Mike Hosking: Why do we need to see the Royal Commission report on the mosque shootings?

OPINION:

The Royal Commission’s findings on the Christchurch shooting are with the relevant minister.

The first question is, when will we be able to see it? The law says it should be placed in the house as soon as possible, whatever that means.

But it is potentially the most critical part of the entire tragic event. Brenton Tarrant has been convicted. So justice has been served, as is possible in a case like this.

The arms buy-back, which was the government’s knee-jerk reaction to a tragedy, was carried out with predictable results. Many rabbit shooters turned in their guns, we paid millions for them and threw them in the trash, hoping that the next time a madman comes to town they will have a hard time getting a weapon of some kind of mass destruction.

That is why the Report of the Royal Commission is so important. Because the ideal scenario was, of course, that the attack never happened in the first place. And the way that would have happened is that Tarrant was detained before acting.

So the critical part of this report is, was our security found deficient? And if so, how bad? My bet, sadly, is that the answer is yes.

The feeling at the time, if you recall, was that the authorities had expended too much energy on groups like ISIS. International terrorist groups were a reflection of where the world was after 9/11. The white supremacist had managed to operate a bit under the radar. Hopefully this report will clarify whether this is true.

But I ask the question again, which I did at the time, and on that I base my fears, how is it possible that a person without obvious means, without employment, is able to roam the world the way he did, and no flag was raised nowhere.

This is a guy who traveled to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, France, Spain, Portugal, Croatia, and North Korea.

Now some of those places don’t sound like alarms, but come on. North Korea, Pakistan and Afghanistan? There is a theme here, and it is not the sun and the couches. Even if it was, the controls could have verified it.

The travel history alone, and his inattention to a single man sitting in Dunedin, warranted many questions, he would have thought.

What I fear is that, once again, the government departments are very weak. And when they are, apologies will flow, lessons will be learned, and promises will be made.

But of course, like all reports that find fault, ineptitude, lack of professionalism and incompetence, it will be too late.

Let’s hope we are wrong. It will not change the result, but there will be less salt in the wound.