Lee was demoted from Cabinet in April last year, with Luxon stripping her of the media and communications portfolio.

On Sunday, he sacked Lee from her remaining ministerial roles, giving ethnic communities to Police Minister Mark Mitchell and economic growth (formerly economic development) to Finance Minister Nicola Willis.

Lee, a former broadcaster who produced the Asia Downunder diversity television programme, currently remains a list MP and was ranked number 13 on the National Party’s list for the 2023 election.

She narrowly lost her bid to win the Mount Albert electorate seat to the Labour Party’s Helen White by 18 votes.

Kelly Feng, chief executive at Asian Family Services, said the demotion announced Sunday was “significant”.

‘Not good optics’
“Replacing somebody who comes from ethnic communities, with someone who, shall we say, comes from the mainstream, is definitely not good optics,” Feng said.

“It’s not just me saying this, rather research proves it. The leadership should be more representative of our diverse population. This motivates our younger generation to come forward and strive for leadership roles.”

Feng thanked Lee for serving the ethnic communities of New Zealand for a long time and being a strong advocate for them.

Tayo Agunlejika, former president of Multicultural New Zealand, expressed shock at the announcement.

“I feel sad for her because I know how hard she worked over the past two decades to rise through the ranks and get the ministerial position,” Agunlejika said.

“For her to have lost the role within a year, and that, too, after finishing strong in 2024 with the launch of the Ethnic Evidence Report is shocking.”

Jaspreet Kandhari, general secretary of the New Zealand Indian Business Association, acknowledged Lee’s efforts in managing the ethnic communities’ portfolio.

Significant contributions
“She made significant contributions during her tenure as the minister for ethnic communities, particularly in publishing a comprehensive report on ethnic communities,” Kandhari said.

“Her work laid a foundation for important discussions on diversity and inclusion.”

Former National MP Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi, who entered Parliament with Lee in 2008, called her “exceptional in [her] ability to connect with the broader ethnic communities, fostering understanding and inclusion”.

“I believe the PM has made this decision on its merits. He has rightfully acknowledged the significant contributions Melissa Lee made as the minister of ethnic communities,” Singh said.

“Mark Mitchell, as the new ethnic communities minister, will bring his own strengths to the role. I am confident that he will be a strong advocate for ethnic communities and continue building on the foundations set by his predecessor.”

Similar sentiments were expressed by Lois Yee, vice president of the New Zealand Chinese Association, who also shared a desire to work with Mitchell “to realise a vibrant, cohesive and inclusive Aotearoa New Zealand”.

Seeking holistic view
Meanwhile, Feng, whose organisation primarily works in the mental health space, wants Mitchell to take a holistic view of the issues faced by ethnic communities in New Zealand.

“The new minister of ethnic communities, who is also the minister of police, will definitely have a better understanding of law and order, which is one of the major issues for ethnic communities,” Feng said.

“But our hope is for Minister Mitchell to engage with the ethnic communities at a wider level, and look at other issues such as mental health, bullying in schools, and discrimination, which affects us disproportionately.”

Agunlejika said New Zealand’s ethnic communities needed “someone with an in-depth understanding of the community needs and aspirations, and the complexities within the ethnic communities”.

“I think Mike Mitchell’s relationship with New Zealand Police Ethnic Advisory Group might help,” Agunlejika said. “But, in 2025, I don’t think the appointment is reflective of the community, although [the appointment] might be the right experience needed.”

Mitchell said he was honoured to take on the ethnic communities’ portfolio.

“Law and order remain a significant issue for ethnic communities, and I welcome the opportunity to bring these portfolios [police and ethnic communities] together,” Mitchell said.

“Ethnic communities make a huge economic and cultural contribution, and I look forward to continuing to engage with a range of communities in this new role.

“I will spend the coming weeks getting up to speed with the challenges and opportunities, before setting out my priorities.”

Luxon told RNZ on Sunday that Lee had committed to staying on as a National MP to the 2026 election “at this point”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Collectiveness at it most potent has been called asabiyya by macrohistorian and cliodynamicist Peter Turchin. At its least potent, collectiveness is a recipe for social division, top-heaviness, escalating inequality, and societal breakdown.

The present ‘debates’ in Aotearoa New Zealand – ostensibly about Te Tiriti, the Treaty of Waitangi – represent a case in point. Increased bipartisanship festers, with the two sides largely talking past each other.

Pre-contact indigenous culture in Aotearoa New Zealand can be characterised as on the collectivist side of the collective-individual spectrum, at least with respect to tribal Iwi; whereas anglo-celtic culture was and is much more individualist. The protagonists on the Māori side of our present governance-wars are rhetorically harking back to the more collectivist worldview of their ancestral predecessors. And they are indulging in forms of co-sovereignty rhetoric that border on separate governance, without much explanation of what that means for individual Aotearoans.

One aspect of the more collectivist conceptual apparatus is the language, Te Reo. There is no explicit plural form. The word Māori covers Māori as a collective (or as a set of tribal collectives) and Māori as a set of individuals. While non-Māori used to refer to Māori as ‘Maoris’, this is simply not done in polite circles anymore. (I remember in 1984, how the leader of the “New Zelland Party” used to refer to “the Marries”.) Yet I do it here, as a way to emphasise my differentiation of collective Māori from individual ‘Maoris’.

