Speaker 1: Fyota. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is a bonus episode
Speaker 1: of The Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the
Speaker 1: New Zealand Herald. A dark day in Australia as two
Speaker 1: gunmen open fire at a Bondai Beach Jewish event marking
Speaker 1: the first day of Hunaker. Sixteen people are dead, including
Speaker 1: one of the assailants. Police have confirmed there were two
Speaker 1: offenders and they aren't looking for anyone else. One of them,
Speaker 1: a fifty year old man, is dead and a second,
Speaker 1: a twenty four year old man, is in a critical
Speaker 1: but stable condition. They were father and son. There were
Speaker 1: dozens of people in New South Wales hospitals overnight from
Speaker 1: the ages of ten to eighty seven. New South Wales
Speaker 1: Premier Chris Mens has said anti Semitism is toxic. It
Speaker 1: is cancerous and leads to devastating implications. Prime Minister Anthony
Speaker 1: Arberesi said we as a nation are stronger than the
Speaker 1: cowards who did this. Today on the Front Page, University
Speaker 1: of Waikato International law professor Al Gillespie is with us
Speaker 1: to discuss this tragic attack and what it might mean
Speaker 1: for New Zealand. Our major question here will be whether
Speaker 1: the terrorists were already known by authorities. That's not unusual.
Speaker 1: Apparently one was known to police, but under what circumstances
Speaker 1: we don't really know yet. We do have that kind
Speaker 1: of thing here. Don't we a terror watch.
Speaker 2: List, but we do, and both countries have quite good
Speaker 2: security services. But we can expect that there will be
Speaker 2: a review almost immediately about what was known and what
Speaker 2: was missed. Inevitably, there's always the questions about whether they
Speaker 2: should have been able to go deeper and had a
Speaker 2: greater profile of the people involved in this attackchallenges that
Speaker 2: often toroists are largely invisible, but they always leave fingerprints.
Speaker 2: To question how deep you're willing to dig to find
Speaker 2: those fingerprints before the attank.
Speaker 1: And I know that there will also be questions about
Speaker 1: what types of firearms they used and where they got them.
Speaker 1: Australia banned semi automatics in the nineties, of course, after
Speaker 1: the country's worst mass shooting at Port Arthur. The fifty
Speaker 1: year old man was apparently licensed, he had been for
Speaker 1: at least ten years, and had six firearms in his possession.
Speaker 1: They reckon. They've found all six at the scene, but
Speaker 1: determining kind of what firearms they were will be a
Speaker 1: major part of this investigation.
Speaker 2: Hey, terroists, when they use firearms tend to go for
Speaker 2: particular types, and the way it normally works is that
Speaker 2: there will be a prohibition on the type of firearm
Speaker 2: that was used in the at tank. The challenge for
Speaker 2: Australia is that they have some of the strongest firearms
Speaker 2: laws in the world. This shows you that even with
Speaker 2: very strong laws, people can still get through the gaps.
Speaker 2: I imagine they will be focusing not just on the
Speaker 2: type of platform that was utilized, but also on the
Speaker 2: licensing procedure of the alleged terrorist, because there will be
Speaker 2: a series of interviews and intelligence gathering and they will
Speaker 2: now be looking at whether that was adequate, whether any
Speaker 2: mistakes were made. Importantly, there's often a connection with firearms
Speaker 2: in Australia and whether they're a member of a club,
Speaker 2: whether they've been to a range, whether there were warning
Speaker 2: signs of something that should have just put up a
Speaker 2: red flag, and all of that will be looked at
Speaker 2: quite closely now.
Speaker 1: And I can imagine New Zealand authorities will be looking
Speaker 1: quite closely as well what Australia discovers also well, given
Speaker 1: that they are now rewriting our gun laws here.
Speaker 2: Hey, well that's right, and obviously without terror attack and
Speaker 2: christ Church there were mistakes over the licensing and there
Speaker 2: was a gap through which the terrorists progressed to get
Speaker 2: a firearms platform that was highly lethal. And so the
Speaker 2: way it works is that you always wait for an
Speaker 2: attack and then you revise your laws and policy afterwards.
Speaker 2: But for Australia, which already has some of the best
Speaker 2: laws in the world, it will be a hard point
Speaker 2: to be too, because Australia has taken pride in its
Speaker 2: very good record of very few terror attacks in recent
Speaker 2: years or mass shootings because of its arms laws, but
Speaker 2: now that will become questionable.
Speaker 1: Well, anti Semitism has grown rampant in Australia over recent years.
Speaker 1: We've actually spoken about it on this podcast before. What
Speaker 1: do you make of this?
Speaker 2: I think it Anti Semitism is a plague. It's a
Speaker 2: terrible thing. But it should have been greater security at
Speaker 2: this event. It was foreseeable that there was a place
Speaker 2: where there was a high density of a particular population.
