New book says authorities missed chances to stop Christchurch terrorist

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (MNTV) — New Zealand’s Security Intelligence Service (SIS) says it has undergone significant transformation since the 2019 Christchurch mosque massacre, but acknowledges it is “not all-seeing and all-knowing,” reports RNZ.

The comments follow an interview in which the Nine to Noon programme spoke to Auckland University associate professor Chris Wilson and researcher Michal Dziwulski, authors of a new book about the terror attack of 15 March 2019.

Fifty-one worshippers died at Al Noor Mosque and the Linwood Islamic Centre when a terrorist opened fire during Friday prayers.

The book, He Told Us: How an Australian Committed Far-Right Terrorism in Christchurch New Zealand, claims that opportunities to prevent the atrocity were missed. It follows the Royal Commission report into the attacks, released in December 2020, which found there was no plausible way government agencies could have known about the terrorist’s plans in advance.

In response to the book’s publication, SIS Director-General Andrew Hampton told Nine to Noon that the 51 people who died and their families remain at the forefront of their thoughts. He said countering violent extremism and terrorism remained a top priority, and that the SIS welcomed academic research alongside the findings of the Royal Commission to help detect and prevent future attacks.

“However, as the authors have acknowledged, this research has been undertaken with the benefit of hindsight and a significant amount of known information about the terrorist’s activities,” Hampton said. “We have looked deeply at our operations and undergone a significant transformation since the 2019 attacks. This includes enhanced online capabilities and closer cooperation with domestic partners such as New Zealand Police, as well as international partners.”

Hampton added that the SIS is not “all-seeing and all-knowing,” nor should it be in a free and open democracy. “We do not conduct mass surveillance of the internet. There is no question that there is a large amount of hateful rhetoric online. The job of the NZSIS is to detect those with the intent and capability of carrying out an attack.”

Current Wellington mayor Andrew Little served as Minister for the SIS at the time of the mosque killings and oversaw the government’s response to the Royal Commission’s report. Speaking to Nine to Noon, Little acknowledged that groups such as the Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand had raised concerns about threatening behaviour, and agreed with the Royal Commission that agencies were slow to grasp the scale of the threat.

“The threat was apparent, for example, in the United States a lot earlier than March 2019, or even 2018 when the work started in New Zealand,” he said. But Little noted that agencies could not monitor the entire internet and were not able to track everything happening across all platforms. With the benefit of hindsight, he said, it was clear the attacker had been making concerning comments at the gun club he attended.

Meanwhile, the Federation of Islamic Associations, which has conducted its own research into the attack dating back to 2004, said the book’s findings are starkly similar to its own. The Federation’s advocacy chairman Abdur Razzaq told Nine to Noon: “We still haven’t learnt the full lessons.”

Razzaq said the Federation began its research shortly after 15 March 2019, seeking to understand why the attack happened and, most importantly, how to prevent it from happening again. He described a “fundamental flaw” in the Royal Commission — the inability to directly question the agencies involved — calling it a one-sided process.

While acknowledging that agencies are doing more and that Muslims do feel safer, Razzaq said the level of hate crime remains high. “A Muslim is now being targeted, according to a New Zealand Police report, every 53 hours in New Zealand right now, and nothing is happening on that.” He called for a coordinating body bringing together academia, civil society, government, and intelligence agencies. “We haven’t got that, so we still haven’t learnt the full lessons.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Internal Affairs said the Royal Commission of Inquiry’s role ended when the report was presented on 26 November 2020, and that the inquiry was disestablished once the report was delivered. Sir William Young, who led the inquiry, said he had made it a policy not to engage in debate about the report, on the basis that it should speak for itself.