In addition to pre-contact cultural differences in relation to the collective-individual spectrum, the established political Left and the established political Right (at least as we understand those terms in Aotearoa New Zealand; the United States has muddied those waters) define themselves through that spectrum. So Māori on the Left of politics have two predispositions towards collectivism. (Here we must note that the present ‘sovereignty debate’ is at least as much a debate within Māori as between Māori and non-Māori; the principal antagonists as well as the principal protagonists are conspicuously Māori. Twenty-first century Māori culture is by no means as collectivist as the rhetoric of the protagonists conveys; the divisions are Left versus Right, with a cultural overlay.)

Vertical Equity and ‘Targeting’; trickle-down or micro-management

Vertical equity is not a liberal concept (refer to my To be (a) liberal). Whereas horizontal equity means ‘treating equals equally’ – a concept central to (individualist) liberalism – vertical equity means ‘treating unequals unequally’. Discrimination. The liberals of the political Right, who emphasise the targeting of social services and public income distribution, square this illiberal circle by emphasising policies which solely target ‘need’; not race nor religion, not sex nor gender.

The political ‘progressives’ of the Left emphasise a collective form of targeting, but cannot (or refuse to) individualise this. Thus they may advocate more resources for Māori (and often tag-on Pasifika) and more resources for women; but they avoid any korero about individual discrimination.

At Budget-time, we have routinely heard the claim that there is not enough provision in the Budget – the government’s annual fiscal statement – for Māori. Perhaps less so from 2018 to 2022. But what does that mean? Resources for Māori? Or for ‘Maoris’?

The collectivist approach mandates that discrimination happens at the top-level of political society; at the governance level. Thus bureaucracies are created or extended – including governmental ‘entities’, and indeed ‘non-governmental’ entities (which nevertheless depend on government mandates) – which are openly discriminatory in their intent.

Discrimination in favour of an allegedly disadvantaged identity is justified through a process of leverage. Statistics are gathered from individuals and coded according to attributes – especially ethnicity, sex or gender, and health status; age and religion are less fashionable at present. The never unexpected results are then presented to justify forms of collective discrimination in the political process. Predictably, the incomes of ‘Maoris’ are lower on average than the incomes of ‘non-Maoris’, and female incomes are lower on average than male incomes.

The aim of this political process is not to remove these statistical differences. Rather it is to justify and extend identity bureaucracies – indeed to create advocacy ‘industries’ around such statistical differences – in such a way that there is a large suite of highly-paid jobs available to highlight these inequalities of averages. Such political theatre typically generates much heat and very little actionable ‘light’.

Essentially, what is supposed to happen is that much resource goes into these funded governance structures, and it is meant to trickle-down to the leverage group of disadvantaged people. The result in practice is that Left governments consume large slices of the national income, while achieving very little for the disadvantaged groups ostensibly being served. Trickle-down never worked. Instead the result is too much political superstructure and too little ballast. Government becomes top-heavy.

(These same principles apply to the under-provision – and particularly the lack of maintenance – of physical infrastructure as well. Hence all the water leaks from neglected pipes, and potholes across the roading network; pipes are ballast, and potholes are examples of missing ballast. Gold-plated schemes are created and discarded.)

Policies which benefit ‘Maoris’

The disconnect between the Treaty Māori and the leaders of the present government, is that the present leaders have an individualist mindset which means the parties talk past each other. Chrisopher Luxon genuinely wants to improve life for ‘Maoris’. Problems arise because his philosophical approach of targeting the needy – disproportionately ‘Maoris’ – has its own bureaucratic short-comings; and because his understandings of public finance are medieval (in the better sense of that word), and because he is a mercantilist at heart. Mr Luxon equates national progress with ‘making money’, with the accrual of financial wealth.

Nevertheless, and despite his philosophical blindspots, Luxon is correct to emphasise that expanding discriminatory superstructure is part of the problem, rather than a solution, to the statistical disadvantages used to justify that superstructure. Christoper Luxon and David Seymour clearly understand that effective direct support for the disadvantaged will disproportionately assist ‘Maoris’, because Maoris are disproportionately disadvantaged. Further, direct assistance also provides support for disadvantaged ‘non-Maoris’, who are no more nor less deserving. Indeed – and given the practical Ministry of Health definition of who is a ‘Maori’ – there are more disadvantaged ‘non-Maoris’ in Aotearoa New Zealand than disadvantaged ‘Maoris’ (because ‘Maoris’ represent perhaps twenty percent of that database of individual Aoteroans).

Collectivism and Individualism

As Stephen Joyce noted in his recent book, collectivism has an individual dimension and individualism necessarily has a collectivist dimension. Both sides of the present ‘debate’ need to expand their fields of vision, and address these blindspots.

‘Trickle-down’ policies have wasted much of this nation’s income. The Left version of trickle-down is no better than the Right version (which includes ‘tax-cuts for the rich’) which the Left like to lampoon. And the Right indulge in much more collectivism – albeit private sector collectivism – than they would ever want to admit. (Proper macro-accounting, incorporating public equity, helps to reveal the over-distribution of resources to elite private interests.)

