Community Housing Aotearoa Chief Executive Paul Gilberd joins The Front Page to talk about the real impact on people experiencing homelessness.
A former rough sleeper believes the Government’s proposed move-on law ignores challenges faced by Māori, at a time when unemployment rates are at a 10-year high.
The Justice Minister has declined to answer questions about how or whether the Government considered systemic issues for Māori when drafting new powersto move beggars and rough sleepers from an area for up to 24 hours.
Veronica Avis Ngawhare Peneha-Whakatutu was living on the streets of Wellington up until two months ago, when she got a job after taking her Māori name off her CV.
She said the orders felt like a punishment for Māori, who she felt were disproportionately affected.
Unemployment is at an all-time high, with Māori unemployment at 11.2% in the December 2025 quarter, more than twice the national average according to Stats NZ.
Veronica Avis Ngawhare Peneha-Whakatutu on her first night on the streets in 2017.
“The system has been built in a way where it keeps us Māori down,” Peneha-Whakatutu said.
Living on the streets in Wellington, she said she was treated as a “peasant” or “scum”.
She claimed she was turned away from both Work and Income and Women’s Refuge, as she had family the organisations believed could help her - however they refused to take her in.
She believed the new law unfairly impacted Māori, as well as those with mental illnesses.
With references and a decent work history on her CV, Peneha-Whakatutu was struggling to get into work and off the streets.
Rough sleepers risk fines of up to $2000 with the new legislation. Photo / NZ Herald
Originally from Taranaki, she normally got jobs through connections and felt she could embrace her tikanga.
But in the capital, a friend on the streets gave her a harsh reality: “He told me, ‘Down here they’re ignorant, they don’t want us saying our Māori names.’”
Once she began using her Pākehā name, she quickly secured a job.
“I think it would be awesome if the Government put themselves into the positions of the people that they’re asking to behave,” she said.
“It still feels like they’re trying to not let us be heard as Māori, as tangata whenua.”
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith leads the proposed move-on powers for people begging or sleeping rough.
She understood that some rough sleepers were on the streets by choice, and had grown accustomed to the lifestyle.
“But then there’s those few that have genuinely got nothing, got no one, got nowhere, and I was one of those people.”
