A state of unpreparedness
The royal commission report into the Christchurch massacre is an unusually close and unflattering view of our intelligence and security agencies. Martin van Beynen reports.
On October 2018, staff from the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (SIS) and the New Zealand Police gathered to test two hypothetical counter-terrorism scenarios.
One scenario involved a vehicle hitting pedestrians leaving the Masjid an-Nur in Deans Ave, Christchurch. The hypothetical attacker shouted Islamophobic slurs as he fled.
The planning session, as outlined in the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Terrorist Attack on Christchurch Mosques on March 15, 2019, suggests both agencies had identified a Right-wing threat and were working on a response.
Unfortunately that was far from the case. The commission’s report depicts the counter-terrorism effort across government agencies – SIS, Government Communications Security Bureau, and police – as lacking clear leadership and ill-equipped and underresourced to gather intelligence and identify new threats.
The picture presented of the agencies as they operated before the terrorist attack is one of blinkered organisations, focused almost entirely on Islamic extremism, and acting without co-ordination or urgency to address non-Islamic terrorism threats, even when some were highlighted.
Some successes
The commission noted the focus on Islamic terrorism threats detected persons of interest. ‘‘There were numerous active domestic investigations and operations focused on Islamic extremist activity that posed real threats to public safety.’’
Between August 2015 and January 2018, eight passports were cancelled and 17 individuals arrested.
Over the decade before the Christchurch attack, the agencies were not oblivious to the gathering threat from far Right.
In September 2011, two months after Anders Breivik’s attacks in Norway, the Combined Threat Assessment Group (part of SIS) issued a threat assessment warning that a violent extremist could legally acquire semi-automatic firearms.
The assessment said the firearms licence vetting process could not identify an extremist or disaffected person posing as a legitimate applicant. But the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet concluded an urgent review of firearms controls was not needed.
In 2014, two police assessments concluded an extremist could purchase firearms or the components of an improvised explosive device with minimal risk of discovery and assessed there was a 25 per cent to 50 per cent chance of an extremist act.
In a Terrorism Update published 10 days before the shooting, SIS said extremism existed in the fringes and could plausibly result in violence.
In May 2018 the service had started a 12-month project focusing on Rightwing extremist activity. A few months later it remarked the service was ‘‘currently unsighted to any individuals or groups who espouse an extreme Right-wing ideology and promote the use of violence to achieve their objectives’’.
Avenues of detection
The commission found there were three ways the mosque gunman could have been detected. The first was comments he made on a private Facebook page under the name ‘‘Barry Harry Tarry’’. The comments mentioned an Islamic school across the road from his Dunedin gym that he used ‘‘as a source of rage for his lifts’’ and suggested such schools should be supported because ‘‘it makes them gather in one place’’.
The second was a tip-off from the public, such as from gun club members who noted his unusual style of shooting. A member of the public also saw a drone flying over Masjid an-Nur in Deans Ave about eight weeks before the shooting, but did not tell the police.
‘‘As many Muslim individuals have observed to us, an identifiably Muslim person who acted in the same way as the individual would likely be reported to the counter-terrorism agencies,’’ the commission says.
The third avenue was through data. That might have captured enough pieces of information to trigger an investigation. ‘‘If the individual had been identified as the author of the Facebook comments, a check of the New Zealand Police National Intelligence Application would have revealed that he held a firearms licence … Whether such investigation would have resulted in the disruption of the terrorist attack is necessarily speculative. It is, however, distinctly possible that this might have happened,’’ the commission says.
A report to police the gunman had injured himself in the accidental discharge of a firearm in his flat (which had a common wall with his neighbours) would not have triggered suspicions of terrorism, the commission says. But it might have led to an inquiry into whether the shooter was a fit and proper person to have a gun.
The commission does not suggest the gunman’s gaming friend, who knew about his beliefs and acted as a reference for his firearms licence, or the gunman’s mother, who knew of his sympathies and that he had firearms, should have notified authorities.
Not well situated
While the mosque shooter went about his preparations over 18 months, the country’s ability to detect him had serious gaps. Not all of it was the fault of the agencies, the commission says. Due to a limited social licence from the public and little buy-in from politicians, the agencies could not snoop where they needed to.
‘‘The idea that intelligence and security agencies engage in mass surveillance of New Zealanders is a myth,’’ the commission says.
The focus on Islamist extremists as the most pressing threat meant most resources were directed to that area and, as a result, ‘‘very limited’’ resources were dedicated to understanding other terrorist threats.
