This submission is made in relation to the Policing Amendment Bill 2026 (“the Bill”).

 

The New Zealand Outdoors & Freedom Party Board thanks Alison Pavlovich for NZ Outdoors & Freedom Party for your work on the Submission on the Policing Amendment Bill 2026. The Submission is our our website here https://nzofp.co.nz/submission-on-the-policing-amendment… (Where you can find all of our submissions to parliament) and below …

Submission on the Policing Amendment Bill 2026

Introduction

The NZ Outdoors & Freedom Party (“NZOFP”) is a registered political party under the Electoral Act.

Its focus is to advocate for and empower New Zealanders’ health, wellbeing and connection with nature and to protect the fundamental rights of New Zealanders and our environment from abuse of power.

This submission is made in relation to the Policing Amendment Bill 2026 (“the Bill”).

The Bill proposes to introduce, in two parts, new powers for the Police. The first new power is to grant police the ability to record images and sounds of people in public places where the police officer considers it may be, essentially, useful to the police in the future. The second new power allows a police officer to close access to traffic to an area where they believe circumstances have or may arise from a list of possible scenarios. This list could include protest action and includes the use of a noisy vehicle.

The NZ Outdoors & Freedom Party opposes the proposed changes that undermine the right not be subjected to unreasonable search and seizure, the right to privacy and any other fundamental rights of New Zealanders.

New power to capture and retain images and sounds

NZOFP opposes the general granting of a sweeping power to police officers to capture images and sounds of people in public places, and to retain these images and sounds on their database. This is clear government overreach.

The Supreme Court in Tamiefuna v R [2025] NZSC 40 and the Joint Inquiry by the Independent Police Conduct Authority and the Privacy Commissioner into Police conduct when photographing members of the public found that the taking of images without a warrant amounted to both unreasonable search and seizure and to a breach of privacy. The bill falsely claims the finding of the court “changed” the law. The Supreme Court have confirmed the law which this government now seek to change. The changes proposed by the government seek to infringe significantly into the rights and freedoms of New Zealanders.

The Bill of Rights Act 1990 affirms New Zealanders rights to not be subject to unreasonable search and seizure. This right is affirmed and entrenched in legislation. The Bill seeks to undermine and override this right and also to override the application of this right by the highest Court in New Zealand. The reasons given in the preamble to the bill are lightweight, to say the least: “the bill reaffirms the New Zealand Police’s longstanding ability to record images and sounds in public places”. Any override of this affirmed right will need to be justified by a sound, thorough and clear proportionality analysis. NZOFP would like to remind the government that any override of a right must be a justified limitation and this limitation is subject to deference to the people of New Zealand and not to the Crown. The Bill of Rights Act 1990 is there to protect the people of this nation.

We acknowledge that the Attorney General’s office has issued a section 7 report and concluded that no breach of a right occurs. However, the analysis is confused and fails to undertake a proportionality analysis at all with respect to this power. For example, paragraph 5 states, with respect to the power to take images and sounds, “in order for a statutory power to be consistent with section 21, engagement of the right must not be unreasonable”. Section 5 of the Bill of Rights Act 1990 requires that the rights affirmed in the Act may only be restricted where the limit is reasonable. The section 7 report implies the right must be reasonable, or as it states, its engagement must not be unreasonable. This is completely contrary to the Bill of Rights Act. The report continues to discuss whether the search power is unreasonable – this question must be answered with deference being given to preserving the right. This question should be supported with a proportionality analysis weighing up the necessity of the limit on the right with the preservation of the right itself. For some reason this is not done. The report states that the question is whether the new powers would lead to unreasonable searches. They conclude that they don’t. No justification is given – just a statement of belief. Then the report states in paragraph 20 “the new powers are permissive and do not compel Police to conduct a search in a way that is unreasonable in the circumstances”. This conclusion does not appear to address the correct legal question. The question is whether the power limits the right (it clearly does as found in Tamiefuna), and then the report should follow proportionality testing to determine whether the limitation on the right is demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society, giving deference to preservation of the right.

It should also be noted that members of NZOFP have personally experienced random photographing and recording by police officers during legal protest action. We also know through media reports that police have been capturing the images of many young people that they simply don’t like the look of, the majority of who happened to be Māori. This indicates Police are susceptible to profiling and bias. The point of the Bill of Rights Act 1990 is to protect New Zealanders from such arbitrary abuse of power. Police have been practicing capturing images and sounds already and these examples are not acceptable in a free and democratic society.

New power to close areas to traffic

This proposed new power is also very broad and grants a young police officer significant power to disrupt the right of a person to move freely and go about their daily business. The proposed power not only allows a police officer to close an area where anti-social driving behaviour is taking place, but also where they believe this might occur. It is also notable the proposed power allows a police officer to close access to an area where “public disorder exists or is imminent at or near the place”. Does this include protest action?

Reaffirming New Zealander’s rights

NZOFP would like to remind the government that the Bill of Rights Act 1990, and the Privacy Act 2020 are there to protect the rights of the people of New Zealand against abuse of power. This Bill seeks to override these rights and to dismiss the application of these rights by the Supreme Court of New Zealand. We request that the Bill be rejected in its entirety.

New Zealand Outdoors and Freedom Party