out!!
The Kākā by Bernard Hickey. Thank you for doing the maths. Well less than 10c per person a year.
No dog whistle too revolting to advance the austerity agenda.
https://thekaka.substack.com/p/govt-threatens-to-imprison-homeless
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"National’s recently announced policy concerning move on orders is practised cruelty."
whether it's practised cruelty or plain ignorance and lack of imagination makes no difference, the effect is the same
them National party people seem to have no understanding about what it's like to be unable to afford to comply with their regs
another example is registering your car – you can't register until you have a current WOF. all good unless you can't get a wof because you need some repair that you can't afford. so if you don't have a wof, instead of being fined for just that, you get a double whammy because you're fined for having no current rego as well. the Nats don't seem to have the imagination to understand this.
if you could just register the car regardless that would help