Cash woes may have exposed NZ

Our intelligence community was on a multi-year timetable to fix security gaps when Brenton Tarrant allegedly murdered 50 people in two Christchurch mosques, documents reveal.

Declassified secret briefing papers say there were “significant unfunded pressures” in our lead intelligence agencies, the NZ Security Intelligence Service and Government Communications Bureau.

The documents warned in 2015 the agencies had “a resource problem” dealing with “the threat environment” and it would take time to build the capability.

The documents spelled out the huge task the agencies faced fixing problems identified after the illegal spying on Kim Dotcom and the Edward Snowden leaks.

The combination of the two events led to inquiries which identified issues needing a $179 million funding boost in 2016 for the NZSIS and GCSB, to be spent over four years.

It left NZSIS director general Rebecca Kitteridge — whose GCSB review and NZSIS appointment identified many of the issues — driving a massive change programme to keep New Zealand safe, even while dealing with new legislation in 2017 and a beefed-up oversight office.

From a national security perspective, the scale of the issues suggested years of underfunding had left New Zealand exposed.

One document also showed the agencies anticipated change would take years — at least until 2020 and likely longer — to fix the problems.

Documents released via the Official Information Act show the agencies raised concerns about security gaps while pitching to Cabinet for funding in 2015. They were told funding “wasn’t available” in that year’s Budget and instead got $5m each to start covering gaps, including for “NZSIS operations”.

“The increase has been allocated to the highest priority areas but does not cover all of the known risks,” a later briefing paper said.

Another 2015 document said: “Significant unfunded pressures still exist across all years.”

The planning document said the intelligence community had a “resource challenge” in dealing with the “threat environment”.

The level of threat reflected terrorism’s changing nature, escalating cyber threats, and “an apparent growth in espionage activity”.