Move-on Powers: Govt Ignored Homelessness Warnings
Move-on powers were sold as law and order, but the warnings were screaming from inside the machine. Police, Justice officials, social agencies and housing advocates all saw the same ugly truth: this does not solve homelessness. It just gives the state permission to shove it into the shadows.
Officials warned against an ‘offence of being homeless’. Ministers pushed ahead
The Press
Well, well, well.
Turns out that Police, Justice, Corrections, MSD, Oranga Tamariki and even Treasury all advised the Government NOT to pass the move-on powers.
They warned the Government that arresting 14 year olds would be detrimental. They warned it would clog the prison system. They warned it would shift the homeless from well-lit areas into dangerous back alleys. They warned it breached human rights. They warned the cost profile didn’t stack up and there was the warning that arresting the homeless could actually be dangerous.
So what did the Government do?
Why they rammed through the law anyway, despite the homelessness being caused by their own deeply flawed emergency housing policy.
Paul Goldsmith has been trying to arrest the homeless in NZ since 2008 when he was an Auckland City Councillor…
City aims to get homeless off streets
Council officers are working on ways to stop the homeless sleeping rough on city streets.
The move was prompted by complaints from the public about mattresses on footpaths, puddles of urine and people behaving offensively, especially near Aotea Square in the central city.
Auckland City Council’s community services committee has asked officers for ways to increase the council’s ability to intervene.
Councillor Paul Goldsmith has proposed asking Parliament to widen police powers to allow them to move rough sleepers along.
He said it was frustrating the council could order people around in all sorts of ways, but could not do anything about the people sleeping on footpaths.
NZ Herald
…20 years later Paul Goldsmith gets his wish and wants the power to prosecute the homeless if they refuse to move on, which proves that if you are a hateful prick for long enough, you too can be a National Party Cabinet Minister!
I saw a homeless guy with all his belongings begging outside Pak’nSave the other night with a sign.
“I need help. I’m begging. It beats stealing.”
Can’t really think I could say the same with our current CoC.
Words all but fail me on this matter. What have we been encouraged and manipulated into becoming? What elegant monsters have been created to move about amongst us? We’ve become servants to narcissists and sadists. Homeless people are homeless because they have no homes. Now, think about that while I rhyme off the stats. Our primary economy is agriculture comprising about *50,000 people of a gross population of about 5.3 million. Anz, asb, bnz and hideous and loathsome westpac, an always australian owned bank, are the second most profitable banks in the world, second only to Canada.
We, us lot, reportedly share our breathing space with 14 multi-billionaires, 3118 multi-millionaires each with a net base figure of $50 million and yet we have a pallid mouse-man finance minister whining about homelessness. Justice minister paul goldsmith, who’s on $ix figure$ plus expen$e$ whines about the poverty stricken and the down trodden being not a good look living in the gutters down-town.
What have we become? How did [it] get to this point? “Evil prevails when good people fail to act. ” Is an apt observation.
* Sheep and Beef: Over 23,000 farms are dedicated to sheep and beef, the largest agricultural sector.
So there’s another sugar coated lie.
Stats NZ
https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/agricultural-production-statistics-year-to-june-2023-final/
” Everything we see and seem is but a lie within a dream. ” Ol’ Ed Al Poe wrote something similar.
Solution. Farmers and @ Maori should demand a public, royal commission of inquiry up and into every atom of our politic and our economy from about 1936.
If only National hadn’t cancelled the State House build the homeles could have been moved on into homes.