The Government has introduced the Summary Offences (Demonstrations Near Residential Premises) Amendment Bill.
This Bill makes it an offence to engage in anything that could be considered a disruptive demonstration near a house of a person that is targeted by the protest. The Bill includes a criteria for deciding whether a protest could be considered an unreasonable disruption, considerations include for example the time of day, duration, actions and distance.
The Bill is focused on protecting the privacy of people, including MPs in their private homes. We believe this is an important issue, we know activists and MPs are facing serious threats. However, this Bill would significantly limit the right to protest in a way that could have a chilling impact on society. It contains fundamental problems that means it’s not the right solution to this problem.
We call on the Government to halt this Bill immediately. Ultimately there is urgent work to be done to better protect MPs and activists. This should be carried out by engaging with people who are especially impacted to develop solutions that are effective and upholds human rights. This Bill is not the solution.
Current status
The Bill has been introduced to Parliament and has is now at the Select Committee stage. See the next section!
What you can do
The Bill is currently at Select Committee, and the Committee has invited submissions. The closing date for submissions is 2.00pm on Monday, 06 October 2025. You can make a submission by clicking here. You are welcome to use any content on this website.
Key concerns
- The Bill could criminalise legitimate protest: Our main concern is that the Bill will capture legitimate protest that should not be criminalised. The Ministry of Justice itself in a Regulatory Impact Statement warned that the Bill “[m]ay capture some conduct that is not traditionally subject to criminal sanction.” (p. 20). Notably the Bill does not exclude what are often important sites of protest, such as embassies, it would include Premier House.
- The Bill isn’t necessary: There are laws already in place to deal with issues such as threatening behaviour. We question then what activity the Bill is intended to capture if not the activity the criminal law already captures. We’re concerned this will capture protest activity that in a healthy, thriving democracy should not be criminalised.
- The Bill is unclear: An overarching concern is the vagueness of the Bill, which is dangerous. The Bill limits protest that could be considered an unreasonable disruption. Although there is proposed criteria in the Bill to help try and define unreasonable disruption, this criteria itself is vague. For example, the criteria references nearness to a residential premise, but what counts as nearness? There is no maximum distance given. What if a protest was occurring at protest site that is near a private residence of the person targeted, for example the War Memorial, Cuba Street or Parliament? In defining disruption, the Bill seems to require that the protest includes “disruption” to the ability of any regular occupant of those premises to enter or leave those premises. Again this is incredibly vague. We note more defined terms such as “impede” or “block” have not been used, which to us signals a concerning intent to capture broad activity. We come back to the problem of vagueness and a lack of clarity.
- Relies on Police discretion: The Bill brings a huge amount of Police discretion in the application of the criteria to what is a critical right. We are concerned about the potential for discriminatory and inconsistent decision-making.
- Arrest without warning: If the intent is to remove unreasonable disruption, why is there no requirement for Police to order people to disperse before they’re arrested and charged?
- Harsh penalties: The proposed offence carries penalties of up to three months in prison or a $2,000 fine. This is a harsh penalty and the Bill does not even include a warning system before a person is criminalised for the protest they have carried out.
- Chilling effect on protest: We are deeply concerned all of this creates a chilling effect. The lack of clarity and vagueness creates uncertainty. As a result people may feel too uncertain about what is allowed or not, and therefore don’t protest so not to risk the significant penalties this Bill proposes.
- This framework could be abused or set us on a path towards even more restrictions: Globally we are seeing a rise in authoritarian practices and serious human rights regression. Aotearoa is not immune from these trends. We are seeing policies chipping away at our foundations and a number of policies with serious human rights concerns. We question if this Bill was to go ahead, where is the line? Why not then include work places for example? We’re concerned this is putting us on slippery slope where such justifications can be used to limit the right to protest in more ways.