The Trespass (Specified Retail Premises and Other Matters) Amendment Bill (the Bill) aims to improve the utility of the Trespass Act 1980 (the Act) within a retail environment by giving retailers, food service providers, and licensed premises a greater range of tools to deter retail crime and keep their property, workers, and customers safe.

The Bill makes amendments to the Act in response to the recommendations from the Ministerial Advisory Group for the Victims of Retail Crime (the MAG).

The Bill—

• increases to 3 years the maximum period during which a trespass warning may apply, with discretion for any period up to that maximum; and

• creates a new bespoke power for occupiers of retail, food service, and licensed premises (specified retail premises) to trespass a person from multiple locations at once without needing to have cause to suspect that the person intends to trespass on those locations in the future; and

• widens the circumstances in which a person can be considered to know that they have been trespassed from a location occupied by a specified retailer, when the issue of a trespass warning was incomplete due to the actions of the person; and

• creates backstop provisions for situations where an occupier of any premises does not, or cannot, clearly inform the person of the time period or location to which a trespass warning applies, imposing a 3-year period and limiting the location to the place where the notice was served or attempted to be served; and

• increases to $2,000 the maximum monetary penalty for refusal to leave when directed to do so, and for breaching a trespass warning; and

• increases to $1,000 the maximum monetary penalty for refusal to give a name and address when requested by an occupier.

The key purpose of the Act is to give a legal occupier of land the right to control who can come into and remain on their property. In the retail environment, the public can expect to enter a privately owned retail place but must leave when directed to do so by the occupier. The MAG expressed concern that the age of the Act and its focus on rural environments have made it impracticable and ineffective in a modern retail setting.

The MAG is concerned that the Act does not give legal occupiers the discretion to trespass a person for longer or shorter periods of time to match the seriousness of the behaviour of the person while trespassing. The Bill addresses this by increasing the maximum trespass period, from 2 years to 3 years, to address serious behaviour, while giving occupiers the discretion to set a trespass period of any time up the 3-year maximum.

The MAG reports that even when someone is successfully trespassed from one location, they can simply move to another venue to continue unwanted behaviour. The Act only allows an occupier to pre-emptively trespass a person from a place or places if the occupier has cause to suspect that the person has the intention of going to that place in the future. This test makes it difficult to successfully prosecute people in a retail environment.

The Bill addresses this issue by giving occupiers of specified retail premises a new bespoke power to trespass someone from multiple locations. There will be no need to show that the person intended to go to any of those locations in the future. However, the occupier will need to have delegated authority in writing from the other occupiers to issue a trespass warning that relates to all the places in the multiple location notice. The Bill provides a new offence of breaching a mutli-location trespass warning if the person returns to any of the locations.

Public authorities, for example, local authorities, are bound by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 and could not use this new power.

For a trespass offence to occur, a person must first be warned that they cannot return to the place they are trespassed from for a set period. The offence may occur when they knowingly return to that place within that time, despite the warning. The MAG reports that proving someone knew they were warned not to trespass in order to convict them is problematic. They say this is because some individuals intentionally frustrate the process of issuing a trespass warning so that it is very difficult to prove that they knew about the warning.

The Bill addresses this by widening the circumstances in which a person can be considered to know they have been trespassed by the occupiers of specified retail premises, for the purposes of one of the offences that retailers rely on. The Bill provides that a person will be deemed to have sufficient knowledge for the criminal offence in some circumstances. This is where an oral or written trespass warning was attempted to be given by the occupier and the person intentionally refused to accept it, or where they knew, or ought to have known, that they were being given a warning and then in any way obstructed or prevented the warning from being given. In these circumstances, if the person returns to the place, a prosecution for the trespass offence could still proceed.

The changes in the Bill mean that there may be circumstances in which a person does not receive all the information they need to avoid trespassing. The Bill addresses these gaps by providing default provisions if an occupier does not, or cannot, specify a time period or locations that apply to the trespass warning. In these circumstances, the warning to stay off will default to a 3-year period and apply only to the location at which the trespass warning was attempted to be given.

Penalties for trespass offences have not been updated since the Act was first enacted in the 1980s. The MAG is concerned that the penalties are now too low to act as real deterrents, and do not reflect the actual harm experienced by retail workers when trespass warnings are breached. The Bill addresses this issue by increasing the fine for offences against sections 3 and 4 of the Act from $1,000 to $2,000. This penalty would also apply to the new offence of trespassing on specified retail premises. This increase aligns those trespass offences with other offences related to interference with private property rights found under the Summary Offences Act 1981, including wilful damage to property or being found on property without reasonable excuse, all of which carry a maximum penalty of 3 months’ imprisonment or a $2,000 fine.

The Act provides a maximum $500 fine for a person who fails to give their name or address to a constable or private occupier under section 9. The MAG is concerned the penalty neither acts as a deterrent nor reflects the potential harm to victims if an individual of concern cannot be effectively trespassed. To address this, the Bill increases the fine for this offence to $1,000.

Reflecting the age of the Act, the Bill makes minor and technical amendments to use modern drafting style and remove references to repealed legislation.

The Ministry of Justice is required to prepare a disclosure statement to assist with the scrutiny of this Bill. The disclosure statement provides access to information about the policy development of the Bill and identifies any significant or unusual legislative features of the Bill.

A copy of the statement can be found at http://legislation.govt.nz/disclosure.aspx?type=bill&subtype=government&year=2026&no=273

The Ministry of Justice produced a regulatory impact statement on 18 June 2025 to help inform the main policy decisions taken by the Government relating to the contents of this Bill.

A copy of this regulatory impact statement can be found at—

• https://www.justice.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Publications/Regulatory-Impact-Statement-Amending-trespass-law-as-a-critical-vehicle-to-address-retail-crime-lodged-version.pdf

• https://www.regulation.govt.nz/our-work/regulatory-impact-statements/