Omer IbrahimIBRAHIM OMER (Labour): Mālō e lelei Mr Speaker. Salaam alaikum. I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this such an important national issue. Can I first join my colleagues and colleagues from the other side of the House to express my sincere feelings to the victims of Friday 3 September the victims of a vicious and horrific terrorist attack. On 3 September 2021 our country yet again witnessed an awful attack by someone who has claimed to be part of a specific community or a specific religion but yet again this person doesn't represent this community or this religion.I also wanted to add my voice to others expressing my gratitude to the bystanders who joined and heroically supported the victims of the attack and specifically the Countdown workers who a few months ago went through a lot. They went through a lot throughout the lockdown and working hard around the clock to keep our shelves full and keep us fed and yet again this happened to them. I just want to shout out to them. I also wanted to shout out to our police officers who followed this guy like a shadow around the clock and very grateful that they stepped in at the right time to stop this attack and end the tragedy. It could have been worse without their involvement.Terrorists always have one thing in common: they claim to be something they are not. The March 15 2019 attacker magnified himself to be something he is not and this guy also tried to magnify himself to be something that he is not. He spoke of joining ISIS. This person called himself a Muslim and yet he wanted to join this vicious evil organisation that probably has killed more Muslims than anyone. In Syria and Iraq the biggest victims of ISIS are Muslims and this person yet calling himself a good Muslim wanted to join. He was inspired by them and he wanted to join them. So that says a lot about him. In 2017 this person wanted to travel to join this group in Syria. I've heard a lot of comments—people saying that we should have let him go. That would have been irresponsible. We did the right thing by stopping him.While this is not the issue of the Muslim community or Sri Lankan community or the ethnic communities I acknowledge the feeling of those communities and the anxiousness among the community members—the attacks that were directed at them in the last few days. I personally alongside my friends from the ethnic caucus have been working around the clock in the last few days and we've heard a lot of these stories. And yet again they are very grateful to the way that the Government has responded especially the messaging from our Prime Minister who really eased the anxiousness and the tension among our community members.A lot has been spoken about the gaps in our law that helped this guy to stay in home but we also heard from David Seymour arguing that the Minister had the power to deport this man. Laws are made by Parliament but it's up to the courts to interpret those laws. So speaking about the Minister not being able to do his job by deporting this guy isn't relevant in this case. But now we have work to do. We have to move quickly. We have to change the laws and we have to fill in those gaps to make sure that these things don't happen again.This is not about politics; this is not the time to play politics. We have got victims who are hurting who are lying in hospital—some of them in critical condition. We need to think about them. It's time to rally around them and in this case I am very proud of the way that the Muslim community has responded. They have seen multiple co-funding campaigns by the Muslim communities who are raising tens of thousands of dollars across the country. In 2019 the Muslim community was on the receiving end. They were grateful for the way that 5 million Kiwis wrapped their arms around them and now they are trying to do their best; they are trying to support their fellow Kiwis.One of the things that really is a coincidence is that both incidents happened while Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is leader of the country. Yet again the comments I hear specifically from our community is that in 2019 yes the Muslim community was at the receiving end and the way that the Prime Minister led the country has responded to the event basically helped to get the nation to get through and this time the Muslims were on the other side and yet again the response is easing the tension and helping the community to heal. This is the time for all of us to stick together and get through this.Now we've heard a lot of comments about asylum seekers and that this guy was one of the asylum seekers who came to this country in 2011. He was interrogated vigorously and he went through the process and after appealing he got accepted by Immigration New Zealand. Now I don't believe that Immigration New Zealand by accepting this guy based on the evidence and documents presented to them—now I don't want this to be interpreted and then again affect the asylum seekers that are yet to come to this country because that is not where we wanted to go. The last few months we have been working around asylum seekers because we identified a huge hole and a gap in the system—the way that asylum seekers are being supported. We've heard that this guy had a huge severe mental health issue and now in our system asylum seekers get very little support around their mental health and other support. There is work under way to bring the level of service for asylum seekers on line with refugees ones that are identified they are refugees just like many other refugees but yet they don't get any support. So we need to look into this as well. While we solidify our law our legislation we also need to look into providing people with the proper services to make sure that people are safe people are getting enough support that they need to get.Last I wanted to say reiterate the things that everyone has been saying—David Seymour touched on it earlier—this guy does not represent anyone not Sri Lankans not the Muslim community not the ethnic community. This guy is someone who was deluded enough to be inspired by an evil organisation and based on that he decided to act and unleash this evil act and he paid a heavy price for that and has been removed from our community.So at the end while I will reiterate that this has nothing to do with the ethnic community Muslim community or Sri Lankan community I urge members from all walks of this House to reach out to the Muslim community in their local community—to the Muslims Sri Lankans or ethnic people—and make sure that they are OK because I've heard a lot of stories: women now don't feel to go and stand and queue in supermarkets with the hijab because of the way people look at them and that's not what we want. All of us have a duty now to make sure that people are feeling welcome people are feeling OK and no terrorist no matter what will change the way of our life because this was an attack on our way of living. Every terrorist that unleashes attacks wants to change the way of life in that country and that is what this guy has tried to do. This is what the 2019 terrorist has tried to do but it didn't work because Kiwis—5 million Kiwis—stood up and said No we're not going to change." And now I will just reiterate: may the victims' wounds heal quickly and our prayers and thoughts are with them. Kia ora.The debate having concluded the motion lapsed."