A death outside Paul Goldsmith’s office is a national disgrace and a grim reflection of New Zealand’s homelessness crisis

OPINION: A person died outside Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith’s Auckland office. Whatever the circumstances surrounding that death, the image should stop this Government in its tracks.

Police have not suggested the death was suspicious, and there is no established evidence that the person was homeless. It would be wrong to manufacture facts that are not known.

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What cannot be ignored is the grim symbolism of somebody dying on the pavement outside the office of a senior minister whose Government has spent months taking an increasingly hard line towards rough sleepers, beggars and some of the most visibly desperate people in New Zealand.

That is a national disgrace because this is where New Zealand has arrived.

We are a country in which people sleep in doorways, beg outside shops and live with levels of deprivation that should horrify anyone walking past. Instead of that suffering producing an overwhelming political demand to get people housed and supported, some of the loudest language from Government has focused on restoring order to streets.

Goldsmith has repeatedly framed the issue around making cities safer and more attractive for businesses, residents and visitors. He has spoken of streets being blighted by “disruption and disturbance” while defending Government action targeting rough sleeping and begging.

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There is something deeply wrong when human misery becomes discussed primarily as something other people should not have to look at.

Homelessness is ugly because homelessness itself is ugly. Poverty is confronting because poverty destroys lives.

The solution cannot be to make suffering less visible while congratulating ourselves for cleaning up the streets.

Goldsmith has told Parliament that his empathy lies with business owners confronting disorder outside their premises. Those businesses deserve safety and support. So do the human beings sleeping outside them.

Government does not get to recognise the dignity of one while treating the other primarily as a problem to be managed.

This death should be treated with dignity, and its circumstances should not be exploited or embellished. But there is no escaping the embarrassing political image this has caused.

Image: National MP offices in Epsom, Auckland. (Google Maps)

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A person died outside the office of New Zealand’s Justice Minister while this country continues to wrestle with people sleeping rough in its largest city.

It should prompt shame.

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