Motions — Christchurch Terror Attacks—Third Anniversary

I seek leave to move a motion without notice to mark the third anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks.

💬 SPEAKER: I’m just going to warn people, I’m going to take a little longer, as far as waiting for objection, because of the fact that we’re working remotely, to give people the opportunity to do it. It was pointed out to me that I didn’t previously. Is there any objection to that course of action being followed? There is none.

I move, That this House remember that three years ago today, 51 people lost their lives and more than 40 were injured in the terror attacks on Christchurch masjidain, that it acknowledge the continuing impact on the Canterbury Muslim community and Muslim New Zealanders, reassert the promise we made as a House to protect Muslim New Zealanders and their right to be safe from fear, and thank all those who have worked so hard to rebuild the impacted communities.

Today, I stand here on behalf of New Zealand to acknowledge those who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks of March 15. We remember the 51 who were killed. We remember the injured. We remember the families who suffered such all-encompassing loss, the communities that embraced them, and we remember the moment where we felt like everything changed around us in an instant.

March 15 is a date in our collective national history where we learnt about the very worst and the very best of humanity. I have many reflections from the days and weeks following the attack. Almost every single one of them is a memory, or a lesson, from our Muslim community. We were reminded, not just in the aftermath of the attack but across the course of the sentencing process, of the strength of courage, unity, and determination of our Muslim community.

After the sentencing of the perpetrator of this horrific act, the Imam who stood at the front of Al Noor mosque, who watched his own community gunned down in the midst of prayer, who that night was in such shock that I recall when I spoke with him, he uttered but two words. That same man stood outside the court in Christchurch and said: “Extremists represent hate. We represent love and compassion. Muslim and non-Muslim, people of faith and no faith. That is us, New Zealanders. We are very proud to be Muslims in New Zealand.”

I will never fathom how it is in the wake of such hardship that our Muslim community have never shown disdain for their home, only pride and endless hope that it will be better. And that is what we owe them: better. Better comes through the systemic changes we make, like the changes to our laws. Six days after the attack, we announced the ban for all military-style semi-automatic weapons and assault rifles. This took 61,000 over-powered firearms, 2,800 modified firearms, and more than 200,000 firearms parts and accessories out of our communities. We have also established a dedicated firearms unit within Police to take over firearms regulatory activities, as well as a firearms registry to be set up from June 2023, which will address the 30-year deficit of information when it comes to knowing what legal firearms are out there in our communities.

Ten days after the attack, a royal commission of inquiry was set up. It provided 44 recommendations to help our country to become the diverse, safe, inclusive country we hope for it to be. And, as such, a Ministry for Ethnic Communities is in place. Last year was the first annual hui on counter-terrorism and countering violent extremism. A national centre of research excellence for preventing and countering violent extremism is under way, and a Master’s scholarship programme has launched.

In September last year, our Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill passed into law, giving enforcement agencies greater powers to protect New Zealanders from terrorist activity and, in particular, ensuring the planning and preparation for a terrorist act is now a criminal offence—a long outstanding gap in previous laws that has now been fixed.

But the work continues. “Better” means changing more than the law. The 17 minutes of terror that was live streamed on social media on March 15 remains available on some parts of the web despite measures to take it down. It’s clear the terrorist had spent a great deal of time in the deepest recesses of the web, spiralling into extremism. And so two months after the attack, alongside France, we brought together heads of State and Government, and leaders from the tech sector, to adopt the Christchurch Call, to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online.

The Christchurch Call community now includes the member States of the European Union and the European Commission, the United States, Japan, Korea, and many others—55 countries in total—and UNESCO, and the Council of Europe. Ten online service providers have joined the call. The call’s civil society advisory group represents more than 50 different organisations and individuals from around the world. We pledged to work with each other and with civil society to tackle the underlying causes of terrorism and violent extremism and to develop technical solutions that improve the online environment and make social media platforms less hospitable to terrorists and violent extremists. We have made substantial progress but the work continues, including on our own social cohesion agenda.

