Over the weekend I reflected that arguably the Christchurch terror attack was the least successful terror attack I could think of.

I don’t mean unsuccessful in terms of killing people. Sadly he was successful there. The loss of life was appalling and we won’t forget the victims.

What I mean is that in terms of his objectives, he has been a miserable failure. In fact he has achieved almost the polar opposite of what he aimed to do.

He said that he decided to attack Muslims in New Zealand because (his words) they are the most despised group of “invaders” and attacking them will receive the greatest level of support.

Well he has achieved the opposite. He has done more to foster goodwill and empathy for Muslims in New Zealand, than many would have though possible. The 50 victims have been the human face of what happened. Almost $10 million has been donated to their families. Tens of thousands of New Zealanders have attended memorial services. The words of mosque leaders preaching peace and tolerance have been heard up and down the country. Muslim prayers have been said in Parliament, on television and radio.

Again this is the greatest backfire I can recall. The overwhelming reaction from New Zealanders has been the total opposite to what he wanted.

His other aim is to help incite global war by sparking revenge attacks against New Zealand. But again the opposite has happened. To the rest of the world, New Zealand has been the victim not the perpetrator. The response led by Jacinda Ardern has had New Zealand praised around the world. The President of Turkey did an op ed in the Washington Post praising her. Her image is being beamed onto the tallest building in the Middle East. The response of New Zealand as a whole, but especially Ardern, has seen New Zealand praised by most Muslim nations.

So once again he has scored an incredible own goal. He has probably done more to frustrate his own aims, than anyone else could have done on purpose.

That doesn’t lessen the tragedy for the 50 dead and their families. It doesn’t lessen the fear that many Muslims will have in having been targeted in this way. It goes without saying that we would all be better off if he had somehow been detected before he could launch his attack.

But the fact his hatred has backfired so massively in terms of his aims, is some comfort I hope.

The Herald reported:

New Zealand has received advice from a wide range of countries on how to improve its human rights, including from Venezuela, Russia, Syria and Myanmar.
The advice is included in the United Nations Human Rights Council draft report on New Zealand.

That’s lovely that Russia, Syria and Venezuela could share their expertise with us on how to improve our human rights so we can match their levels.

Russia wants New Zealand to consider not only a written constitution but wants to see the Treaty of Waitangi enshrined in law.
Venezuela wants the Bill of Rights Act to be given a constitutional status and it wants to see women and girls guaranteed a life free from violence.
Iran wants New Zealand to improve anti-discrimination legislation to ensure the protection of rights of ethnic minorities.
Belarus wants to see less over-crowding in prisons and better access of prisoners to quality medical services.

How can we say no to any of these proposals.

And Oman wants New Zealand to strengthen measures in the area of women’s empowerment and the promotion of equal opportunities for women.

Always amusing when a country which up until 2010 required a woman to get permission to marry to tell us we should have equal opportunities for women.

An interesting discussion on Radio Live about whether the Government will exempt Iwi from a Capital Gains Tax, as they may face a Treaty claim if they don’t.

What I found most interesting is the two Iwi who submitted said they support a CGT, but for everyone but themselves.

The Mueller report has been delivered to the US Attorney-General with no indictments against members of the Trump Family, and no charges laid which suggest there was collusion with Russia.

Certainly what has come out to date shows that Trump had terrible people around him, but that is nothing new.

I never thought collusion was likely because that would require a degree of organisational competence that the campaign didn’t seem to have.

This should kill any talk of impeachment, with the focus now on the 20 months until the 2020 election.

