Govt minister to oversee shootings inquiry response
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced there will be a ‘‘co-ordinating minister’’ for the Christchurch mosque shootings response.
The new minister will be named today when the longawaited report of a royal commission into the March 15 terrorist attack will also be released.
The report, expected to contain a series of recommendations, has scrutinised the performance of state sector agencies.
The commission has also investigated what authorities knew about the gunman before the attacks, what they did with that knowledge, whether there was anything they could have done to prevent the shootings, and what state agencies can do to prevent another tragedy in the future. Islamic community groups have banded together to call for a dedicated government minister to deal with the ongoing fallout of last year’s terror attacks, which killed 51 worshippers at the Masjid AnNur (Al Noor) and Linwood mosques as they took part in Friday prayers.
Ardern said yesterday the Government would release initial responses to the report’s findings and recommendations once it had been tabled by Cabinet today.
But she said the recommendations were expected to span a number of areas.
‘‘[Some] recommendations might take a longer period of time for us to develop a response to.’’
The prime minister was tightlipped over whether anyone would lose their job as a result of the findings but she confirmed a ‘‘co-ordinating minister’’ would be appointed, responsible for implementing the commission’s recommendations.
Ardern said she personally found reading the commission’s report ‘‘tough’’.
‘‘We owe it to the community to make sure they are not going through this for nothing.’’
For many, the release of the report would be a confronting time, she said.
‘‘By its very nature it revisits the events of that day and what happened leading up to it.
‘‘I just want to acknowledge that it will be a difficult few weeks for many.’’
She said the decision to limit who got to see an advance copy of the report, while controversial, was not easy.
But she said the Government wanted to prevent information being spread beyond those who were directly affected.
‘‘For those who were witnesses, we physically read the findings to them . . . They absolutely know what to expect.’’