David Seymour slams Police Commissioner for 'smarmy' response to failings which let Christchurch terrorist access firearms

December 10, 2020

The ACT leader says "the real injustice" is that firearms are now being taken off law abiding citizens.

ACT leader David Seymour is criticising the police over failings which led to the Christchurch terrorist having access to his weapons.

Speaking on TVNZ1's Breakfast today Seymour labelled comments from Police Commissioner Andrew Foster yesterday following the release of a police report into the March 15 terrorist attack as "smarmy".

On March 15, 2019, a lone gunman shot dead 51 Muslims at two Christchurch mosques as they prayed. Many more were injured.

The response to the killings was the largest and most complex operation police have ever mounted, police said in a report released yesterday . It came a day after 800-pages from a Royal Commission of Inquiry report into the incident was released.

Police rated their actions as "very good" during the 48 hours after the attack.

However, 800 pages of a Royal Commission report released Tuesday revealed the New Zealand Police failed to process the gunman’s firearms licence appropriately.

This morning on TVNZ1's Breakfast, Seymour said police hadn't taken proper accountability for the failing.

"A guy who has just got off a plane, a foreign national, a single male living alone whose travel history includes the Balkans, North Korea, Pakistan and a whole lot of other places that aren't normal travel patterns shouldn't be able to get off a plane and get a firearm licence after having two of his mates from online gaming interviewed by police and then order 3000 round of ammunition for an AR-15 using a mail order form that the police signed off.

"The police failed here and have they taken accountability? No.

But police, who approved the terrorist’s firearms licence, were not off the hook in the Royal Commission of Inquiry report released today.

"Andrew Coster, the Police Commissioner, yesterday gave this frankly smarmy 'oh I'm sorry that our service wasn't up to standard'. Fifty-one people died, Andrew Coster, and he says that."

Seymour, who has been outspoken against the Government's sweeping nationwide ban on most semiautomatic weapons in the wake of the mass shooting, today said law abiding citizens being punished was the "real injustice".

"Now actually what the police did do is they went and advised the Government 'take a whole lot of firearms off people who are following the law' instead of being accountable for their own failings, which they must have known about, they've waited until now for it to come out. That's the real injustice here."

Police have apologised for failings identified in the Royal Commission findings that created the environment in which this country's worst mass killing was allowed to happen.

The Royal Commission of Inquiry found, among other things, failings with the focus of New Zealand security and intelligence agencies.

Yesterday, Coster said significant steps had been made to tighten the process of firearm licensing since the Christchurch mosque shootings.

However, Seymour said, "We need an independent authority that issues firearms licenses and does it properly so people like this guy [Brenton Tarrant] doesn't get one, while respecting the rights and freedoms of people who are fit and proper".

The terrorist admitted to 51 charges of murder, 40 charges of attempted murder and one terror charge following the hateful shootings at Christchurch’s Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre at his sentencing in August.

He will serve the rest of his life in Auckland Prison at Paremoremo.

The Prime Minister has apologised and promised action after the report found failings.

SHARE ME