How are things looking? Well depends on who the Democrats select but here are recent net approval ratings around 800 days in:

• Bush GHW +77
• Eisenhower +54%
• Kennedy +47%
• Truman +40%
• Johnson +36%
• Bush GW +34%
• Nixon +14%
• Carter +8%
• Clinton +6%
• Ford +2%
• Obama +2%
• Reagan -8%
• Trump -11%

AP reported:

A decade after discovering natural gas fields off its Mediterranean coast, Israel is starting to feel the geopolitical boost.
Its newfound riches have fostered economic bonds with its neighbors, tightening relations with Arab allies, and built new bridges in a historically hostile region — even without significant progress being made toward peace with the Palestinians.
Last week’s inclusion of Israel into the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum in Cairo — a consortium aiming to cut infrastructure costs and lower prices — marked the first time Arab countries accepted Israel into such a regional alliance, sparking excitement in the country that its long-held hope of finally also making “economic peace” with Egypt and Jordan was fast approaching.
“I think this is the most significant economic cooperation between Egypt and Israel since the signing of the peace treaty 40 years ago,” Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz told The Associated Press during his visit. “The discovery of significant gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean has also political value because it brings all of us … together to cooperate with each other.”

This is very significant having Israel in a Middle Eastern economic alliance.

The forum, which also includes Cyprus, Greece, Italy and the Palestinian Authority, aims to emerge as a mini-OPEC of sorts and highlights how Israel has been leveraging its newfound gas reserves into a powerful tool to expand its immersion into a region that has increasingly come to see Iran and Turkey, rather than Israel, as their greatest rivals.
With the expected gas boon, Israel plans to wean itself off coal and emerge as an unlikely energy exporter — providing both an economic and political lift.
In the coming months, Israel will begin exporting gas to Egypt as part of a $15 billion deal signed last year to provide 64 billion cubic meters of gas over a 10-year period that will help turn Egypt into a regional energy hub.

Excellent. Countries that trade together tend to not get into armed conflict.

Politik reports:

A sign that the National Party membership want to see some changes in the party has come with news that there are now seven candidates seeking four positions on the party’s board.
The clear message is that changing the Leader last year was not enough.
More is needed.

I don’t see this as a bad thing. I think it is healthy to have lots of people wanting to be on the board. National is a party that is pro-competition.

Four of the candidates are sitting members of the board; Andrew Hunt, Alastair Bell, Glenda Hughes and Pat Seymour.
The three new candidates are Grant McCallum, Stefan Sunde and Paul Foster-Bell.

I know all of them. They’re all good people, and it gives the party a healthy choice.

Stefan Sunde, the former President of the Young Nats, told POLITIK that with the nomination process still in play he didn’t want to make any comment.
But party insiders say his pitch to members has been to press his Young Nat background as an asset in focusing on the younger vote which the party now finds a lot harder to attract since Jacinda Ardern took over the Labour leadership.

I’m not endorsing anyone but always good to see a young member stand for the board.

Eric Crampton writes:

Even though smoking rates have declined, nothing suggests that current policy will achieve the Government’s goal of getting smoking down to less than 5 percent of the population by 2025.
And so we come to the promising car that has come around the corner – new and safer ways of accessing nicotine.
Spend any time walking around a downtown urban centre and you will notice the clouds of vapour coming from former smokers who have switched to a less harmful alternative. Rather than berating smokers for their habit, vaping offered a way of delivering nicotine without combustion’s nasty consequences.
But vaping is hardly the only alternative out there.
Nicotine gum and patches have long been prescribed as stop-smoking solutions, but simply haven’t worked for a lot of smokers trying to quit.
Swedish snus is a powdered tobacco contained in a small sachet that looks like a teabag; users place the sachet behind their lower lip. Snus is far safer than smoking or traditional chewed tobacco, has been an important part of Sweden’s decline in smoking rates since the 1980s, but has only recently became available in New Zealand. And new technology that heats tobacco rather than burn it, and consequently avoids creating the carcinogens that come with combustion, is now on the market too.
There have to be a wide variety of options available for people wanting to cut down or quit smoking because different things work for different people.

This is a key point – no one approach will work for all. But there is little doubt that many smokers are transitioning to vaping.

