Stalking becomes a stand-alone criminal offence in New Zealand from today, with anyone convicted facing up to five years in prison and a ten-year ban on holding a firearms licence. The change closes a long-criticised gap in the law and gives police a single, named offence to charge in cases that until now have had to be pieced together from harassment, trespass and digital communications statutes.
The new offence sits in the Crimes Act 1961 under the Crimes Legislation (Stalking and Harassment) Amendment Act 2025, which received Royal Assent on 26 November 2025 and was given a six-month lead-in so courts, prosecutors and frontline police could be trained before it began to bite. That lead-in expires today.
Under the new law, a person commits stalking if they engage in a pattern of behaviour against another person on at least two separate occasions within a two-year period, knowing it is likely to cause that person fear or distress. The list of behaviours that count is unusually broad. It covers watching, following, loitering near or obstructing someone, recording or tracking them, repeatedly contacting them, damaging their property or pets, harming their reputation, opportunities or relationships, and publishing identifying information about them, which captures so-called doxing. Acts directed at third parties connected to the victim, such as family members or workmates, are also covered.
The drafters were explicit that the behaviour can happen in person or through any digital channel, including drones, spyware, tracking applications and the use of artificial intelligence to impersonate or harass someone. That breadth is unusual for criminal legislation, and was a deliberate response to evidence that stalking has moved decisively online over the past decade.
Police do not have to wait for two incidents to act. A constable can issue a formal written notice after a single specified act, warning the person that their behaviour may amount to stalking. The notice carries legal weight. As Inspector Natasha Allan explained in police material released with the law change, a notice “creates a legal presumption that the person is aware their behaviour is causing fear or distress”. If the behaviour continues after the notice has been served, that presumption strengthens any later prosecution. Police must also inform the victim that a notice is being issued and develop a safety plan with them.
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith, who introduced the bill, described the change as “long overdue” when it passed unanimously in late November. The unanimous vote was significant in itself. Stalking law reform had been recommended in various forms since the 1990s but never quite cleared the parliamentary timetable.
The catalyst for finally getting the bill across the line was the 2022 murder of 21-year-old Auckland law student Farzana Yaqubi by a man she had reported to police multiple times. The Independent Police Conduct Authority later found significant failings in how her concerns had been handled. Her case made it impossible to argue that the patchwork of existing offences was working.
Chief Victims Advisor Ruth Money welcomed the law coming into force, telling RNZ that it was “a step in the right direction” and that “the law will protect people against this pattern of behaviour, which has never been done before”. The point about pattern matters. Until now, each incident in a stalking campaign was prosecuted, if at all, as an isolated event, which often understated the cumulative menace the victim was living with.
Advocacy groups have been more guarded. Leonie Morris of Aotearoa Free From Stalking said the law had “significant potential to make stalking victim-survivors and all our communities safer”, but warned that implementation and resourcing would determine whether it lived up to its promise. Specialist stalking advocates inside support services have not been funded, and several frontline organisations are facing budget cuts at the same time the new offence comes online. “The law isn’t quite everything we hoped for,” she said, “but it is better than the bill that was first introduced.”
The Auckland Women’s Centre has released a companion guide, Your options and rights if someone is stalking you, hassling you or just won’t leave you alone, which sets out digital and physical safety steps, summarises legal remedies, and includes a flowchart for navigating police, civil orders and protection orders. It was developed with input from frontline practitioners, legal experts, victim-survivors and partner organisations.
The Centre’s guidance to victims is blunt. If police appear to minimise the complaint, “stand your ground”, it advises, and reminds readers that under the Victims’ Rights Act 2002 police are legally obliged to treat victims with courtesy and respect. Morris said some stalking victim-survivors received good support from the police, “but many others have had their concerns minimised”, which is precisely the dynamic the formal-notice system is meant to disrupt.
The scale of the problem is larger than most New Zealanders realise. Clinical psychologist Alan Underwood, cited in 1News reporting on the law, estimates about 20 percent of women and 10 percent of men will be stalked at some point in their lives. The vast majority know the person stalking them. Ex-partners account for the largest single group of offenders, which is why the new offence has been folded into the Family Violence Act’s definition of psychological violence and can trigger protection orders.
The firearms consequence will also reach beyond stalking itself. A conviction now triggers a ten-year disqualification from holding a firearms licence, and the new offence can be used as an aggravating factor at sentencing for other crimes. Police have said more than 80 percent of frontline staff completed online training for the law before today’s commencement date, and further face-to-face training is rolling out through the rest of the year.
For victims who have spent years collecting screenshots, logging incidents and being told there is nothing the police can do, today is the day that calculus changes. Whether the law lives up to its potential will depend less on the statute itself and more on what happens in the first hundred or so notices and prosecutions police take through the system in the coming months.
Have you or someone you know been affected by stalking, or do you think the new law goes far enough? Let us know in the comments 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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