It is clear that Christopher Luxon and David Seymour would have preferred not to have Winston Peters and Shane Jones as lead rhetoricians for their government. The irony is that, with one small adjustment to National’s tax policies, National would probably have got at least five percent more votes, and we would have a two-party rather than a three party coalition today. The adjustment was to have an income tax policy which only gave tax cuts to people earning less than $180,000 a year. National’s rhetoric of tax cuts to “low and middle income earners” was hollow, because everyone knew that high income earners were also getting the maximum tax cut (not counting a contrived higher amount only envisaged for a few thousand families). All National had to do was to bring the top tax threshold down to about $160,000 (refer my Christopher Luxon is tone deaf, 14 Nov 2023); but it did not do this, on account of its own lack of imagination and unwillingness to seek or take advice from outsiders.

Māori are important to Aotearoa New Zealand, not because of their ‘race’ but because they were Aotearoa’s first boat people. The Tiriti is not about ethnicity – though it is about indigeneity – and people who want to continue discussing its principles are not racist. Separatist agendas based on distinguishing individual Aotearoans on the basis of their race – their ethnicity, their ancestry – are racist. Collectivism averts the racist problem of individual discrimination, but creates another problem; the growth of an expanded high-earning elite class which leverages off rather than practically addresses socio-economic problems which are there for all to see.

Christopher Luxon operates by a mercantilist metaphor that sees Aotearoa New Zealand as a ship that must “go forward”. While that metaphor represents both shallow politics and shallow economics, the prime minister does at least understand that superstructure sinks ships.

*******

Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

Last week, at the end of the long summer shutdown of Auckland’s train services, messages came through from AT about a limited restart on 15 January, though there would be no trains between Waitematā and Newmarket.

Waitematā? When I looked it up in Google maps the top entry was of course the Harbour; followed by the former DHB (now Te Whatu Ora, Waitematā) which covered North Auckland and West Auckland, but not Auckland Central. When I tried the AT app’s Journey Planner, there was a rugby club in Henderson; but no train station.

In yesterday’s service announcements that they referred to Waitematā Station (Britomart). Today there was an electronic signboard at the station with a red line through ‘Britomart’ and a notice that the station was now to be called Waitematā. However, the main, very large, signboard – showing train departures, still called the place ‘Britomart Train Station’. The announcements on board the train said ‘Britomart’. (And the train, which was running late, skipped Newmarket Station entirely, with no warning that I had detected, though I might not have been paying full attention; normally more people get out of the train at Newmarket than at the Downtown station, whatever the current name for Downtown Auckland is.)

Today I looked up Waitematā Station in the NZ Herald’s app. There’s a story from 9 August which mentions Waitematā/Britomart in passing. Then there was a 28 May story about Waitematā Police at a petrol station. Then I hit gold dust, a story from 16 March Britomart to be renamed as seven Auckland railway stations receive new names. It’s a story I have no memory of; I recall nothing at the time on the radio or television news networks. This is confirmed by checking RNZ’s news sites, though there was a cryptic story on 9 April New Zealand cities suffering crisis of identity – architect. This RNZ story includes this text: “Britomart Station which has thankfully been renamed Waitematā”. It mentions the names of the other stations although an “artist’s impression” of ‘Karanga-a-Hape’ still shows it as Karangahape. Mt Eden will be changed to Maungawhau, and the new Aotea Station has been renamed ‘Te Waihorotiu’ (which to me, having worked at Longburn while a student, has the resonance of a Hamilton freezing works with its outlet onto the ‘wai’ of the Waikato River).

I am a bit of a news junkie, though I pay particular attention to the mainstream media because I’m interested in the news that most people most readily get. As much as I like to know what is happening, I also like to know what people believe is happening; or not happening, as the case may be. I am pretty sure that most people in Auckland still have no idea about the renames of their stations.

While I believe the renaming of the Aotea Station will prove to be the most problematic – when people find out about it, that is – I have problems with the replacement of the name Britomart with Waitematā. Waitematā as a place name has historically always been associated with Auckland’s northwest. Tim Shadbolt’s first stint as a mayor was in Waitematā City, a composite place made up from Titirangi, Te Atatū, Lincoln and Waitākere. Before that, the name was most associated with Michael Bassett’s old electorate, an electoral district that from 1871 to 1978 referred to lands that would now mostly be in Upper Harbour and Te Atatū. Waitematā is at best a bland name for the Downtown station; a name that undermines the heritage of Waitematā as a name.

Further the name Britomart resonates with the early years of contact between British subjects and Aotearoans; the name Coromandel has a similar background. And will Britomart Place also be renamed; and Britomart Shopping Mall? Britomart is a name with a precise identity of place; Waitematā not so.

Name changes in New Zealand have been problematic, and also incomplete. The change of name from Mount Egmont to Mount Taranaki was widely supported, but the national park is still Egmont National Park. I was also strongly in favour of proposal to rename Victoria University of Wellington to The University of Wellington; I have a strong attachment to that august(ish) place of learning, yet others with similarly strong attachments couldn’t stomach the change, so it didn’t happen. I am not a fuddy-duddy conservative, unlike some people who resist name changes.

The biggest puzzle to me is why, back in March, the mainstream media organisations did not consider these name changes to be news. And they still don’t think the new names are news.

My sense is that a substantial number of Auckland’s transport users will resent these name changes, and will feel that they have been imposed on them without consultation, especially as it all seems to be part of the unpopular co-governance agenda which was rejected by the Aotearoan public in October. (The articles cited above certainly point to these name changes as being co-governance by stealth.) Yet the main blame – if that’s the right word – must go onto the mainstream media; not the former government, which has already faced the consequences of its arrogance. Surely the NZ Herald or RNZ or TVNZ or Newshub could have seen that this was a story?

