Move Them On
A Defining Moment in Who We Are Becoming
The Government’s proposed “move on” powers targeting people sleeping rough should stop us in our tracks.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has defended the policy by saying it’s about ensuring people don’t feel “intimidated,” that public spaces must be safe, that police need the tools to respond when rough sleeping becomes disruptive.
On the surface, that language sounds measured.
But sit with it for a moment.
We are describing people with nowhere to live as a source of intimidation.
We are framing visible poverty as a public order issue.
We are positioning the discomfort of passers-by as politically urgent.
That is not neutral language.
That is a choice.
“Move On” to Where?
The policy would allow police to issue orders requiring people sleeping rough to leave an area.
The question that seems almost too obvious to ask is:
Move on to where?
If someone has no stable housing, no secure tenancy, no access to emergency accommodation - what exactly are we directing them toward?
A different doorway?
A different park?
A less visible corner?
This is not a housing solution.
It is spatial management.
And when the Prime Minister defends it as necessary to stop people feeling unsafe or intimidated, it reveals something far deeper than legislative tinkering.
It reveals a hierarchy of whose discomfort counts.
Just When We Thought We Knew
Many of us have already felt uneasy watching the tone of this coalition government unfold - in education, in social policy, in its rhetoric about “personal responsibility” and “getting back on track.”
But this feels like a ramping up.
Just when we thought we were seeing the governing philosophy clearly, it sharpens.
Because this is not about tweaking welfare settings.
It is not about bureaucratic reform.
It is about deciding that the visibility of human suffering is politically intolerable.
And that removing it, not resolving it, is an acceptable response.
There is a difference between being tough on systems and being tough on people.
This crosses that line.
The Politics of Optics
Luxon has repeatedly framed the issue as restoring order and ensuring public spaces are usable for everyone.
But let’s interrogate that.
Public space in a democracy is not curated for aesthetic perfection. It reflects the full spectrum of society, including inequality.
When the state steps in to clear away those who disrupt the visual narrative of prosperity, we have shifted from governance to optics.
We are no longer asking:
Why are more people ending up without secure housing?
Why is emergency accommodation stretched?
Why are mental health and addiction services so fractured?
We are asking:
How quickly can we tidy this up?
That is a fundamentally different moral posture.
Language as Policy
When leaders use words like “intimidation” in reference to rough sleepers, it does more than justify legislation.
It reframes the unhoused as a threat.
And once that framing sticks, compassion becomes weakness.
Enforcement becomes common sense.
Visibility becomes provocation.
This is how societies slowly recalibrate what is acceptable - not through dramatic declarations, but through tone. Through repetition. Through normalising the idea that some people are problems to be managed rather than citizens to be supported.
The Pattern Is Familiar
Followers of Curiosity Creator will recognise this pattern.
In education, we have seen increasing emphasis on control, compliance, and standardisation - tightening the system in response to complexity.
Struggling students? Tighten the curriculum.
Underperforming schools? Increase oversight.
Uncomfortable data? Shift the playing field.
Now we are seeing a similar reflex socially.
Visible homelessness? Increase enforcement.
Public discomfort? Increase police powers.
Control over curiosity.
Order over humanity.
Optics over dignity.
Different sector. Same instinct.
A Defining Political Moment
This is why this moment matters.
Because it signals what kind of leadership we are normalising.
Strong leadership does not confuse visibility with threat.
Strong leadership does not respond to suffering with displacement.
Strong leadership does not describe the powerless in the language of intimidation.
If anything, strong leadership absorbs discomfort and directs it toward structural solutions.
Housing supply.
Mental health investment.
Addiction services.
Preventative social policy.
Those are hard, slow, politically unrewarding fixes.
“Move on” is fast.
It is visible.
It signals action.
But it does not signal humanity.
The Question We Cannot Avoid
This is not a left-versus-right argument.
It is a moral one.
When someone is sleeping outside in a country with the resources and institutional capacity that New Zealand has, the scandal is not their presence.
It is the conditions that placed them there.
If our response is to move them along rather than move toward them, we are defining ourselves in ways that will echo far beyond this bill.
Just when we thought we understood the trajectory of this coalition government, it has shown us something sharper.
History tends to remember the moments when nations decided whether discomfort or dignity would lead.
Right now, we are being tested.
The question is not whether our streets look tidy.
The question is whether we still recognise each other as human when it matters most.
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“The question is whether we still recognise each other as human when it matters most.” Clearly, Christopher Luxon will not, cannot, and does not, recognise us as humans when it matters most. And that fact should be a wake up call to every New Zealander. Forget left and right, think rich and poor. Those with, and those without, a home to go to. Luxon’s framing of nearly everything is individualistic, capitalistic, competitive, and neoliberalist. KPIs for this, growth-growth-growth for that. His deep state institutionalisation in capitalism has shaped his mindset to manage the status quo,look for efficiencies and maximise profit. That is the operating system Luxon has been programmed with, and it’s not what New Zealand needs.
Hi Dr Sarah,
This is a very cathartic read. You are spot on.
Just to add my two cents.
I think politicians are exploiting the prejudice that some kiwis have against certain groups of people in society.
It is often said that politicians are out of touch... they are not! We tell ourselves that to reassure ourselves that their decisions do not reflect our values. In reality, so many people have voted for this and will support this policy and others like it.
I don't know what proportion of Kiwis support these kinds of cruel and unproductive policies but if the polls are anything to go by.... it's not the minority we assume it is.