The New Zealand Law Society has warned that the Government’s Policing Amendment Bill, introduced by Police Minister Mark Mitchell, contains powers so loosely drafted that they could quietly drift from their stated purpose of preventing public disorder into a tool for shutting down peaceful political protest.
The bill, which is now before the Justice Select Committee with a report-back date of 27 July, comes in two parts. Part one expands police intelligence-gathering powers. Part two gives police the ability to declare an area off limits when public disorder is considered imminent, with the closure able to extend beyond roads into other public spaces such as parks, footpaths and forecourts. People who refuse to leave a declared zone face a $1,000 infringement fee, and a new offence applies to anyone who refuses to provide identifying details to officers enforcing the closure.
Mr Mitchell has said the bill as a whole is about “reinstating police’s ability to lawfully collect and record information to keep communities safe, not introducing new powers”. The Police Minister has said New Zealand Police have “a strong, long-standing track record of upholding civil liberties and human rights” and that he remained open to feedback as the bill progressed through Parliament.
The Law Society does not share the Government’s confidence. Its written submission to the select committee, drafted with the help of constitutional law specialist Paul Rishworth KC, raises the prospect of “creep in their use into the field of legitimate protest”. Mr Rishworth has said the bill “needs to be reconsidered as to how it all applies to public protest”, warning that the closure power as drafted does not properly distinguish between an unlawful disorderly mob and a peaceful demonstration that simply happens to inconvenience members of the public.
Three changes are recommended in the submission. First, the Society wants Parliament to add preconditions on when a closure can be declared, so a vague public safety objective cannot be invoked against legitimate political activity. Second, it wants the new infringement offences removed, on the basis that summary fines for being in a public space are a heavy tool to give to a single officer in the heat of the moment. Third, it wants police to be legally required to report regularly on how often the power is used, against whom, and with what outcomes, so Parliament and the public can see whether the authority is being applied as intended.
The concerns are sharpened by what has happened across the Tasman. In New South Wales, a similar Public Assembly Restriction Declaration scheme was enacted after the Bondi Beach attack and was recently thrown out by the state’s top court for breaching constitutional protections on political communication. Before being struck down, the regime was used in February 2026 to declare a zone covering a pro-Palestinian protest in Sydney, where police and demonstrators clashed violently. Timothy Roberts, president of the NSW Council of Civil Liberties, told RNZ that “the police were completely inflexible. So they could have released the crowd to march on from the area peaceably. But because of the political pressure, the legislative framework, they didn’t. And that inflexibility led to some really serious violence.” Samantha Lee of Sydney’s Redfern Legal Centre said the courts had found the regime sat outside the limits of the Australian constitution.
The Police Association of New Zealand has pushed back hard against the Law Society’s submission. Its president, Steve Watt, has rejected the suggestion that the new closure powers could be misused, saying he “can’t see police using this law as a method of shutting down lawful protests”. His view is essentially that frontline officers can be trusted to apply the law as intended, and that if a problem emerges in practice the courts and complaints processes will deal with it.
That confidence is not universally shared inside the policing system itself. The Independent Police Conduct Authority’s 2025 review of how officers handled a series of high-profile demonstrations found “uncertainty and inconsistency” in the way protest rights were being applied on the ground. The Authority recommended that the Government consider explicit legislation to protect the right to peaceful assembly. The supporting documents released alongside the bill do not appear to address that recommendation, even though officials are using the same incidents to justify the new closure powers.
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner has separately opposed the bill, focusing on the part-one expansion of intelligence-gathering. The Commissioner’s submission argues that the oversight provisions are too thin given the scale of the data police would be able to collect on members of the public, including those who have not been suspected of any offence.
Politically, the bill puts National in an awkward position. It was Mr Mitchell who, in opposition, criticised the previous Labour Government for being soft on disorder around occupations and roadworks. Bringing forward a bill that allows police to clear public space on a relatively low threshold is consistent with that rhetoric. But the Government also campaigned on protecting civil liberties from what it described as overreach by the previous administration, and a bill that the Law Society warns could chill political protest is uncomfortable territory for any National-led coalition.
The Justice Select Committee will hear oral submissions in the coming weeks, with the bill expected to return to the House later this year. Whether Parliament tightens the closure trigger, removes the infringement offences, or simply pushes the bill through unchanged will say a great deal about how the current Government balances public order against the ordinary right to gather, march and dissent.
Voters who want a simple way to compare what each party is saying about civil liberties, policing and protest before the 2026 general election can use the Newswire Voting Tool to line their priorities up against every party’s published policy.
What do you think? Should the Policing Amendment Bill be tightened before it becomes law, or are the Law Society’s concerns overblown? Leave a comment below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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