Our response to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the terrorist attack on Christchurch masjidain

The abhorrent terrorist attacks on the Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre in Christchurch on 15 March 2019 took 51 lives and raised important questions about what happened in the lead-up to that day.

On 8 December 2020, the findings of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the terrorist attack on Christchurch masjidain on 15 March 2019 were made public.

The 51 shuhada of the attack, their loved ones, and the wider community have remained front of mind in our response to the Royal Commission’s report.

We were already going through a significant transformation at the time of the attack. That transformation has continued, and will go even further with the insights provided by the Royal Commission. We are absolutely committed to addressing the recommendations of the Royal Commission. Some changes that we have already made include:

• Enhancing how we work with our key partner agencies, particularly the New Zealand Police, to improve coordination of the detection and investigation of counter-terrorism threats. This change includes further developing a joint leads process and strengthening inter-agency governance.
• Significantly increasing our focus on ensuring we are connected with a range of communities to identify and discuss shared national security concerns. This includes being an active participant in the Royal Commission implementation and engagement programme.
• Recruitment aimed at increasing the diversity of the workforce within the intelligence agencies.
• Strengthening existing training measures to help our people understand unconscious bias and how to remove bias from their decision making.
• Releasing our first ever public guide to identifying those who are displaying signs of mobilisation towards an act of violent extremism. Read our media release relating to the public guide.
• Leading a review of the New Zealand Government Classification System Policy and delivering a range of tools, guidance, and training materials to New Zealand Government agencies. This supports improved adoption and correct use of the classification System, better awareness and capability to balance 'need-to-know' and 'need-to-share', and more regular and systematic declassification and release of information for public use.

We released a declassified version of the Arotake report in March 2021. Arotake was an internal review into our processes and decision-making in the lead-up to the 15 March 2019 terrorist attack in Christchurch. While Arotake remains useful internally for us, its findings are superseded by the findings and recommendations of the Royal Commission.