Speaker 2: The date was foreseeable, like it was an event, and
Speaker 2: often terrorists will be focused on holidays or points of
Speaker 2: national significance for the community that they target, and so
Speaker 2: I think that the anti Semitism with the hatred has
Speaker 2: all come together at one particular point, and it should
Speaker 2: have been more foreseeable than it has been. I think
Speaker 2: the rise of anti Semitism is a global problem. It's
Speaker 2: not just in Australia, it's also in New Zealand, and
Speaker 2: it's also in Europe as well.
Speaker 1: And of course Benjamin Natanya who has come out pretty
Speaker 1: quickly and said that Australia quote poured oil on the
Speaker 1: flames of anti Semitism through its silence on anti Jewish sentiment.
Speaker 1: That's not exactly the case, though, was it.
Speaker 2: I think that's unfair. I think in part this is
Speaker 2: a relationship to the wider debate about the war and
Speaker 2: Gaza and the recognition of Palestine. And there has been
Speaker 2: assertions made that if you were not fully behind what
Speaker 2: mister Nettni who was trying to do, you were further
Speaker 2: in anti Semitism. But the to it are very distinct,
Speaker 2: and people may still be concerned about the position of Israel,
Speaker 2: but that doesn't necessarily make them anti Semitic. But there
Speaker 2: are definitely a lot of anti Semitic feelings in the
Speaker 2: terrorist community which have now been acted upon, and it
Speaker 2: means that we've all got to double down with our
Speaker 2: protection of all of these communities because they are vulnerable.
Speaker 2: And from here you have a risk which is twofold.
Speaker 2: One you have a risk of a copycat or two
Speaker 2: you have a risk of a reprisal against opposing communities.
Speaker 2: And so there's always a period attention after an attack
Speaker 2: where you have to have extra vigilance and you will
Speaker 2: see it on the streets of Australia and potentially in
Speaker 2: New Zealand as well, because terrorists are often inspired by
Speaker 2: the acts of others.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there has been a report of an ISIS flag
Speaker 1: being draped over the offender's car. We haven't got that
Speaker 1: confirmed yet, but what we do know about those terror
Speaker 1: groups is that they just feed off of this discontent,
Speaker 1: whatever it might be. So we don't really need to
Speaker 1: make a link between ISIS and anti Semitism, do we.
Speaker 2: You will often find when there is a terror attack
Speaker 2: more than one terror group will actually try to claim
Speaker 2: it for their own publicity purposes. But for some groups
Speaker 2: they don't look for an active affiliation, but they do
Speaker 2: look to encourage people to do acts individually. And try
Speaker 2: to give them enthusiasm for that. What you may see
Speaker 2: here at some point is a manifesto may become apparent
Speaker 2: of why they did the acts in question, and often
Speaker 2: the manifesto will give you the clear link that you
Speaker 2: need for it to be terrorism. Although I think it's
Speaker 2: a fairly safe bet that this is an active terrorism
Speaker 2: that will tarketed a particular population, but the manifesto will
Speaker 2: often flesh that out.
Speaker 1: Do you think New Zealand should be on high alert
Speaker 1: and perhaps change our alert level alongside Australia's.
Speaker 2: I think we should be extra vigilant around the time
Speaker 2: of the year that we're in and have an increased
Speaker 2: awareness of the risk to both the Jewish community and
Speaker 2: the Muslim community as well, because people tend to follow
Speaker 2: these instances and they can see the notoriety that the
Speaker 2: Kilns can do. So partly, it's not just about an awareness,
Speaker 2: it's also about an awareness on the part of the
Speaker 2: media not to glamorize or show the terror that these
Speaker 2: acts can do because it can incentivize copycat performances.
Speaker 1: Will New Zealand's sis be stepping up and monitoring in
Speaker 1: light of what happened yesterday? I can imagine teams will
Speaker 1: be working throughout the night to just see what kind
Speaker 1: of reaction online this has gotten.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it would be reactions online. And often
Speaker 2: these terror communities are international as well, and even tho
Speaker 2: they may not have actual formal linkages, they'll all be
Speaker 2: on the darker side of the Internet communicating and so
Speaker 2: I imagine that the New Zealand SIS and the police
Speaker 2: and their associated security agencies will all be taking extra
Speaker 2: effort over the coming weeks.
Speaker 1: And amongst those horrors, though, we saw images of a
Speaker 1: hero Ahmed al Ahmed, a forty three year old root
Speaker 1: shop owner. He confronted one of the attackers and wrestled
Speaker 1: a gun from him. Apparently he has been shot a
Speaker 1: couple of times, but it is in a stable condition.
Speaker 1: What do you think that that means for the wider
Speaker 1: community seeing those images as opposed to the ones of devastation.
Speaker 2: I think that's a remarkable act of heroism and I
Speaker 2: think he will become the Australian of the year and
Speaker 2: it's encouraging to see that the response against terrorism comes
Speaker 2: from Australian citizens of all flavors, and that you can't
Speaker 2: just paint a community as good or bad because of
Speaker 2: the membership of that group.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining us OL.
Speaker 2: You're welcome, Chelsea.
Speaker 1: That's it for this bonus episode of the Front Page.
Speaker 1: For more on this story, you can visit enzadherld dot
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