Philip Morris makes one of the newer reduced harm products. Its Iqos device heats non-combustible tobacco rather than burn it. Iqos is less harmful than smoking, but perhaps not quite as safe as vaping – the science is still being settled on that one. Nevertheless, ‘heets’ (the tobacco sticks used in Iqos) face the same tobacco excise rate as cigarillos. Excise on cigarette tobacco is just over $1,300 per kilogram or about $0.92 per cigarette. Excise on other tobacco products, from cigars and cigarillos to snus and ‘heet’ sticks, runs just over $1,150 per kilogram of tobacco.
In every other aspect of tobacco control policy, the Government has been adamant that price is an effective deterrent. That is why it imposes excise taxes that cost a pack-a-day smoker more than $6,700 per year, despite the regressive effects of that tax regularly highlighted in Statistics New Zealand’s inflation updates.
If the Government wants people to switch from smoking to less harmful alternatives, why does it impose the same tax on combustible tobacco as on tobacco that is used less harmfully? A 10-gram packet of snus selling for $21, containing 15 sachets, draws about $11.50 in excise – or about $0.77 per sachet. A 10-gram packet of cigarillos would draw the same excise.

If the aim of the tax is to reduce harm, rather than raise revenue, then there should be different levels of taxation based on the harm.

When the Prime Minister quipped that Philip Morris could simply stop selling cigarettes here, she absolutely missed the point. Other cigarette companies would fill the gap in the market. But if reduced-harm products had a greater price advantage over cigarettes through a risk-proportionate excise regime, more smokers overall might switch.

Policy is much harder than slogans.

The PM announced:

Military style semi-automatics and assault rifles will be banned in New Zealand under stronger new gun laws announced today, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says.
“On 15 March our history changed forever. Now, our laws will too. We are announcing action today on behalf of all New Zealanders to strengthen our gun laws and make our country a safer place,” Jacinda Ardern said.
“Cabinet agreed to overhaul the law when it met on Monday, 72 hours after the horrific terrorism act in Christchurch. Now, six days after this attack, we are announcing a ban on all military style semi-automatics (MSSA) and assault rifles in New Zealand.

This sounds like a good step. The key thing will be what is the precise definition used in the bill. What is an assault rifle?

“Legislation to give effect to the ban will be introduced when Parliament sits in the first week of April. We will provide a short, sharp Select Committee process for feedback on the technical aspects of the changes. We are looking to progress the amendments to this legislation under urgency and expect these amendments to the Arms Act to be passed within the next session of Parliament,” Jacinda Ardern said.

I’m glad there is a short select committee process. It is essential people can submit on the details.

“The Bill will include narrow exemptions for legitimate business use, which would include professional pest control. Police and the Defence Force will also have exemptions. Issues like access for mainstream international sporting competitions are also being worked through,” Police Minister Stuart Nash said.
“We have also acknowledged that some guns serve legitimate purposes in our farming communities, and have therefore set out exemptions for 0.22 calibre rifles and shotguns commonly used for duck hunting. These will have limitations around their capacity.

The proposed exemptions sound sensible. I look forward to seeing the detailed bill.

Have a look at the document listing all the stakeholders the review group (that is proposing taking almost all powers away boards of trustees) met with.

Barely a handful of schools make the list. Of 2,600 schools maybe a dozen had meetings. Parents and trustees were missing.

Little wonder the recommendations are to remove parents from meaningful involvement in school governance.

Politik reported:

The Government has effectively rejected a radical proposal from the Productivity Commission which could have opened up the Budget process to non-governmental organisations.
The previous National Government in 2017 asked the Commission to examine productivity in the state sector.
Predictably the Commission produced a report which drew heavily on private sector market-driven ways of improving performance.
It particularly suggested that the Minister of Finance should set aside money in the Budget dedicated to “high impact initiative” proposals that had a high probability of making a significant impact on social wellbeing.
These would need to be  evidenced through robust business cases, and returns on investment and then the Government would progressively increase the share of the budget allowance devoted to that portion.
“The Minister of Finance should restrict access to the “high-impact initiative” portion of future budget operating allowances to those departments that can credibly demonstrate productivity gains from existing baselines,” the report said.
But even more controversially it proposed that the process be opened up beyond the state sector.
“The Minister of Finance should allow non-government organisations to make budget bids directly to the Treasury for the “high- impact initiative” portion of the operating allowance,” the report said.
In other words, NGOs would be able to bid for Budget funding on the same basis as a Government Department like Social Development or Education.

