Three tricky steps ahead
New Zealand is about to descend into three difficult and inter-related debates in the wake of the terror attack that turned our country upside-down, and inflicted an injury that will take decades to heal. The first debate will be about the reform of gun laws. The initial intentions of the prime minister in this area are very good. To prohibit the particular platform of centre-fire semi-automatic firearm that was lawfully purchased and used to perpetuate mass murder is sensible.
It is also consistent with best practice overseas, where following large-scale mass shootings, specific restrictions relating to that event follow.
This tight linkage means that other firearms not associated with the event are not on the prohibition list. If the gunman had used lawfully acquired semi-automatic pistols to complement his semi-automatic long-guns, then they too would now face being banned.
While there is overwhelming support for this measure, it will become more difficult when the debate widens into a number of secondary considerations designed to reform and improve the overall regulation of firearms. Here, Parliament should not start from scratch. These questions have been debated for over two decades, but during all that time, politics trumped common sense.
If Parliament is going to go forward in this area, its starting point should be the 1997 Thorpe Report on Firearms Control and the 2016 select committee inquiry into issues relating to the illegal possession of firearms.
Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, the opening question of Parliament on this matter needs to be why the findings in 1997 and 2016 should not, now, be applied.
The second debate will pertain to the royal commission of inquiry into the various security agencies and their failure to detect the terrorist in advance. For the minister and directors at the helm of these organisations, the question is whether this is a Cave Creek-type of situation in which the leader has to take the fall for the failure to foresee the problem.
The debate will not be whether or not it was foreseeable, but whether it should have been foreseen. If the evidence shows it should have been foreseen, or would have been foreseen if a similar problem was being dealt with by comparable security agencies overseas, then resignations can be expected.
Irrespective of what happens to their leaders, the security services need to move more towards the models in Australia and Europe, where there is much greater transparency, and informationsharing on terror-related topics. From the threat levels and their evaluations, through to the types of groups being monitored, and the makeup of terror-related risks, the public needs to know more. It is no longer sufficient for people to be told they have nothing to worry about and to trust the security agencies.
As this is occurring, it will be necessary to keep a close eye on arguments that will inevitably emerge calling for deeper and more widespread surveillance. While larger budgets and more human power may be warranted, the factor to watch is whether ‘‘more’’ also means deeper intrusion, mass surveillance and fewer restraints.
In this instance, the key will be to examine what abilities existed already and why they failed in stopping the Christchurch attack. Simply, whether ‘‘more’’ surveillance is needed, or a reorientation of focus of existing resources and capability.
The third debate will be one of free speech and censorship. The beginning point here is that the chief censor’s decision to ban the terrorist’s manifesto is correct. The existing rule is clear that anything which incites people to break the law is unlawful and should be prohibited. This should be upheld judiciously, with prosecutions for the reading or sharing of this work being treated exactly the same as those who try to share material of jihadi terrorism.
Where the debate will become harder will be with a wide array of secondary material that may have been in support of the hatred in which the terrorist stewed. Here, the chief censor and the human rights commissioner need to come to the fore in tackling hate-speech and racism.
Rather than the public battling back and forth over what is, or is not, in breach of the Bill of Rights Act and the Human Rights Act, the Government itself and its associated agencies need to take control of the debate and give much clearer guidance of what (and why) speech or words are legally acceptable/or not, to a much greater degree than has been offered in the past.