I am reminded of the saga of the decimal coin designs in 1966 (see New Zealand adopts decimal currency), when the original secretly designed decimal coin motifs were leaked to the media by Robert Muldoon, and how the putting-right of that bureaucratic fiasco launched his subsequent political career. Once the public had input into the designs, the uncluttered James Berry set was chosen, and all agreed that his designs were a vast improvement on the originals.

Naming places and designing coin-faces might seems like small matters. But such small matters can prove to be our greatest tests of democracy.

When I returned home today, I caught a bus at a place named ‘Taha Whakararo o te Tiriti o Albert’. It looks to me with my imperfect knowledge of Te Reo that it was a reference to the thoughts of Prince Albert (Queen’s consort in 1840) about the Treaty of Waitangi (and Albert was a thinker). But, in translation, it turned out to be the ‘Lower Albert Street’ bus stop.

Some more whakaaro about place names

I find that the present promotion of Māori as New Zealand’s pre-eminent language of governance to be somewhat shallow. Take the ‘Aotearoa’ lobby. We hear the word ‘Aotearoa’ a lot in political theatre, but we almost never hear the demonym ‘Aotearoan’. (As a contrast, we hear the words ‘Australia’ and ‘Australian’ in near-equal measure.) I do my best to redress the imbalance, by using ‘Aotearoan’ more than I use ‘Aotearoa’; the promotion of ‘Aotearoan’ is a burden that I wish more others would share.

Next, my educative life took place in a major Aotearoan city, Papaioea. But the only time I ever hear the beautiful name of my home city is by weather forecasters during Māori Language Week. (Indeed, the suburb in which I lived, Hokowhitu, has most probably had more residents with PhD degrees than any other suburb in Aotearoa, at least between 1970 and 2020. I have cultural origins of science and learning of which I am proud, even if I didn’t quite manage to complete my own PhD!)

I also note that I presently live near to the former Crown Lynn site. A street there – Waikomiti Street – has the original name for my suburb. Indeed, I suspect that in my lifetime my suburb may revert to that name. I am settled in West Auckland, so I may indeed – many years from now – come to rest in peace in Waikomiti. My basic epitaph, of my places, may prove to be:

Ōtaki
Paekākāriki
Hokowhitu
Papaioea
Waikomiti

I belong here. I don’t need to have Māori ancestry to prove that. But, as Aotearoan as I am, I am first and foremost a citizen of the world. I do not believe in Aotearoan or any other kind of exceptionalism. I do not believe in looking inward, wishing that Aotearoa had remained undiscovered by non-Māori, as a response to the past and present arrogances of our unbalanced world. Names like Britomart and Coromandel remind us of Greece, India, and England.

*******

Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

I’m a white male, and if society loves anything, it’s straight white males. It was only when I left my all-boys high school that I became aware of the licence that my physicality held. It seemed so normal to me at the time, so much so that I never had the tendency to question or reflect on my own privilege.

But in my day to day life, I continued winning the lottery.

READ MORE: New Zealand as a village – our people

I think an important place to start on a topic like this is representation. Not just the statistics around what percentage of the population is Pākehā, Māori, Pasifika, Asian and Middle Eastern, along the many other ethnic backgrounds in Aotearoa, but also what we, as individuals represent, as well as how we present society.

Last year we saw Statistics New Zealand release a report that reflected NZ diversity in the form of a 112-person village. The village was composed of 17 individuals having a Māori ethnic background, 70 with European, 15 Asian, 8 Pacifica, and 2 from the rest of the world.

Of course, this representation is not going to be the same across all areas of society, but it could be a hell of a lot better.

When it comes to making change, for me it is in my career choices. I want to represent my country, whether it’s at an embassy, working as a journalist or even a business leader. Yet I remind myself that if New Zealand society is going to have good representation across the board, it probably shouldn’t be me. Because there’s 1001 white men in business suits already ‘representing’ New Zealand.

How many cared about Ihumātao?
You’ve got to ask, how many of them cared about Ihumātao, and if they were representing that struggle? Representation in New Zealand is always going to be difficult, especially in areas such as Auckland and Wellington which are melting pots of culture with so much to represent.

So, as students going into the workforce,remember you bring a new perspective, which also comes with great power. It is vital to keep both your privileges in check and that of your peers, while also putting in the effort to make sure diversity is celebrated.

While that is all about under representation, which is not amazing, the statistics around over representation are far more shocking. In 2019, 51.8 percent of the prison population was Māori, while they only make up 14.6 percent of the population.

Since the English arrived in New Zealand, anyone who they considered different has been on the backfoot, with a lack of acknowledgement of minority and indigenous ideology and way of life.

In saying this, it is important to remember these are not the only populations within Aotearoa; with our country being exposed to globalisation we have seen an influx of diversity and culture. One of these major ethnic groups is the Asian population, which includes a number of ethnicities, such as Chinese, Indian, Filipino, Sri Lankan, Singaporean and Malaysian among so many more.

The Chinese population particularly have a stronger representation in New Zealand in good light as well as not so good. With history in gold mining in Arrowtown, having the longest running produce stores in the country, as well as running so many other small businesses, it is truly saddening to see xenophobia still so present in New Zealand when they are part of the backbone that our country depends on.

With the Asian population expected to rise above 1 million by 2038, we will need to be able to embrace this past by eating sushi for lunch and going to the lantern festival, instead realising terms such as “token Asian” are outdated and inaccurate which instead facilitate casual racism.