That’s a great idea. It could make a huge difference. Very sad the Government has rejected it. I love the idea of NGOs being able to do direct budget bids.

Now Whitcoulls has banned Jordan Petersen’s Book, will the next step be a public burning of all books deemed incorrect?

No doubt Don Brash’s books will be added to the pile along with Mike Hosking’s and Bob Jones’.

I blogged in February on how the MOH tried to undermine a report showing worse outcomes for babies in midwife-led care. Rather than look at how to improve outcomes, they tried to discredit the research.

Seems this is not new. Received this e-mail from Andrea Menclova, an associate professor at Canterbury University:

My name is Andrea Menclova and I’m an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Canterbury. I was very pleased when Diana Sarfati and Ellie Wernham published their paper on the NZ lead maternity carer system. I find it appalling how they have subsequently been treated and this bullying behaviour from the College of Midwives needs to stop.
 
I myself wrote a paper reaching similar conclusions as Sarfati & Wernham in 2008. I presented it at a few conferences/in academic seminars. After a presentation at the Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation in Sydney, my Head of Department received a letter from the College of Midwives ‘warning him’ that I do research of poor quality (with many of their points completely uninformed) and asserting that: “there is a clear agenda and conflict of interest which is not stated”. At that point, I had only been in New Zealand for less than two years and had no connections in the LMC system or the NZ healthcare system more generally, had received no funding to conduct the study and had no a-priory views on maternity care. The College of Midwives have never contacted me directly. Like Peter Crampton at Otago, my then Head of Department (Seamus Hogan) fully supported me and defended academic freedom. Still, I can very much relate to Peter Crampton’s assessment that researchers attacked so aggressively by the College of Midwives then feel “beaten up and traumatised by the experience”. That’s not okay.  

Very sad that there is a pattern of abuse and attack of anyone pointing out flaws in the current system.

StatsNZ reports:

Gross domestic product (GDP) grew 0.6 percent in the December 2018 quarter, after a 0.3 percent rise in the previous quarter, Stats NZ said today.
“Growth this quarter was led by a 0.9 percent rise in service industries, while the goods-producing industries grew 0.2 percent,” national accounts senior manager Gary Dunnet said. “Growth was mixed at the industry level, with 10 of the 16 industries recording increases.” …

GDP per capita was up 0.1 percent in the December 2018 quarter, following a 0.1 percent fall in the September 2018 quarter.
Annual GDP growth for the year ended December 2018 was 2.8 percent.

2.8% annual growth is reasonable decent. Hopefully that will continue.

The Herald reported:

The Government plans to pass reforms to abortion law but is being held up by New Zealand First, the Herald understands.
Justice Minister Andrew Little previously said he expected to get Cabinet sign-off by the end of last year and to present legislation early this year.
However that was stymied by NZ First, which is reluctant for the issue to be treated as a Government measure.
Legislation for abortion reform, which is to be treated as a conscience issue, would have to be signed off by Cabinet. That raises questions about how Cabinet collective responsibility would apply for NZ First Cabinet Ministers, who may want to vote against it.

It is also understood Little has approached National to sound them on support for reform.

That is telling.