As an example, the commission mentions the regular intelligence briefs provided by the National Assessments Bureau to the prime minister.
From 2010 to March 15, 2019, these briefs contained fewer than 20 references to domestic extremism.
The commission’s main concern with the focus on Islamic terrorism was the decision to devote the resources to that area was not made by analysing the various risks and deciding which took priority. ‘‘So there was not an informed and systemwide decision to proceed on this basis, which we see as inappropriate.’’
Limited resources
The two key agencies in charge of providing assessments of emerging terrorism threats in New Zealand were the National Assessments Bureau (part of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet) and the Combined Threat Assessment Group (SIS).
Both agencies had few resources and neither had a dedicated capability to look for coming threats. The Combined Threat Assessment Group spent most of its time on tactical reports about security for visiting international dignitaries.
The police had a National Security Group charged with leading its counter terrorism effort but it had few staff. A national security investigations team had four units that were too stretched. A budget bid in 2016 to beef up police counterterrorism failed.
Up to the shootings in March 2019, the police intelligence function had lost staff and use of intelligence across districts was variable. From 2015 to the shootings, the police did not produce strategic intelligence on far Right individuals and groups.
The SIS and GCSB were rebuilding after a damning review in 2014. The first tranche of a $178.7 million funding injection started in the 2016.
New staff were coming on board at the SIS but by the time the shooter attacked most were still regarded as ‘‘apprentices’’. A high staff turnover also did not help.
About half of the agency’s resources were dedicated to espionage and hostile foreign intelligence with slightly less to counter-terrorism. Up until 2018 all the counter-terrorism resources had been devoted to investigating New Zealand supporters of Da’ish, also known as Isis.
As at March 11, 2019, the SIS had 32 individuals on its investigation watch list, all of them because of their affiliation with Islamic extremism.
Online capability and capacity
Before March 15, 2019, the agencies involved in the counter-terrorism effort had limited online capabilities for counter-terrorism.
In mid-2018 a stocktake of the agencies’ online activity to counter extremism found a number of relevant work streams, but no common approach existed. The stocktake did not lead to any concerted action.
The SIS’s development of covert online capability and strengthening of its open-source collection capability on March 15 2019, was ‘‘fragile’’.
One full-time analyst was working on research and monitoring and, in early 2018, the covert online team consisted of two part-time officers. Both officers left in mid-2018.
The police also collected online intelligence but did little training and had few tools to exploit social media.
Did it matter?
In the end, the commission says, the less than optimal performance of the intelligence and security agencies did not cause the determined and intelligent gunman to go undetected.
‘‘We are of the view that detecting the individual would have depended on chance even if there had been a very substantial focus on Right-wing extremism by the counter-terrorism agencies.
‘‘We find the concentration of resources on the threat of Islamist extremist terrorism is not why the individual’s planning and preparation for his terrorist attack was not detected. Given the operational security the individual maintained, the legislative authorising environment and the limited capability and capacity of the intelligence agencies, there was no plausible way he could have been detected except by chance.’’ freedom of speech, but it’s possible for speech to cause harm to people. The question then is how you uphold freedom of speech while reducing harm.’’
He’s concerned making hate speech offences more serious could put police and prosecutors off pursuing charges. ‘‘You need a very high threshold to criminalise opinion without a clear link to further harm.’’
From Clark’s perspective, the report errs on the side of protecting people’s right to have an opinion, and fails to fully acknowledge the right of others to live without fear of discrimination and abuse in public.
‘Great care will be needed’
Professor Ursula Cheer, Canterbury University’s dean of law, says it makes sense to move hate speech criminal offences from the Human Rights Act into the Crimes Act, where all crimes are meant to be located.
‘‘However, great care will be needed to craft the offence so that it only criminalises speech which is motivated by real hatred, and does not simply capture stupid or reckless speech, which there is plenty of, especially online.
‘‘As a society, we do not want to criminalise 16-year-olds, for example, who retweet things without thinking or engage in forms of showing off . . .’’
Not only will the offence need to be carefully drafted but police will need training in how to investigate and then determine whether to prosecute the offence, she says.
Cheer also suggests creating special defences for parody or satire, ‘‘or at least include in the definition of the offence an exemption for general discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult, or abuse of particular religions, or the beliefs or practices of its adherents, as they have in the United Kingdom’’ – otherwise, the media could also get caught out.