Pride in being multicultural but …?
New Zealand may pride itself on being multicultural and accepting, but all it takes is a quick scroll down a New Zealand Herald article about welfare issues to see Pākehā Privilege. And many of you, including myself, realise these people are our grandparents or maybe even our parents.

If they’re as bad as my grandmother, they’ll say they can’t understand someone on the phone who has an accent which isn’t from a country where English is their first language. Racism is still very much a problem in New Zealand, whether it is ingrained into our history due to the land wars, or it’s taking clothing of traditional significance and incorporating it into everyday life without recognition (kimonos as dressing gowns, for example). These everyday events may seem harmless at the time, however research has shown these can slowly but surely build up to oppression, discrimination and violence without recognition and intervention.

This is how events such as the Christchurch attacks happen. While they weren’t an accurate representation of the Pākehā population, just imagine if he had been of any other ethnicity. Imagine what would have been different in the media. Imagine what my grandparents would have said. This can all go unchecked, and that’s what unrecognised white privilege can look like.

I think it’s also important to point out Pākehā Privilege is part of New Zealand culture, whether we like it or not, and because it’s part of daily life for many, it goes unrecognised as culture. And it’s not as simple as saying to someone “hey this is your culture, also guess what, it’s done a lot of damage.”

Culture among white people is thriving, but because of the dominance of Western society, we just don’t see it. Hence, we get the “white people have no culture” comments, but we also get ones about Karen’s and typical middle-class white dad jokes, and whether you like it or not, that’s part of it.

If society, particularly in New Zealand, is going to progress, we need to recognise where Pākehā stand in relation to the rest of New Zealand and why. But as many things go, small things at a young age will go far.

What would things look like if we looked past just Pākehā and Māori culture at school, but also a number of others which are now prominent in Aotearoa? What if we saw more incorporation of Māori schools of thought into business on a managerial level? What if this also applied to the government with a greater recognition of Te Tiriti o Waitangi?

We operate in systems that are westernised
We currently operate in systems that are westernised, because that was version 1.0 that was brought to Aotearoa by colonists. But with so much more here now, what is there to stop us from growing and expanding and reaching 2.0?

I’ve covered a miniscule amount of information surrounding society in New Zealand, but if there’s anything I want you to take away from reading this, it’s that if you are Pākehā, or even just have white skin, recognise your privilege on a constant basis, and use it to help others.

I’ve been given a lot of opportunities while I’ve been at university, and while I’ve worked hard, I still think about how other factors may have played a part. And while this has focused on Pākehā Privilege, think about what other privileges you may have and how they play a part in your life.

Talk with those who you consider “other” instead of the same, find out where people’s viewpoints stand and why. You never know, you might learn a thing or two.

James Tapp is a Bachelor of Communication Studies and Bachelor of Business conjoint student at Auckland University of Technology, majoring in international business and advertising creativity. He is also producer of the Pacific Media Centre’s Southern Cross radio programme on 95bFM. This article was first published in the AUT student publication Debate and is republished here with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was written for, and first published by, German magazine Cicero.de (ref. Attentat in Christchurch – Willkommen in der Hölle). Thanks also to Prof David Robie, Pacific Media Centre AsiaPacificReport.nz for providing the featured image for this article.

OUT OF THE BLUE:

It was 1:39pm, Friday March 15. As was usual for a Friday hundreds of people had turned up to pray at the Al Noor Mosque in Riccarton, Christchurch. All was peaceful, women, children, men, people of all ages young and old, both Sunni and Shia, were in contemplative repose free of worry. It was a mild, late summer, 20 degrees celsius day. Earlier, the touring Bangladesh Cricket Team had briefly visited the mosque, but left early to attend a press conference. By 1:39pm, they had returned and were outside exiting a bus, intending to continue with their prayers inside the mosque.

At 1:40pm, ahead of the team, a man entered the mosque walking quickly up the front steps. He was carrying an assault rifle and dressed in combat uniform. He immediately began shooting people who were kneeling in prayer. The shots rang out and the Bangladesh team members realising they were witnesses to an attack, retreated, and fled on foot to nearby Hagley Park.

Back inside the Al Noor Mosque scores of worshipers were being gunned down, some killed instantly, others bleeding to death. The victims included little Mucaad Ibrahim who was three years of age.

Mucaad was known by his loved ones as a wise “old soul” and possessed an “intelligence beyond his years”.

Eye witnesses said that once the killer began shooting people, little Mucaad became separated from his family. In the chaos, his family could not find him. The next day Police confirmed he too had been shot dead by the killer.

The murders continued at the Al Noor Mosque until the killer’s firearms ran out of bullets. Then, he simply walked out of the mosque, got in his car, and drove six kilometres to the Linwood Mosque. There too were people who had gathered for their regular Friday afternoon prayers.

Mr Aziz picked up an EFTPOS (electronic funds transaction) machine from a table inside the mosque. He ran outside. He saw a man he describes as looking like a soldier. He said to the man: “Who are you”. Mr Aziz then saw three people lying on the ground dead from shotgun blasts. He realised the man was the killer. He approached the attacker, threw the EFTPOS machine hitting the killer, who in turn took from his vehicle a second firearm (a military style semi-automatic assault rifle) and fired four to five shots at Abdul Aziz, missing him. Then, in an attempt to lure the killer away from other people, Mr Aziz shouted at the killer from behind a car: “Come, I’m here. Come I’m here!”