The report recommended three options:
• A – There would be no statutory test that must be satisfied before an abortion could be performed, and the decision would be made by the woman in consultation with a doctor.
• B – The doctor would need to be satisfied that the abortion is appropriate after considering the woman’s physical and mental health and wellbeing.
• C – The decision would be made by the woman in consultation with her health practitioner, but after 22 weeks of a pregnancy, the doctor would need to be satisfied that the abortion is appropriate after considering the woman’s physical and mental health and wellbeing.
Currently it is a crime to perform an abortion unless certain circumstances apply.
All three options would remove abortion from the Crimes Act – the statutory test would be in health legislation – and remove the requirement for two consultants to approve an abortion, or for a woman to prove it would cause serious physical or mental harm to her.
Most – but not all – medical groups and pro-choice groups favour the first option. Pro-life groups prefer the status quo.
Last night a Newshub-Reid Research Poll showed 43 per cent support for option B, 37 per cent for option A and 12 per cent for option C; 8 per cent did not know.

Like Andrew Little my preferred option is C.

A better poll would have been to include the status quo as an option.

Radio NZ report:

Media outlets have begun discussions on how best to cover the court case of the accused Christchurch terrorist without giving him a platform for propaganda. …

Over the weekend, the accused shooter told his duty solicitor he wanted to represent himself, raising fears he would try to exploit the trial to broadcast his ideology.

This is no surprise. His manifesto said he would plead not guilty and obviously that was so he could get publicity from the trial.

The last thing anyone wants is a two month long trial where he is in the news everyday, milking it for everything he can. And most of all we don’t want survivors of the attack having to be cross-examined by him in court.

So to minimise this Crown Law need to do things a bit differently. Normally in a murder case you call every possible witness, so that there is nothing left which could lead to reasonable doubt and a not guilty verdict.

In this case it is not hard to prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt. You just need to prove:

• He purchased guns
• He was the shooter
• The victims died from the shooting
• He published the manifesto, live stream etc

You don’t need to call 100 witnesses to the shootings. Just call the cops. Use the video as proof rather than spend weeks proving he went into this room then that room etc.

Crown Law should understand this is not really a trial about guilt. Yes they need to provide the evidence to the court, but they need to be aware every extra witness is an opportunity for him to grandstand. Only call people if they are essential. Don’t even bother with motive. You have a video of him doing it.

I’d far rather he was found guilty of 48 of the 50 murders in a two week trial than he was found guilty of all 50 of them in a three month trial. His sentence will be the same.

Jim Rose writes at Stuff:

Never let a bunch of anti-capitalists design a legal market for cannabis.
Their consuming hatred of Big Marijuana and the profit motive would create such an ineffectual legal market that the gangs will still supply most of the marijuana along with offers of free samples of harder drugs that even voters will work out how awful the legal model is and vote it down at the coming referendum.
The Greens and the Drug Foundation not only want to decriminalise marijuana, they want to legalise it with government controls on who can supply,  and checks on quality. They seem to want to limit access to social supply and consumer co-ops so that Big Marijuana is kept out of the market. No for-profit supply seems to be their ideal.
The Greens seem to want to imitate the monumental screwup in Canada. Not only did Canada forget to legalise production before supply, so they ran out of inventory within a week

Sounds very Canadian.

One province chose a government monopoly. Others allowed private retailers but they had to have a clean record and pay tens of thousands of dollars in annual registration fees.
Most of the current marijuana dealers in Canada did not qualify and already had an established network of customers so they stayed in business offering tax-free marijuana. American states also continue to have black markets in marijuana.
What the Greens will set up is a legal supply that is hopeless at competing with existing gang suppliers. The legal shops will be so far away from schools and other sensitive locations, open 9-to-5 in a remote warehouse district, paying a living wage that they will end up asking for a bailout from Shane Jones’ Regional Growth Fund because they attracted so few customers.

Very possible.

If advocates of legalisation want a legal market that drives the gangs out of marijuana supply, the Greens and others on the Left will have to swallow a big dead rat and embrace capitalism.
Big Marijuana might end up developing an app that ensures that adults and only adults buy marijuana delivered by Uber Eats. Marijuana legalisation will be full of the unexpected.

Cannabis delivered by Uber Eats. What a great idea!