So we honour the memories of the 51 Shaheed who were killed with the actions we have taken to make our country a better home for all who live here. We acted as a country to deny infamy to the one who craved it, we acted as a country to cloak our Muslim community in love, and we acted as a country to strengthen tools both at home and around the world to violent extremism. But we must all, every day, work hard to do better, including to combat Islamophobia in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Three years on, we turn to our Muslim community for inspiration to remain resolute in our task to protect one another, to better understand one another, to work together towards a safer, kinder New Zealand. Assalamu alaikum.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Opposition joins in remembering, with heavy hearts, the 51 people who tragically lost their lives in the Christchurch mosque shootings three years ago today. We honour their memories, we send our love to the families and friends they left behind, and to the 40 people who sustained serious injuries that day.

The profound sense of loss felt by the families and survivors will, sadly, endure as they carry on rebuilding their lives. The events of March 15 2019 are a permanent stain on our country. That day, we saw an atrocity unfold in our streets, of a nature that had always seemed so distant and so unlike us. The terrorist’s cowardly actions do not bear repeating, other than to say they were so repellent to everything we stand for as New Zealanders. Such senseless violence committed against innocent people in their places of worship, where they were entitled to feel free and safe, is so incongruous with our values and our way of life. Those values we hold dear include our embracing of diversity, tolerance, and understanding. Our diverse, multicultural society is New Zealand’s strength and a point of pride. We cannot let those values fray; we must give nothing to extremism.

Today is also an opportunity to acknowledge the contribution of our first responders: the extraordinary bravery of our police, who threw themselves into the unknown and whose speed and courage led to the swift apprehension of the attacker, undoubtedly saving more lives; and the dedication of our paramedics, nurses, doctors, and hospital staff, who, in a mass casualty event, saved lives and treated the wounded under unprecedented pressures. And we remember the compassion and the love shown by New Zealanders, who opened their homes and their hearts to the survivors and families, who adorned our streets and our mosques with flowers, and who stood in unity alongside our Muslim community.

It is incumbent on us as parliamentarians to do all we can to keep New Zealand safe. As the royal commission of inquiry’s report acknowledges, no country will ever be immune from violent extremism and terrorism, but there is much that the Government can do to minimise that risk. Implementing the royal commission’s 44 recommendations is a good start, and particularly the most important of those, like having a new Minister responsible for leading and coordinating the counter-terrorism effort. The Government has national support in delivering on these vital recommendations at pace.

The events of March 15 2019 left an indelible imprint on all of our minds, and, like all of us, I remember that day very well. I was driving between meetings in Auckland when I heard the news, and I immediately headed to the airport to travel to Christchurch, where I remained for several days to support Air New Zealand staff in operations. I was so incredibly proud of all Air New Zealand staff who played their part and worked so tirelessly in those immediate days and weeks to connect impacted whānau, to ensure a smooth-running operation, and to support our community in what was a highly emotional and extremely sad day for New Zealand.

Sadly, one of our Air New Zealand family lost their life in those terrible events in Christchurch on that Friday afternoon. Lilik Abdul Hamid was an aircraft maintenance engineer in Christchurch and was in the Al Noor Mosque on Deans Avenue. Lilik was part of our engineering team in Christchurch for 16 years, but had first got to know the team even earlier when he worked with our aircraft engineers servicing customer aircraft in Indonesia over a period of eight years. The friendships he made at that time led him to apply for a role at Air New Zealand, and he and his wife, Nina, packed up and left everything they knew behind them to come to Christchurch.

Lilik was a great testament to why New Zealand is infinitely stronger and better because of diversity, and it was a real privilege to meet with Lilik’s gracious and incredible family in their home, and it was a special time marked with both tears and laughter. He made a tremendous contribution to New Zealand. He was a hard worker, both well liked and well respected, and Lilik was also quite a character, with a terrific sense of humour and a love of outdoors, especially fishing.