Mr Aziz said he didn’t want the killer to go inside the mosque and kill more people. But the killer remained focussed. He walked directly to the entrance, once inside the mosque he continued his killing spree. Survivors speak of the killer wearing “army clothes”, dressed in “SWAT combat clothing”, helmeted, wearing a vest and a balaclava.

Inside the Linwood Mosque, another witness, Shoaib Gani, was kneeling in prayer. He heard a noise like fireworks but he and others weren’t too concerned and continued with their prayers. Then, as he and his fellow worshipers were kneeling speaking verses from the Koran, the man next to him fell forward with blood pouring from his head. He had been shot and killed instantly, Mr Gani said. Then others too began falling to the floor dead.

Mr Gani crawled under a table. He saw the killer and his firearm. “Written on the rifle were the words, ‘Welcome to hell’,” he said.

Victims, who were wounded and bleeding, were pleading with Mr Gani to help them. But he was frozen to a spot under a table knowing that the killer was walking around the mosque killing as many people as he could. Mr Gani believed he too would also soon be dead, so he reached for his cellphone, he called his parent’s back home in India. But no one answered. He tried to call his father’s number, but the phone kept ringing. He saw people around him bleeding to death. Others with fatal head-wounds “their brains were hanging out. I just couldn’t do anything. I didn’t know what to do.” Mr Gani phoned 111 (the New Zealand emergency number) and told the authorities people were dead and injured: “The lady on the phone asked me to stay on the line as long as I could.”

Outside, Abdul Aziz picked up one of the killer’s discarded shotguns. Inside the mosque, the killer’s assault rifle ran out of bullets. The killer then “dropped his firearm” and ran back to his vehicle. He got in the driver’s seat. Mr Aziz then ran toward the car. He threw a discarded shotgun at the killer’s vehicle: “I threw it like an arrow. It shattered his window.” Mr Aziz thinks the killer thought someone had shot at him with a loaded gun. The killer turned. He swore at Mr Aziz. When the window burst it covered the inside of the car with glass. Mr Aziz said the killer “then took off” driving in his car. He then turn right away from the mosque driving through a red traffic light and out into Christchurch suburban streets.

Some minutes later, Police and ambulance officers arrived at Linwood Mosque. Anti-Terrorist armed Police entered the mosque. Inside, Mr Gani said the survivors were ordered to put their hands up above their heads. The mass murder scene was covered in blood. The Police then secured the area. Some victims survived because they were under the bodies of the dead. Police told survivors to gather near a grassed area outside. There, people began weeping for their husbands, wives, parents, children, friends.

THE ARREST:

Seventeen minutes later, two Police officers identified the killer, apparently driving his car. They drove the police car into the killer’s vehicle, ramming it against a curb. Immediately, they disarmed the killer, cuffed him, noticed home made bombs in the vehicle – IEDs (improvised explosive devices). They arrested the man and secured the scene.

The rest of Christchurch was in lock-down, children were kept safe inside their classrooms, hospitals began to prepare for casualties, the city’s streets became eerily quiet, people were locked in to libraries, shops, their homes. Police and armed forces helicopters networked the skies. No one knew if the terrorist attacks were committed by a group of people or a lone gunman.

But back inside and entrances to the two mosques, 50 people were dead – one of the dead was discovered the next day by Police, the body was laying beneath others who had been killed. Scores of others were in hospital fighting for their lives, at least another ten were in a critical condition in intensive care. Pathologists from all over New Zealand and Australia were heading to Christchurch to help with documenting the method of murder of the dead.

Within hours of the killings, Australian media named the alleged killer as an Australian born citizen named Brenton Tarrant, 28 years of age. On Saturday morning The Australian newspaper’s front page read “Australia’s evil export”.

Other media in New Zealand followed with details of the man’s background. Brenton Harrison Tarrant appeared in court the next day charged with one single count of murder. Other charges will follow. His duty lawyer did not seek name suppression nor bail, the lawyer told the judge: “I’m simply seeking remand and a high court next-available-hearing date.” Tarrant stood cuffed, smiling at those in the courtroom, at one point signaling with his fingers a ‘white supremacist’ sign. He will next appear in the Christchurch High Court on April 5.

THE AFTERMATH:

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern later told media: “It was absolutely his [the offender’s) intention to continue with his attack.” PM Ardern said: “Police are working to build a picture of this tragic event. A complex and comprehensive investigation is (now) underway.” To balance the requirement of investigation with the customs of Muslim burials, PM Ardern said liaison officers are with the victims’ loved ones to help “in a way that is consistent with Muslim faith while taking into account these unprecedented circumstances and the obligations to the coroner.”

PM Ardern said, survivors of the massacre had indicated that this attack was not “of the New Zealand that they know”.

One day later, Survivor Shoaib Gani (mentioned above) told media he still could not sleep or eat. The sounds and sights were still vivid in his head: “I still can feel myself lying on the floor waiting for the bullets to hit me.” He said, he will travel back to India to visit family, but he will return to Christchurch: “It’s just a few people, you know. You can’t blame the whole of New Zealand for this… It’s a good country, people are peaceful. Everybody has helped me here. One right wing (person) doesn’t mean everyone is bad. So I can come back here and live and hope nothing like this happens in the future.”

In the hours after the attacks, all around New Zealand, in the cities and in small country areas, Police were stationed and were ready in case others were involved and were preparing further crimes.