Maajid Nawaz writes:

The anti-Muslim terrorist attack at two mosques in New Zealand marked perhaps the lowest point for Muslim communities in the West since the Bosnia genocide. It has left no doubt that far-right extremism is on the march once more.
But the sheer human tragedy of this attack against my Muslim communities has not deterred extremists from those other two ends of our political spectrum, the far left and the theocratic Islamists, from seeking to exploit it for their own nefarious purposes.

Just as a visibly pregnant Chelsea Clinton was accosted at an NYU vigil and faced unwarranted blame for the attack, others too have found themselves caught in the unforgiving crosshairs of ideologues seeking to settle scores. This was unsurprising. If the daughter of a Democratic president and a Democratic presidential candidate was fair game, what chance would those with lesser liberal bona fides have of being spared?

Some on the left seem to be in a competition as to who can blame the most people for it. You know it has got insane, when Chelsea Clinton is being blamed.

Last month I was racially attacked in the Soho area of London. I was punched in the face as my assailant shouted “f***ing Paki”, and my forehead was punctured with an unknown object. I will probably be scarred for life. So I know how tempting it can be to succumb to the forces of vengeance and division in times like these. In my youth, as an angry 15-year-old Muslim witnessing the Bosnia genocide, I once succumbed to this temptation and promoted extreme Islamism myself for a few years. I know what giving in to hate feels like, and I know the lasting damage it can cause. But that is exactly the reaction that extremists want, and exactly why it must be resisted with all our might.

Nawaz is a former Islamist.

Opportunistic Islamist and far-left extremists began calling for a purge of people whose politics they disagree with, and started publishing McCarthyite lists of personae non grata to target. 

The interesting thing in NZ is that the usual suspects have gone for the easy targets but none of them have had the balls to go after the politician who has been the most strident and consistent opponent of immigration.

After the multiple jihadist terror attacks Western cities have faced to date, it has been these same far-left and Islamist voices resisting the call to name the ideology behind these attacks as “Islamism”, and to distinguish it from the religion of Islam. They have taken the view that talking about the Islamist ideology unfairly stigmatises all Muslims. They have preferred to beseech us all to understand the grievances that fuel the anger of jihadists, and have encouraged instead ‘hug a Muslim’ campaigns. Yet, after New Zealand, these same voices paradoxically insist on directly addressing white nationalist ideology; they hounded a pregnant Chelsea Clinton; they have taken to compiling blacklists of individuals they do not like; and they are calling for the deplatforming of “right-wing” pundits and protests against “right-wing” media. Consistency has been sorely missing. This is dangerous, despicable and disingenuous. Only the extremist seeks to erase all opposition.

Extremism comes in many forms.

Just as it would be wrong to blame critics of Western foreign policy generally for jihadist terror in the West, it should be unacceptable to use this latest attack to to blame critics of Islam or immigration, or to seek to silence the political right generally. Doing so will only make matters worse and is precisely what the accused New Zealand terrorist explicitly told us he wanted, in his diatribe commonly referred to as a manifesto. In fact, there is an entire section in which [deleted by DPF] muses over pitting the American left against the American right in order to sow chaos. Falling for this trap is to allow ourselves to be trolled by a terrorist

Wise words.

To confuse hating all Muslims with critiquing the doctrines of Islam, is akin to confusing anti-smoking campaigns with hating all smokers.

I will do a separate post on this issue in a week or so.

Mark Steyn’s column is also a good read.

Good to see quite a few people are now auto-approved for comments. However the majority are not, and hence their comments are still waiting for approval. As I am a business owner and a parent, as well as a blogger, I am often offline for a few hours at a time.

So keen to get a small number of people to help approve comments. It’s very easy. There is a pending approval queue and you just click on approve or trash.

You don’t have to be a commenter yourself. You should ideally have never had a strike or a history of getting into flamewars with others.

At first the job will be simply approving comments that are obviously 100% okay. Any that are even slightly borderline, leave in the queue and then we’ll discuss collectively.

If you are keen to help out, to help Kiwiblog remain a place of robust debate, e-mail me.

UPDATE: Have three offers already. So will start with those three and expand if necessary.

