Final decisions on the 2020 Royal Commission's recommendations are expected to be made this year, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Vital advice to overcome weaknesses in national security still has not gone to Cabinet months after it was due.
This stands in the way of the government setting up a new national security agency, despite directives from the very top about what a "high priority" it was to make those decisions.
Four years on from the mosque attacks, there was still no standardised way for ministers to set national security priorities or to react to threats, according to proactively released Cabinet papers.
These quote Jacinda Ardern, when she was prime minister and national security and intelligence minister, saying a "first priority" was deciding who would lead national security, and "whether to establish a new agency".
Phase one was to focus in "on system leadership/agency questions" to reform the piecemeal national security system".
That was last July.
Since then, the key dates for ministers to grapple with all of that - in late 2022 and early this year - have been missed.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins yesterday blamed Covid for the delays, by Chris Hipkins.
The delays have left the Muslim and Jewish communities - still feeling vulnerable to far-right hate - also feeling unsure if they will get a new-look, high powered, string-pulling new agency to counter the terror threat, even though this was the second-to-top of the 44 recommendations from the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the mosque attacks.
"It is not clear we're going to get an independent agency looking at or overlooking the activities of the security agencies," New Zealand Jewish Council president Stephen Goodman said.
"I sense there is some resistance within the agencies to have an overriding body looking at them, and a confidence that they can do the job themselves.
"But past experience has shown that they cannot and do not do that job."
The Muslim community also worries the delays will only worsen in election year, and a new agency might even disappear from the agenda entirely.
"We haven't heard a clear statement by the prime minister on this," said Abdur Razzaq, who leads Muslim input on the Royal Commission progress.
"He did make a generic statement ... that he would continue on.
"But we just need it, because we are so scared ... it can get diverted, like the hate-speech legislation", which was batted about before being watered down.
Razzaq takes heart from the government spending half a billion dollars following the 44 recommendations so far, and said he had heard from one key minister, Andrew Little, a commitment to establishing a new security and intelligence agency.
Hipkins, asked by RNZ if he would commit to set up the new agency, yesterday stopped short of that.
"The government agreed in principle to the 2020 Royal Commission's recommendations and we remain committed to that," he said in a statement, similar to many past ones from the government.
"This work slowed during the pandemic, but DPMC [the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet] advise they continue to progress options for ministers in this area, with final decisions expected to be made by Cabinet this year."
In January, the briefing to Hipkins as incoming minister did not directly mention any new overarching agency.
In addition, it said the "current thinking" about a system overhaul "has not yet been shared with agencies or other ministers".
Last year, the papers from Ardern said the community advisory group on the Royal Commission response wanted "greater momentum" for a new agency.
"It is also likely to be the highest expense intervention, take time to deliver, and will drive the development of other options."
It appears DPMC hold the reins, Aliya Danzeisen says. Photo: RNZ / Luke McPake
Islamic Women's Council national coordinator Aliya Danzeisen said there was a lack of will from the government or DPMC, despite the high stakes.
"This was absolutely necessary to ensure the safety of our nation," she said.
Yet it felt like authorities wanted to kick the can down the road, again, she said.
"Take the US after 9/11.
"They were able to do [something] and put in Homeland Security, a whole new structure, within two years, and the US is a huge country. And what we hear in New Zealand is 'Oh, we've got to change legislation'.
"We've taken two years, and there's no agency designed. And there is no funding for an agency.
"And all indicators are that DPMC will be continually holding the reins, and that they may put in a small oversight board, but they get to choose who's there."
The Cabinet papers acknowledge the DPMC's conflict of interest, real or perceived.
"The work programme is led by an agency likely to be directly impacted by decisions arising from the review," they said, before adding the conflict could be managed.
The papers also expect setting up the new agency will cost the most out of any of the commission's 18 counter-terrorism recommendations.
A key factor, last July, was described as to "understand as early as possible the potential breadth of change involved for the higher cost proposals, to inform future Budgetsn(e.g. options involving a new agency are likely to present the highest costs)".
Without a new agency, other work was being held up, such as on who will be accountable for what.
The new agency was also meant to lead the way for all public sector agencies regarding national security.
Public sector feedback gave the "strong sense that top-down strategic direction is needed to bring focus to the national security system", the papers said.
The upcoming election created still more uncertainty.
"There is not necessarily the same commitment with a change of government, but one would hope so," Goodman said.
The DPMC told RNZ in a statement it has not reported back to Cabinet yet.
"As the timeline for Cabinet decisions has changed, no significant structural changes have been made," deputy chief executive Tony Lynch said.
The options for changes could not be outlined "as the work is under active consideration".
Lynch's group was also advising the government in mid-2022 on setting up a Royal Commission Outcome Framework (ROF), to help agencies and the public evaluate the progress.
That work was still going on, too, he said.
Danzeisen was exasperated.
"We have people who died because the security wasn't around the issues. And we don't have anything in place now, four years from the attacks, that offers us the assurances and the trust that they are now."