8. Question No. 8—Prime MinisterDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Prime MinisterQuestion No. 8—Prime Minister8. DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT) to the Prime Minister: What actions will the Government take in response to the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Terrorist Attack on Christchurch Mosques?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): Firstly I want to note that we know the release of the report today is a difficult and stressful time for our Muslim community and I know they will be in the minds of all of the members of this House as we debate the report. Immediately after the attack we obviously as the member knows took swift action to ban military-style semi-automatic and assault rifles through stronger gun laws and took action to prevent stockpiling. The royal commission report itself notes that these changes have addressed a number of issues that the commission identified. More generally the Government accepts the findings of its report and agrees in principle to all recommendations. Implementing some of the recommendations will require further consideration. On many elements we expect to undertake consultation with members of this House in order to reach consensus. There are however a number of areas where we can give an initial response: Andrew Little has been appointed as coordinating Minister for the ongoing work programme; the establishment of a ministry for ethnic communities to support and strengthen the work programme around social cohesion which will be in conjunction with the Ministry of Social Development; the establishment of a national centre of excellence which brings together academia civil society and Government to research radicalisation and violent extremism; amending the Terrorism Suppression Act to strengthen counter-terrorism legislation. As I said this is not a comprehensive list and I do expect there will be plenty of debate and dialogue in this House as we work to form consensus where we can.David Seymour: Has any Government employee lost their job for the failings identified in the report and if not will any?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: I absolutely appreciate that with such a significant report the member may not have had a chance to go through this significant 800-page report but he will see certainly from the summary of recommendations that the report does not find that there were any failings from Government agencies that could have identified the preparation of this attack on March 15 and does not go to individuals holding individual account beyond of course the terrorist themselves.David Seymour: How does the Prime Minister reconcile the policy of Government action to engineer social cohesion amongst New Zealanders with the foreign origin of the terrorist and the extraordinary way that New Zealanders united in the wake of the tragedy that was admired around the world?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Because I think there is a general acknowledgment I would have thought within New Zealand that whilst of course this individual as you've pointed out did grow up in Australia he had an ideology that was not unique to him. Of course you see within the report references to the fact that there are those who hold extreme ideologies in New Zealand that were of a similar nature to the terrorist in this case and that there is work to be done if we as a nation are to address the origins of that ideology and work to prevent that manifesting in terrorist-style activity.David Seymour: How does the Prime Minister intend to hold public sector agencies accountable for failings that were identified in the report before establishing new agencies?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: Actually I think to be fair to the report itself the report identifies where there has been a lack of clarity around accountability. So in the national security landscape alongside the security intelligence agencies the New Zealand Police who take an operational role you also of course have the Combined Threat Assessment Group the National Assessments Bureau and the role of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. What the report finds is that we do need much greater coherence and clarity around the organisation of our security intelligence agencies. So that in itself does not necessarily lend itself to looking for singular accountability in this case but it does point to learnings that should make for more cohesive intelligence-gathering agencies and a framework for the future.David Seymour: Will the Government follow the royal commission's advice and implement British-style hate speech laws without the exemptions for free and open debate present in that country's laws?Rt Hon JACINDA ARDERN: My recollection of the discussion in the report actually identifies some issues with the UK legislation and so I think within the report it traverses those issues. Our intention of course is that we need to respond to both the existing framework that we have and some of the elements that are missing from within it. The member will well know for instance already within the human rights legislation there is coverage over certain groups but for instance religion is not included. So the report points out that you are covered by the human rights legislation if you identify as being Jewish or Sikh but not for instance if you're Muslim. So there are gaps in the legislation. What we will be seeking to do is to work across Parliament. We do want consensus where we can build it because of course that will stop this debate becoming divisive and potentially leading to the targeting of certain communities.