NZ intelligence inquiry wide-ranging
An inquiry into intelligence gathering, in the wake of the Christchurch mass shootings, will include police, customs and immigration agencies as well as the Government’s two spy organisations.
All those agencies have intelligence functions, Andrew Little, the minister responsible for the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) and the Security Intelligence Service (SIS), said.
‘‘We need to know whether there’s anything inside those organisations that meant that either they couldn’t see what was happening, or they simply didn’t see. And if there were things that they should have seen that they didn’t, we need to know that,’’ Little told The AM Show yesterday.
The first funerals were held in Christchurch on Wednesday, after 50 people died when a gunman attacked two mosques in Christchurch last Friday.
Little said the intelligence agencies did ‘‘a terrific job’’, but the Christchurch killer was able to plan, amass weapons and travel overseas and throughout the country. ‘‘We need to know whether anything should have been seen, anything could have been seen that would have tipped us off to say there’s something going on here. We’ve got to stop this in its tracks. ‘‘I know that the agencies through the intelligence that they gather, they have prevented harmful activities in this country. They do do that, but this didn’t happen in Christchurch,’’ Little said.
He met the bosses of the intelligence agencies during the weekend.
‘‘I think they feel a huge sense of responsibility. I don’t think they’ve done anything other than they could have done, but they certainly feel it. They certainly feel that there is a question to answer. They want that question answered.’’
An inquiry was needed, not just to reassure all New Zealanders, but also to reassure people in the agencies who have intelligence-gathering functions about whether there was something that could and should have been done differently.
‘‘There’s an obvious question: how could this happen, how could we not see this coming?’’ A reasonably quick answer was wanted to that, Little said.