‘‘We have no right not to be offended in New Zealand and the offence should be focused on real hatred combined with threats.’’
Plus, the existence of such offences hasn’t stopped crimes of hatred and racism from happening in the UK, she says. In the week after the Christchurch shootings, British media reported the number of antiMuslim hate crimes increased by 593 per cent.
For that reasons, the Government should also invest in opportunities for young Kiwis to learn about the value of ethnic and religious diversity and how to be good citizens – which is one of the ‘‘most important recommendation in the [commission’s] report’’, Cheer says.
‘Long-standing issues’
Ardern was right in that hate speech and crime reform is a long-standing issue.
The Islamic Women’s Council for years lobbied the government to address the discrimination and abuse their members faced daily. Nothing concrete was done.
Then-Justice Minister Andrew Little described the country’s hate speech laws as ‘‘woefully inadequate’’ and fast-tracked a review of existing hate-speech legislation.
A year later, he was presented with options from the Justice Ministry and Human Rights Commission. He said to expect an announcement ‘‘within weeks’’.
But coalition discussions stalled, the election came and went, and the review remains unpublished.
New Justice Minister Kris Faafoi says he hasn’t decided how or when to release it, following the commission’s report.
Meanwhile, reports of online hate continue to climb, according to Netsafe, despite a spotlight on the role of social media in the mass shooting, which broadcast live on Facebook.
Shortly after March 15, 2019, Ardern, along with French President Emmanuel Macron, revealed the Christchurch Call to Action. The global pledge, so far signed by 48 countries, the European Commission, two international organisations, and eight technology companies, aims to end the spread of extremist content online.
But while social media sites are willing to remove reported content that violates their own guidelines, they’re still falling short of properly policing hate, says Massey University lecturer in media studies Dr Kevin Veale.
’’They’re either indifferent to it or actively profiting from it – and that’s the dimension of how things work that’s not currently considered by things like the Christchurch Call.’’
Organisations such as the Human Rights Commission, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and the UN Human Rights Council have repeatedly asked for better recording of hate-motivated crimes in New Zealand, to gain better insight into the problem offline, too.
In October, in response to a request for information filed seven months prior, police confirmed they had improved IT systems to help officers identify flagged hate crime from when a call is received. A requirement to record ‘‘targeted protected characteristics’’ such as race or religion, via a drop-down menu, had also been introduced.
But when, early in November, Stuff asked for the number of racially motivated complaints over the last six months, those figures weren’t readily accessible.
When Gemma New talks about music she talks about the energy, the power, the beauty of it. Button-down, dulcet-toned, straight-talking, with an American lilt hinting at her decade spent Stateside, she ignites and gesticulates like she’s on the podium as she discusses her work.
Classical music is the universal language, she says. ‘‘It’s the language of emotion and dreams, and all of us, no matter where we are born or what our genetic makeup is, feel the pulse and the energy and the beauty of music, and our mood is changed by that. It unites people with that sympathetic vibration.’’
New, back in Aotearoa from her San Diego base for a series of concerts with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, is getting her own good vibes from performing to a live audience again after months of a Covid-induced musical coma.
Conducting before live audiences in Wellington and Auckland has been utterly uplifting, she says. It’s that beat before she performs, as the audience takes its seat, when the usher finally gives her the nod to walk on stage, that is the most tense and anticipatory.
When she walks on to that stage she is released. ‘‘I love the fact I am not alone. I’m not facing the audience, I’m facing my colleagues, and I love them, and I am inspired by them and I’m excited by what’s about to happen.
‘‘There’s an incredible energy from the crowd that strengthens us. It makes it a profound experience. We perform music because we have a message of peace. We want to emotionally move our audience.
‘‘I felt such a joy and warmth being able to have a live audience in New Zealand. I can’t wait for the rest of the world to have that again.’’
Who knows when that will be. It must be a bit depressing seeing ‘‘cancelled’’ in bold capital letters beside various scheduled concerts – the orchestras of Montreal, Denver, Seattle, San Diego, all waiting in the wings. The first concert outside New Zealand that looks like it could go ahead is in Bilbao, Spain, in mid-March.
Covid has hit her industry hard. Her last concert before the world shut down was in March. ‘‘Orchestras like to plan one-two years in advance but with Covid, it’s hard to plan for the future when we don’t know how 2021-22 is going to pan out.’’
