A white supremacist terrorist from Australia stormed into Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre on March 15, 2019.
It took about 15 minutes for him to leave 51 worshippers dead or dying and injure dozens more.
A Royal Commission into the attack followed with 44 recommendations made, while a coronial inquiry into the deaths remains ongoing.
But the coalition government ended its response to the Royal Commission last August, scrapping eight recommendations in the process.
As a result, some members of the community believed a similar terrorist attack would unlikely be foiled today.
Rosemary Omar lost her son Tariq during the massacre at Al Noor Mosque.
During the past 18 months, she had sat through much of the evidence of the coronial inquests as well as digesting the findings of the Royal Commission and meeting with government ministers and agencies.
She feared the community was still at risk today.
"I have very little faith that if the same thing was to happen tomorrow, the same mistakes would be made."
Many - including those in positions of power - still saw the community as a threat, rather than at risk, Omar said.
A teenager was arrested in Western Australia last week after threats, inspired by the Christchurch terrorist, were made against a mosque in Sydney.
It demonstrated the ongoing risk.
"The events in Australia highlight that nothing has changed," she said.
"It is very concerning. It is also very concerning that the terrorist has a little fan club. I find it really appalling."
'How can we use cost as a barrier?'
Aya Al-Umari lost her brother Hussein in the attack.
She had also spent a lot of time listening to the coronial hearings and pushing for changes to make Aotearoa safer.
Al-Umari was frustrated to repeatedly hear during the inquests about gaps in New Zealand's system often came down to a lack of funding.
"The questions is how can we use cost as a barrier when the price of inaction has already been paid in lives?" she asked.
"We need to invest in safety and in the recommendations that will come out of this, so we can all have our basic human right to life, safety and freedom."
Federation of Islamic Associations spokesperson Abdur Razzaq Khan said there had been improvements in intelligence and security services, but in other ways - particularly the dissemination of hate speech and disinformation - things were worse now than before the attack.
Aliya Danzeisen of the Islamic Women's Council said key recommendations were scrapped by the current government, including critical oversight of New Zealand's intelligence services.
As a result, it was unclear just how safe New Zealanders were from the threat of terror and they relied on intelligence agencies to be transparent in their disclosures.
She believed an extremist, such as the Christchurch terrorist, should be detected before an attack today.
"There's enough information out there that they should be capable of doing so. But I don't know because there's not adequate oversight to confirm that," Danzeisen said.
The coalition government and the previous Labour government had dropped the ball on reforming intelligence services and implementing the recommendations of the Royal Commission, she said.
"Oversight has been one of the things avoided by both governments, so are they capable of doing what they say they are? And I can't say yes or no."
'Disappointing' lack of overarching national security agency
Former Labour government minister Andrew Little said the previous government should have implemented the recommendation to establish a new national intelligence and security agency.
"If I'm brutally honest one of the disappointing things, about having got to the end of our time in government, is that we didn't see through the recommendations made by the Royal Commission about national security organisational reform.
"I was very keen to see the establishment of a overarching national security agency."
Having such an agency overseeing the SIS and GCSB and feeding information through to the government via a national security advisor embedded in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet would have greatly increased governance and capability, Little said.
The current government scrapped the proposal in August last year.
Despite that failing, Little said there had been positive changes within the SIS and GCSB since 2019.
Judith Collins, the minister now responsible for the agencies, did not agree to an interview and referred the matters to the agencies themselves.
In a statement, an SIS spokesperson said that while the Royal Commission found there was no plausible way the terrorist could have been detected other than chance, there had been significant transformation within the agency and that had continued.
The work included:
- Enabling the NZSIS to identify previously unknown, new and emerging national security threats, including through increased online operational activity.
- Streamlining the mechanisms through which leads are prioritised and assessed.
- Enhancing how the NZSIS worked with key partner agencies, including the GCSB and New Zealand Police, to improve coordination of the detection and investigation of counter-terrorism threats. This included further development of joint leads processes and strengthening inter-agency functions, including co-location.
SIS had built its capability since the attack, said the spokesperson.
"Recognising the signs of terrorism and violent extremism early is an absolute focus of the NZSIS, as the public would expect. Since the attacks, NZSIS has looked deeply at its operations with a strong focus on building its capability to find unknown threat actors, including through partnering with other agencies, increased online operational activity and broader community engagement.
"However, the NZSIS is not all seeing and all knowing, and nor should we be in a free and open democracy. We have neither the legal authority nor technical means to undertake mass surveillance of New Zealand's internet traffic," the spokesperson said.
"The most plausible form of violent extremist attack in New Zealand continues to be someone who acts alone and is either self-radicalised or inspired by like-minded individuals, using readily available weapons. Attacks are likely to occur with little to no warning, undertaken by individuals who may have taken steps to avoid detection. That is why it is vital that members of the public, if they see activity online or elsewhere that indicates someone has the intent to undertake an act of violent extremism, they tell NZSIS or New Zealand Police."
SIS was not willing to discuss its intelligence sharing arrangements with its Australian partners.
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation said it did not comment on sensitive intelligence matters.
