A group of lawyers has told Parliament that a proposed law giving police power to ask rough sleepers and beggars to move on needs major changes before it should go ahead.

The bill is currently being looked at by a select committee — a small group of MPs who examine a proposed law in detail and hear from the public before it goes to a vote. The bill would let police tell people begging or rough sleeping to move elsewhere. If someone refuses, the penalty under the bill is a fine, not prison.

Julie-Anne Kincade KC, who leads the Law Association's Criminal Law Committee, told RNZ's Nine to Noon that the committee was not against the idea behind the bill but felt changes were needed. She said the bill should not "unfairly criminalise what is currently non-criminal behaviour."

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith defended the bill by pointing to behaviours not covered by existing move-on powers — people shouting or swearing at others, lying in a sleeping bag, and putting up makeshift dwellings on public streets.

Kincade drew a line between those examples. The committee believed lying in a sleeping bag should not be criminalised, she said, unlike shouting or being aggressive, which is disruptive.

The committee raised three specific concerns about how the bill is written.

First, there is no limit on how far someone can be told to move. A person could be directed to move an unspecified distance, with no maximum set in law.

Second, the committee said the bar for police to issue a move-on order is very low and should be raised. A higher bar would mean police need a stronger reason before using the power.

Third, the committee suggested the penalty for refusing a move-on order be raised to imprisonment. That might sound odd coming from lawyers who usually defend people. But the reasoning is practical: under New Zealand's sentencing system, if the maximum penalty includes prison, judges can also choose lighter options like supervision or community work. If the only penalty is a fine, judges have no other options — and a fine may be impossible to enforce against someone who is rough sleeping.

The submission therefore pushes in two directions at once: narrowing what behaviour the bill covers, while giving judges more options when someone refuses to move.

The broader context here is a familiar tension in laws like this. Move-on powers sit between keeping public order and protecting the rights of some of the most vulnerable people in the community. The threshold question, the lack of a distance limit, and the penalty structure all affect how often the power might be used, against whom, and what happens if someone says no.

Goldsmith's framing — pointing to aggressive behaviour and makeshift dwellings — suggests the government's intent is targeting disruption and encampments, not someone simply being present. But the committee's concern that lying in a sleeping bag could be caught by the bill's wording goes to whether the law as written actually matches that narrower goal.

The select committee process is where those tensions get tested. Submissions from groups like the Law Association carry weight, not because they force the committee to act, but because they point out problems in the drafting that MPs may recommend fixing in a revised version.

The bill is still at select committee stage. Any changes would need to come through the committee's report back to Parliament or through government amendments as the bill moves through the House.