Beside the Police officers, people, of all races and religions, began laying flowers at the steps to their local mosques. Messages included read: “Salam Alaikum, Peace be unto you”, and, Aroha nui”, “Peace and love”, “You are one of us”. The outpouring of grief swept the South Pacific nation, and as this piece was written, a mood of support, comfort, reassurance and solidarity with those of Muslim faith was in evidence.

In Australia, Sydney’s landmark Opera House was like a beacon in the night; coloured blue, red, and white – the colours of the New Zealand flag embossed with the silver fern (Ponga) an emblem of Aotearoa New Zealand. Australia’s peoples, like in New Zealand, began laying flowers at the steps of its mosques in a gesture of inclusiveness.

In the aftermath, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has committed to ongoing financial assistance to dependents of those who have died or are injured, and assistance, she said, will be ongoing.

Questions are being leveled as to how a person with hate can enter, live, and purchase weapons in New Zealand while expressing hate toward other cultures and harbouring an intent to kill others.

PM Ardern said: “The guns used in this case appear to have been modified. That is a challenge Police have been facing, and that is a challenge that we will look to address in changing our laws… We need to include the fact that modification of guns which can lead them to become essentially the kinds of weapons we have seen used in this terrorist act.”

When asked how she was coping personally with the tragedy, she said: “I am feeling the exact same emotions that every New Zealander is facing. Yes, I have the additional responsibility and weight of expressing the grief of all New Zealanders and I certainly feel that.”

That responsibility includes ensuring New Zealand’s Police, the nation’s intelligence and security services and “the process around watch-lists, including whether or not our border protections are currently in a status that they should be, and, including our gun laws.”

THE BACKSTORY:

Indeed, New Zealand is part of the so-called ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence network that includes the USA, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Global surveillance is coordinated and prioritised among the Five Eyes member states. While significant resource, technology and sophistication is committed to the Five Eyes intelligence agencies, New Zealanders fear that those who find themselves as targets, or within the scope of intelligence officers, are predominantly of the Muslim faith.

In contrast, the accused killer who allegedly committed the horrific Christchurch mosque attacks, has been active both on social media and the dark web expressing, with an intensifying degree, his ideology of hate and intolerance. It does appear of the highest public interest, certainly from an open source intelligence point of view, to ask questions of why New Zealand’s (and indeed the Five Eyes intelligence network’s) surveillance experts did not detect the expressed evil that had radicalised the heart and mind of the perpetrator of this massacre.

It is also fact, that New Zealand is a comparatively safe and peaceful nation. But within its midst are people and groups fermenting on racially-based hate ideas. Whether it be in isolation or among organised groupings, the threat of racially driven terror crimes exists.

The alleged killer, Brenton Tarrant, has lived among those of New Zealand’s southern city Dunedin for at least two years. It appears he was radicalised around 2010 after his father died and he toured Europe. He wrote about becoming “increasingly disgusted” at immigrant communities. In early 2018, Tarrant joined a Dunedin gun club and began practicing his shooting skills and allegedly planned his attacks.

Regarding Christchurch, while it has a history of overt white racist gangs, at this juncture, it does not appear they were directly involved in this series of crimes.

But this leads to many unanswered questions, including:

• Was the killer a lone mass murderer, a sleeper in a cell of one?
• Were those with whom he communicated and engaged with on the web in extreme white racist ideologies aware of his plans?
• Was Christchurch chosen by the killer for logistical reasons?
• Was it because the city is easier to drive around than Dunedin, Wellington or Auckland?
• Was it because Christchurch has at least two mosques within easy driving distance?
• Were the Bangladesh Cricket team in his scope of attacks?
• Was the killer attempting to incite a violent response from Christchurch’s burgeoning Muslim community, or, expecting a response from the Alt-Right, from white racist groups such as the Right Wing Resistance (RWR), the Fourth Reich, and Christchurch’s skinhead community?

THE FUTURE:

Survivors of Friday 15th’s terrorist attack say they have complained of an increase in racism and expressed hate in recent times. They say, their concerns have not been taken seriously. These are the concerns that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has committed to listen to, has committed to represent, and, as the prime advocate for her country’s peoples, to act on to ensure cracks in New Zealand’s border, security and intelligence apparatus are corrected.

And, what of New Zealand’s social culture? How will it be affected? That will be determined by the actions of each individual person, each community, town and city and how as a nation New Zealand redefines “The Kiwi Way”.

Members of New Zealand’s media will also need to act responsibly. It is fair to say some have a reputation for argument that verges on alt-right intolerance, for example, on Twitter only two days after the mass murders, a prominent radio journalist, who is employed by one of New Zealand’s largest networks, tweeted: “28 years on an [sic] we still haven’t stopped madmen getting guns. #ChChMosque… [Replying to @Politikwebsite] And the neo nationalist right are the result of the virtue signaling exclusionary left.”

Perhaps such examples are out of step with New Zealand’s population. But such attitudes do create a dialogue of justification for those who harbour intolerance. However, if the outpouring of love and compassion continues to bind rather than divide, then perhaps New Zealand has received, as they say, ‘a wake-up call’, where racial intolerance and extreme ideologies have no place among peoples of all kinds, Maori and Pakeha, of all religions, political persuasions and creeds.