In a pre-Covid world, New usually travels most of the year, leaping between her orchestra families – the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra in Canada, where she is music director, the St Louis Symphony Orchestra, where she is resident conductor, and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra fulfilling her role as principal guest conductor.
She has conducted myriad orchestras in her decade-long career, from the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Royal Scottish National orchestras to the Lunar Ensemble, which she directs and was formed from fellow students when she was doing her masters in orchestral conducting course at the Peabody Institute, part of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
New’s mighty career ascent might have looked like a foregone conclusion if you look back to her early school life.
She first picked up the baton at a teacher’s farewell concert at Samuel Marsden Collegiate in Wellington. She had a natural ability at the podium. Buoyed by this, she started an orchestra for the smaller children at the school, the focus and discipline that would lead to bigger things already evident.
Meanwhile, she learned the bassoon, the violin, the piano. She played in five school ensembles.
Roy Tankersley was head of music at Marsden when New was a student. He came to see her concert with the NZSO in November, along with a class of Marsden students. New was tickled.
Tankersley says conducting was her calling. Her ability, her way of communicating and extracting the best from her musicians was evident, even back then, he says.
‘‘She was very precise, very sharp and thoroughly musical. She conducted with her whole self. She was so naturally connected to the music and the musicians.’’
Growing up in the Wellington suburb of Karori, music has always been a part of New’s life. Hers was a musical household. Her mother, Kim New, plays violin with the Wellington Chamber Orchestra. Her paternal grandmother also played.
Her grandparents had a massive jazz collection that was always on the turntable. The radio dial was fixed on Concert FM at home.
Even now she’ll put on some choral music in her downtime. Rock and pop have never really been her thing. Brahms is a tonic for relaxing. Baroque is like a meditation.
At 12 she was part of Wellington Youth Sinfonietta and played under three very different conductors. She recalled becoming fascinated by how different each conductor could be.
She played in all the local youth orchestras in Wellington. The Michael Fowler Centre, where she worked as an usher, became her spiritual home.
‘‘I was always inspired by the musicians, the soloists, the conductors. They were my heroes. I loved music and I loved the concept of the orchestra, playing in one and listening to one.
‘‘The orchestra provides something very special – nourishment for the soul. It helps us grow as human beings.’’
She knew from a young age that she wanted to be a part of that. ‘‘I remember thinking when I was 22 and leaving the country to study, I’m going to go away and I’ll come back one day and conduct the NZSO.’’
She started a double degree in music and science at Victoria University, later transferring her music degree to the University of Canterbury and graduating with a Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance. She completed a Master’s Degree in Orchestral Conducting at the Peabody Institute.
Baltimore was like a two-year boot camp. ‘‘I had two tutors who taught completely opposite schools of conducting. It meant I could create a toolbox and I could pull out what I wanted when I needed it.’’
Of her own style, she says she’s pretty physical. ‘‘I like to connect with my whole body, though I try to be centred. I use breath, and I am very clear with my gestures. I believe it’s a very two-way street with the musicians.’’
For the past decade she has based herself in the United States. The 33-year-old lives in downtown San Diego with her boyfriend John, a pianist with the San Diego and San Francisco Symphony orchestras. They met at college in Baltimore.
New lights up when she talks about John, her ‘‘rock’’. They both travel a lot, but try to make it home each week when they are on the road and they call each other like teenagers every day.
Pre-Covid, it was not unusual for her to be in four cities in one week. When she’s on the road she times her day meticulously. Every minute is planned. Working till late at night, getting up early for red-eye flights, she is a study in regimented organisation. ‘‘I want to make sure I have enough time to complete everything because there’s a lot to do in the day. I don’t want to forget my shoes!’’
There is no time for pre-concert jitters.
‘‘I don’t think that fear helps with conducting and performing,’’ she says pragmatically. ‘‘I decided that very early on.
‘‘As a conductor you have to be well prepared, knowledgeable about the score, and to know how you’re going to bring things together, what interpretation you are going to choose. If you go in with your best attitude and your best foot forward it will be a very good experience.’’
New, who for her performances wears tailormade jackets by Call & Response, designers of Prince’s outfits, is gearing up for her appointment with the NZSO in Wellington tonight to conduct Messiah. It’ll be bitter-sweet because it’s her last gig with the orchestra before she heads back to the States.
True to form, she’s well organised. She knows the score inside out. By 7.15pm she’ll be in the zone and ready to feel the pulse. Psyched up, shoes on.
‘‘The orchestra provides ... nourishment for the soul.’’