Party leaders made statements in the House yesterday on the attack. WOrth sharing some of these.

Jacinda Ardern:

The 15th of March will now be for ever a day etched in our collective memories. On a quiet Friday afternoon, a man stormed into a place of peaceful worship and took away the lives of 50 people. That quiet Friday afternoon has become our darkest of days. But for the families, it was more than that. It was the day that the simple act of prayer, of practising their Muslim faith and religion, led to the loss of their loved ones’ lives. Those loved ones were brothers, daughters, fathers, and children. They were New Zealanders. They are us. And because they are us, we, as a nation, we mourn them. 

Simon Bridges:

As New Zealand woke on 15 March 2019, none of us could have imagined the horror and terror about to be unleashed on our people. As mums and dads, brothers and sisters, and sons and daughters in Christchurch went to work or to school or to prayer, none of them thought for a moment that they would return home that night changed for ever. For 50 of the worshipers who entered Al Noor Mosque and the Linwood Islamic Centre for Jumu’ah, or Friday prayers, in Christchurch, it would be their last day in this world. These New Zealanders had their lives ended, and all of us changed for ever.
For some, New Zealand had been their home for a long time. They had made their lives here working in our businesses, going to our schools, living in rich and diverse communities, and espousing everything good about our nation. For some, New Zealand was somewhere they found solace in a world full of problems. New Zealand was for them a new, a fresh, opportunity: the chance to live in a country which embraced tolerance, respect, compassion, opportunity, and freedom to be who you want to be. It was for them, as it is for us, the best little country in the world. We let them down, and for that we are sorry.

Winston Peters:

Friday, 15 March 2019 is the day everything changed in our country—a day when someone from outside our shores attempted to terrorise us and tear us apart. That, we believe, was his objective, and he has failed. Why? Because violent extremism, whatever its origin or form or creed, is utterly rejected by New Zealanders. His creed, like extremists’ anywhere and everywhere, seeks only to destroy; it’s evil and it’s destructive. The Pakistani Foreign Minister, when expressing his country’s sympathies for New Zealand, told me that 77,000 people in his country had died from terrorist-related violence in Pakistan’s recent history. He truly understood how New Zealanders feel, and we’ve had a number of messages in similar vein from Muslim countries all around the world.

Marama Davidson:

I acknowledge the lives cruelly taken and badly injured in our Muslim community by a terrorist attack driven by hatred. We are holding deep love for your families and loved ones, and your entire Muslim communities. We are holding deep love for the city of Christchurch and all of us who are hurting and are angry.
You were praying. You were in the most profoundly peaceful state of harmony and compassion that a human can be in. You were with your children, your elders, your partners and siblings, your friends, and your closest loved ones. You were anchored in the collective love of your community, the collective practice of your sacred traditions under the shelter of your sacred place of worship. Your families have been ripped apart, your hearts broken, your wairua destroyed. As artist Ruby Alice Rose drew: “This is your home. You should have been safe here.”

David Seymour:

I extend, not just to those who were attacked, but to every Muslim New Zealander, our sympathy, but also our solidarity. It is important that that solidarity is comprehensive, so let us close ranks around the cherished values of our country. Let me adopt, from the opposite end of our political spectrum, the words of our Prime Minister: “we grieve together. We are one. They are us.”
Normally in New Zealand, all the bad news is in the world section of our newspapers. How could it be that our country is supplying bad news to the papers of the world? It is tempting to say that we have changed forever. Well, cold comfort it may be, but one of our darkest days has also shed light on our true character. Up and down this country have opened up seemingly bottomless wells of love and strength. I’d like to pay tribute to those first responders, including the very first responders who heroically confronted the terrorist practically unarmed. I hope that the Crown suitably recognises you. To those who followed up: the police, the medics, hospital staff, teachers—this Parliament thanks you for your service. To those who have held vigils, created means of affirmation, left flowers, and donated millions of dollars to show the warmth and resilience of our communities.