Today, my thoughts, prayers, and love remain with Lilik’s family, as they do with all of the families of the 51 whose lives were taken, and with all Muslim New Zealanders. Assalamu alaikum—peace be with you.

Al salam alaikum. We remember today that day three years ago when our nation’s heart was broken—my heart was broken. The wound is still fresh as we remember the 51 shuhada, all those still living with the harrowing injuries of that day, their whānau, and their loved ones. We wrap our arms around the survivors, our Muslim community across the whole of Aotearoa and Ōtautahi Christchurch.

I want to remember that we did that immediately as the terror happened, as we found out. I want to remember those vigils across Aotearoa where we all held our little ones a little bit tighter as we remembered little Mucad Ibrahim—at three years old, the youngest victim of the attack. We all remember one or two special victims as we learnt all of their stories, and we sat together, we came together. I remember, as well, that the city of Dunedin ran out of flowers on Saturday the 16th because they were all at the mosque.

That is the New Zealand who welcomed my family and I here as refugees when I was just nine years old. We were fleeing oppression, the risk of torture. We’d lived through a war. I’ll never forget coming down that escalator at Auckland Airport with my terrified parents, wondering if we would be allowed in. We were welcomed here.

So I want to thank and remember every single New Zealander who stood for our values as this terror attack unfolded and for the past three years. You are on the right side of history, and it matters to our frightened communities.

I’ll never forget that a Syrian family were amongst the victims of the mosque attacks. They had fled a harrowing war and violence, they’d found safety here, but they died in Christchurch, New Zealand. The terrorist who murdered them hated refugees and he hated Muslims. We owe those victims that truth. We owe them more than remembrance.

We now have an opportunity to act beyond our gun laws, beyond talking about terrorism. We have had a royal commission report, and the focus of that report, beyond stopping violence, is stopping hate. We know that this was an act of terror. We know it was committed by a white supremacist. It went unchecked because police and national security here didn’t see white supremacy, white nationalism, as enough of a threat, as they surveilled the Muslim community itself, as they surveilled Māori activists. We know that the SIS still continues to list any white nationalist group on its watch-list outside of the terrorist of the Christchurch mosque shootings himself. Our justice system, we know, is policing and operating on a target of Māori and Pasifika men rather than far-right violence.

We know, as well, because the royal commission told us, that this hate began with hate speech. It was allowed to spread online. History has taught us, as well as this terror attack, that atrocity begets atrocity, and it starts with hate speech.

We know that our Muslim and ethnic communities have been reporting hate crimes and hate speech for years. The Muslim council of New Zealand told us that. But there was no way for police to track it, because hate crimes aren’t clearly defined in our Crimes Act—even real targeted threats of gun violence that are motivated by hate. I know that as my daily truth, as a politician who is perceived to be Muslim and known to be a refugee, and I’ve spoken about the threats I get of gun violence, death threats, rape threats, of shotguns to be loaded, based specifically on those characteristics. Every minority in New Zealand knows that threat in online spaces and bleeding into our everyday lives. Our Muslim whānau, Māori—our East Asian and Pacific communities saw it with the racist threats after COVID—our rainbow community, trans women. And it spreads online. As leaders, we have to stop and listen.

The truth is that this is a global phenomenon—disinformation deliberately spread, eventually radicalising and making us all unsafe. We can no longer depend on the goodwill of online platforms to police themselves. Facebook doesn’t care about our marginalised communities. Twitter doesn’t care. Google and YouTube only took down that video on the day because they were forced. The violence and vitriol of the recent protests outside Parliament with elements of far-right hate, with signs of white supremacy, taking advantage of disillusion, grifting disinformation, is a perfect example of that. The royal commission told us we need hate speech laws. We need hate crimes to find. The New Zealand Police wants that. It’s time to act. That is what compassion would look like.

We know, too, that what allows hate against our Muslim community or ethnic and indigenous communities is more insidious. It’s in media portrayals. It’s even in our own responses as politicians, when war or crisis happens, in who we sanction and who we shelter and help. Our refugee quota has been mostly closed for the duration of the pandemic. Refugees and the family reunification programme haven’t been filled. It’s time for that to begin.

Today, our Green call to Government is to commit to filling our refugee quota, including the numbers left behind since 2020, including families ripped apart by war. Today, as New Zealand stood with Ukraine—as we should—by allowing 4,000 families of refugees in Ukraine to be reunited, we need to remember that March 15th and the shuhada deserve the same. Treating all refugees and migrants the same matters. I see the Opposition even supported that Ukrainian visa. So today, on March 15th, let’s also remember Afghanistan, Palestine, Myanmar, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Hong Kong, and Eritrea. COVID has only made the plight of refugees more dangerous, including refugees of colour.

Aotearoa, with that commitment, could say again that refugees are welcome here. That is what inclusion could look like. The truth is that, as politicians on both sides of this House, we are responsible for humanising our ethnic communities. Our most vulnerable communities are hurt. The people at those incredible vigils across Aotearoa three years ago are watching. They will hold us to account. Their acts of love, their resolve, is the standard we have to hold ourselves to.

We must show the rest of the world, as they are watching too, that love, peace, and compassion is a far stronger force than the forces of hate and division. We must shine a light bravely on the shadows of racism and hate that exist in pockets here and act, really act, against them. Then—only then—can we weave that incredible outpouring of love for our Muslim and migrant communities that we have seen over the past three years into the enduring fabric of our society.

Kia hora te marino

[May peace be widespread]

Kia whakapapa pounamu te moana

[May the ocean become like pounamu]

Aroha atu, aroha mai

[Give love, receive love]

Tātou i a tātou katoa.

[Let us show respect for one another.]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT to join with other speakers in offering our sincere and ongoing condolences for the victims of our nation’s tragedy in Christchurch, just three short years ago.

I note that some other speakers have used the opportunity to promote their policies and make political points. I don’t think it’s the right day for that. What I would say is that the Prime Minister, at the time of our tragedy, had some very fine words that I completely agree with: they are us. She said to the terrorist, “You chose us but we utterly reject you.”, and said that we would never use that terrorist’s name again. It was very fine leadership that I think embodies the values that our country should take forward out of this tragedy—that we celebrate a universal humanity and resist the urge to commodify each other into identities, which can only be a precursor for more hate and violence. We should stand proudly in the world, as a country that is a place of peace and love and non-violence and acceptance on the basis that everybody is human.

We should never forget those 51 who lost their lives, those victims who survived but continue to carry injuries for their rest of their lives, and those who survived them and deserve our sympathy and condolences, but we should also honour our police force who were on the scene and apprehended the offender as rapidly as they could under those circumstances. We should, most certainly, honour those medics who were first to the scene, and those hospital heroes who worked so hard to help those who had been injured in these brutal attacks. And we should bear in mind all of the good things that were on display in the New Zealand character and society in the days after our nation’s tragedy.

I thought Golriz Ghahraman from the Green Party put it very well when she said that Dunedin ran out of flowers because they were all at the mosque. In the days after that attack, we saw an outpouring of the best of our country. It brought out the best in nearly every single New Zealander as they spontaneously reacted to an act that we as New Zealanders utterly reject because it is not part of our national character and has no place in this country.

To those who were lost, al salam alaikum. We will not forget what has happened and we will strive to be a better place and a better society in your honour.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka, tēnā koutou e te Whare. Te Paati Māori support this motion marking the third anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks, and remembering the 51 whānau, people who lost their lives, the more than 40 people who were injured, and all the whānau who are impacted by this evil attack. Te Paati Māori’s aroha remains with Christchurch masjidain, the Canterbury Muslim community, and Muslim New Zealanders today, and all days.

We had a doctor Amjad Hamid, who worked in our local hospital. He is a very kind, compassionate man who reached out to tangata whenua here. He was received with all the aroha that you can expect in a community like ours that struggles to get doctors. At a personal level, he helped many of our kaumātua and helped heal my māmā. Islamophobia is deeply rooted in this country, and feeds off the same white supremacy that targets tangata whenua and black and brown peoples right across Aotearoa and the world.

This nation and this House must be 100 percent committed to smashing white supremacy and dismantling its colonial power structures once and for all. Rather than being responsive to the increasing concerns of our Muslim and tangata whenua communities, our security and intelligence agencies—including the SIS—were focused entirely, as my Green sister said, on the wrong people. In fact, they were targeting the same people who the white supremacists were targeting: tangata whenua, activists, environmentalists, and peaceful Muslim citizens with no history of violence. The misplaced and racist approach which failed to protect our communities will rightly be remembered as a stain on the integrity of our intelligence apparatus in Aotearoa. We need assurance that this has changed.

This week, we also marked the 157th anniversary of when our tūpuna were murdered from white supremacists in Te Ngaio, our Ngāti Porou hapū in Taranaki, which goes to show how horrific white supremacy is. This is backed by the Crown. In fact its own leader, General Cameron, had driven the colonial agenda, and the colonial agenda has continued to be driven in this country. We must be brave enough to defend our homes and we must stop the suffering that happens from those who are marginalised. Let us commit to ending it once and for all. We owe that to the fallen. We must be focused on eradicating the hate crimes. It is not only enough for us to be sitting here today, mihi-ing to those who are reaching the pains and continuously living the suffering but we must also encourage peace and all it takes to enact peace. Nō reira, tēnā koutou katoa.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Assalam alaikum alsalam ealaykum wa rahmat allah wa barakatuh. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa. I rise in support of the Prime Minister’s motion to remember the March 15 attacks on Christchurch masjidain. I speak for you all. I’ve noted the third anniversary of the March 15 terror attacks on Christchurch masjidain. Three years ago, we witnessed the painful and dark day in our nation’s history. It’s a day that featured so deeply into the memories of all New Zealanders. I think back to the moment the news broke out and I remember sitting in front of the TV and watching the Prime Minister’s press conference. And I also remember, amongst the chaos, the sense of relief I felt witnessing the swift action of this Parliament as the legislation was fast tracked and passed to improve public safety. We have also seen strong leadership from this Government through the community consultations and the commitment to implement all 44 recommendations of the royal commission’s report, and its continued prioritisation.

In the Qur’an, it’s stated that whoever unjustly kills one person, it’s as though he kills the whole of humanity. This small passage captures just how precisely the 51 lives, shuhada, are regarded and remain to us all. As we continue to heal, we will be thinking of the victims and their families today. We will be honouring them in our hearts and prayers. We will ask Allah, the almighty Allah, to ease our collective pain and to bless those who were martyred in this sinister terror attack.

There is also another verse from the Qur’an that states, “Whoever saves life, it’s as though he has saved all mankind.” When I think of this verse, I think of those brave Cantabrians who heard the commotion and jumped in to help those on the scene. I think of our emergency responders. I think of our community organisations who dropped everything they were doing and rushed to offer their services to the impacted communities. Finally, I think of all New Zealanders who were at home and went out into their local communities and wrapped their arms around their neighbours and communities.

It’s important to remember that the terrorist utterly failed. The plan to turn the whole country against each other was fruitless. The terrorist obviously underestimated his understanding of Islam. Our Islamic faith centres on values such as charity, forgiveness, honesty, patience, and—the most important—kindness. In response, we, the Muslim community, opened our homes and our hearts and we embraced people as we continued to grieve our loss. The terrorist has shown us our similarities and the extent of the empathy and selflessness and kindness we as a nation are able to tap into.

It is important for ever that we remember the legacy of our nation’s response and that we continue to hold on to those values close. And March 15 will always continue to be a day where we renew our commitment to make Aotearoa better for all of us no matter where we come from, no matter what faith we follow, or no matter what we look like or what ways we dress. It will be a day we renew our commitment to make sure that what happened on March 15 will never happen again in our country. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa. Salaam.