One thing is certain; to stamp out the evil of hate extremism, New Zealanders will pay a price that will be charged against the Kiwi lifestyle. Personal liberties of freedom, of expression and privacy will certainly be eroded further as this nation of the South Pacific grapples with how to keep its peoples safe. The means of how to achieve relative safety will be hotly debated, but it is a necessary juncture in this nation’s history, a moment when we all must confront and challenge ourselves so that people of innocence, people like little three year old Mucaad Ibrahim, can go about their days in trust, in peace, in joyful purpose and achieve their deserved potential. Anything less is a second killing for the victims of Friday 15, New Zealand’s darkest hour.

New Zealand police continued today to respond to events following shootings at two mosques in central Christchurch yesterday.

The national security threat level has been lifted to high. Mosques across New Zealand have been closed and police are asking people to refrain from visiting.

So far, 49 people have been killed. According to media reports, 41 people were fatally shot at the Masjid Al Noor mosque on Deans Avenue; others died at a second mosque nearby.

READ MORE: 36 minutes to catch the accused killer

Four people, three men and a woman, were taken into custody yesterday in connection with the shootings. One person was released.

Accused Brenton Tarrant appears in court today. Image: RNZ/PMC screenshot

A 28-year-old man, Brenton Tarrant, was today charged with murder.

In the hours after the attacks, New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern made it clear this was a terrorist attack of “extraordinary and unprecedented violence” that had no place in New Zealand.

She said extremist views were not welcome and contrary to New Zealand values, and did not reflect New Zealand as a nation.

It is one of New Zealand’s darkest days. Many of the people affected by this act of extreme violence will be from our refugee and migrant communities. New Zealand is their home. They are us.

She is right. Public opinion surveys such as the Asia New Zealand Foundation annual surveys of attitudes tend to show that a majority of New Zealanders are in favour of diversity and see immigration, in this case from Asia, as providing various benefits for the country.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern visited Christchurch today to pay her respects to mourners in the wake of the mosque massacre . Image: RNZ

But extremist politics, including the extreme nationalist and white supremacist politics that appear to be at the core of this attack on Muslims, have been part of the New Zealand community for a long time.

History of white supremacy
I completed research in the UK on the National Front and British National Party in the late 1970s. When I returned to New Zealand, I was told explicitly, including by authorities that were charged with monitoring extremism, that we did not have similar groups here.

But it did not take me long to discover quite the opposite.

Through the 1980s, I looked at more than 70 local groups that met the definition of being extreme right wing. The city that hosted many of these groups was Christchurch.

They were a mixture of skinhead, neo-Nazi and extreme nationalist groups. Some were traditional in their ideology, with a strong underpinning of anti-Semitism and a belief in the supremacy of the “British race”.

Others inverted the arguments of Māori nationalism to argue for separatism to keep the “white race pure”.

And yes, there was violence. The 1989 shooting of an innocent bystander, Wayne Motz, in Christchurch by a skinhead who then walked to a local police kiosk and shot himself.

The pictures of the internment showed his friends giving Nazi salutes. In separate incidents, a Korean backpacker and a gay man were killed for ideological reasons.

Things have changed. The 1990s provided the internet and then social media. And events such as the September 11 terror attacks shifted the focus – anti-Semitism was now supplemented by Islamophobia.

Hate speech online
The earthquakes and subsequent rebuild have significantly transformed the ethnic demography of Christchurch and made it much more multicultural – and more positive about that diversity.

It is ironic that this terrorism should take place in this city, despite its history of earlier far right extremism.

We tend not to think too much about the presence of racist and white supremacist groups, until there is some public incident like the desecration of Jewish graves or a march of black-shirted men (they are mostly men) asserting their “right to be white”.

Perhaps, we are comfortable in thinking, as the prime minister has said, they are not part of our nation.

Last year, as part of a project to look at hate speech, I looked at what some New Zealanders were saying online. It did not take long to discover the presence of hateful and anti-Muslim comments.

It would be wrong to characterise these views and comments as widespread, but New Zealand was certainly not exempt from Islamophobia.

Every so often, it surfaced, such as in the attack on a Muslim woman in a Huntly carpark.

An end to collective innocence
It became even more obvious during 2018. The Canadian YouTuber Stefan Molyneux sparked a public debate (along with Lauren Southern) about his right to free speech. Much of the public comment seemed to either overlook or condone his extreme views on what he regards as the threat posed by Islam.

And then there was the public protest in favour of free speech that occurred at the same time, and the signs warning us about the arrival of Sharia law or “Free Tommy” signs. The latter refers to Tommy Robinson, a long-time activist (cf English Defence League leader) who was sentenced to prison – and then released on appeal – for contempt of court, essentially by targeting Muslims before the courts.

There is plenty of evidence of local Islamophobic views, especially online. There are, and have been for a long time, individuals and groups who hold white supremacist views.

They tend to threaten violence; seldom have they acted on those views. There is also a naivety among New Zealanders, including the media, about the need to be tolerant towards the intolerant.

There is not necessarily a direct causation between the presence of Islamophobia and what has happened in Christchurch. But this attack must end our collective innocence.

No matter the size of these extremist communities, they always represent a threat to our collective well-being. Social cohesion and mutual respect need to be asserted and continually worked on.

Professor Paul Spoonley is pro vice-chancellor in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Massey University in Auckland. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence.

Aucklanders at the vigil today for the families of the victims of the Christchurch mosque shootings yesterday. Image: David Robie/PMC

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz