Opinion: How the Govt will make NZ safer

Labour Party MP for Waikato Nanaia Mahuta. Photo / File

On the day of the March 15 shootings I was in Santiago, Chile having just spoken to an Indigenous Woman's Conference.

I was appalled as the reports filtered through of the mosque killings and immediately wrote to my Muslim friends in Hamilton with my condolences.

In the aftermath of the terror attack, New Zealanders are asking ourselves many difficult questions. Why has this happened in Aotearoa? How can we help the victims? How we can we heal as a nation? Are we safe?

New Zealanders have come together to express our grief, and to show our solidarity with the Muslim community. We have united to reject the hateful ideology that inspired this attack, and we have begun the long journey of healing.

The Government is determined to find out how the attack could happen, and to make sure it can never happen again.

We've agreed to hold a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Christchurch attack. Royal Commissions are reserved for matters of grave public importance, and this inquiry will look into the suspected terrorist's activities leading up to the attack. It will also look at government agencies and departments, including the intelligence community, to understand what opportunities they might have had to prevent the attack.

One way to protect New Zealand is to make sure we have safe and effective gun laws. That's why, six days after the attack, the Government announced a ban on military style semi-automatic weapons and assault rifles.

Parliament is united on the need for this change, and I want especially to thank the National Party for its immediate support for the Government's actions.

There has also been widespread support among the firearms-owning community. Fish & Game, the New Zealand Deerstalker's Association, Hunting and Fishing, and Federated Farmers have endorsed the reforms, and I want to thank them for their pragmatism and solidarity.

Firearms do, of course, serve legitimate purposes in our farming and hunting communities, and those responsible gun owners will not be affected.

Since the attack, New Zealanders have used social media to share tributes, and words of comfort. We have turned to social media for updates and information, and we have organised memorials and vigils attended by thousands.

Social media can be used as a force for good, as we've seen since the attack.

But sadly it can also be used as a force for hate. That's why the Government is asking tough questions about the role social media has played in the attacks themselves.
Part of the Government's job is to make sure New Zealanders are not exposed to traumatic and distressing material online, or material that incites violence.

As the Prime Minister has said, we need to think globally about how we can stop hateful materials appearing and reappearing on social media platforms in the first place. We have made our expectation clear, that internet companies and social media platforms do all they can to ensure the video is not distributed. New Zealand will be a leading part of the global conversation on stopping the spread of hate on social media.

We have witnessed the worst terror attack ever in New Zealand, and our history has changed forever. But we can make sure it never happens again. Most fundamentally that takes resolve and unity. With your help, love can and will triumph over hate.