It is quite appropriate that the House takes time today to remember the tragedy that occurred just three years ago. It is a day that will live in the memory of anyone who was in Christchurch at the time, for all of their life. We used to ask the question, “Where were you when the earthquake struck?” A whole new generation of kids will be asking, “Where were you when the Al Noor Mosque was attacked, and those 51 people lost their lives to the bullets of a deranged gunman?” They’ll remember it because schools were locked down, business places were locked down. The city was, for a time, almost under siege. I’m sure it’s nothing like what is being experienced by others in other parts of the world at the moment, but it was a frightening time for everyone. And while it’s not possible to fully empathise with the emotions that come with the loss of loved ones, with the injuries to loved ones, and to the disruption, terrible disruption, to families who were deeply affected by this—the victims of that gunman—it is possible to empathise with, in a shared way, the violation that that act caused to our otherwise peaceable community.

There have been some remarkable responses from those who are leaders in the Muslim community. I think particularly of Gamal Fouda, who led that wonderful reflection, I suppose you’d say, one week after, when he spoke to a very large gathering on Hagley Park. It was ahead of the official recognition, where he also spoke brilliantly and generously, and with a great deal of love and forgiveness for the circumstance that had occurred. And I’m sure that in the living memories of anybody who was part of the Christchurch community at the time, the deep respect for the way in which he represented the views of his, I suppose you’d say—I was going to say parishioners, but that’s probably the wrong word—fellow Muslims who were so deeply affected by the event.

The support that’s needed for those families continues to this day. And it’s not so much support that’s found in anything that we might do legislatively, because I think the initiatives that the Prime Minister outlined earlier in her speech were the right ones, and have been widely supported by Parliament. But there is this ongoing worry for many of those families who do need ongoing support and, while it’s there, I hope that there is no point where it might be in any way withdrawn.

There is a question about do we do more, in a security sense—should our agencies have known more—all of those sorts of things. They’re appropriate to ask, but I think we do need to remember that many of the people who were affected by the events that day came to live in this country because they wanted to live a life that was free. It was dreadfully disruptive, dreadfully—I suppose you’d say—shattered the dream by the events of that day. But for their families, none the less, the goals that they had in coming here remain true. And so we need to remember that, for all of the security measures that we might put in place, they have to be measures that are acceptable inside a free society, and we cannot completely rearrange everything to affect other people’s freedoms, simply on the back of the activities of, as I said before, a deranged gunman.

Mr Seymour spoke of the heroes on the day; there were many of them. Firstly, all of those people who were in the mosque, who had to face the prospect of assisting others who were shot, or got shot themselves. There were the families of those victims—not only those of the deceased but also those who suffered pretty horrendous injuries as well. They were alongside, as heroes, the police, the medical people that were so good—having a trauma centre so close was, perhaps, helpful—but also I wanted to say I think the media did a very good job at that time as well. Everyone wanted to know what happened. Everyone wanted to know what was going on, and I think they handled it with remarkable respect. The Christchurch news team initially and then, later on, some of the more headline presenters from inside the networks. And it’s important that they do that because, at a time when the city was facing an uncertainty over fears—was it one gunman, was it multiple gunmen etc.—it was very important that their work continue.

I just want to conclude by recognising the efforts of Temel Atacocugu. He’s been walking from Dunedin to Christchurch—he would have arrived at Al Noor about an hour or so ago—retracing the steps that that the gunman took on that day, before that horrible event. He’s a man who was shot, I think, nine times, who continues to have a battle with his recovery from those events, but he’s undertaken this effort in what he calls a “walk for peace”, and I admire him enormously for what he’s done, because he is making a very, very practical, easily understood statement for his fellow New Zealanders to get alongside, and I wish him very well for what will be, I think, a recovery from some of the pain that he’s experienced on that particular walk.

It is a day where we might remember the tragedy of it. Before that, or over the top of that, I think we need to remember that the message that came out of it was one of love and forgiveness. That is a remarkable thing and really augurs very well for a diverse New Zealand community, moving forward. Salam alaikum.

Motion agreed to.