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New Zealand’s intelligence agencies will remain intact and spy chief Rebecca Kitteridge will keep her job after the government pledged to reform the national security apparatus.
The royal commission on the March 15 terror attack, in a report released Tuesday, was highly critical of the lack of clear leadership in counterterrorism efforts and “a systemic failure” to recognize that far-right terrorism was a threat. .
The investigation said the SIS had an “inappropriate” focus on Islamic terrorism, which Kitteridge said in response was due to lack of resources.
The government has committed to creating a new national security agency. Intelligence Agency Minister Andrew Little confirmed Wednesday that this agency would bring together the dispersed policy committees, boards and operations that currently make national security decisions.
Ross Giblin / Stuff
Intelligence Agencies Minister Andrew Little says a new national security agency will combine existing national security resources, which are distributed among the agencies.
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Little said he retained confidence in SIS CEO Rebecca Kitteridge, who has been criticized for her involvement in the agency’s almost singular focus on Islamic terror threats.
“She was dealing with the real jobs that were available to her at the time. Since they were the agency that had to do the front-line counter-terrorism work, since there was no strategic direction elsewhere to say: now we have to divert some of those resources elsewhere, ”Little said.
The royal commission had found that the SIS should have considered other threats, not that its work on Islamic terror threats was misdirected, he said.
“The total decision-making machinery, beyond the two agencies responsible for intelligence gathering, was not equipped to make sure that those decisions to direct resources in the right way were made.”
The new national security agency would take resources spread across various offices to produce strategic direction for intelligence agencies, Little said.
Little got into trouble Wednesday for speaking out publicly about his contribution to the royal commission, which sealed a 30-year suppression on evidence from current and former cabinet chief executives and ministers.
ROBERT KITCHEN / Things
The Director General of the Security Intelligence Service, Rebecca Kitteridge, in the publication of the royal commission in the report of the terrorist attack of March 15 on Tuesday.
When asked why he had not recognized the lack of leadership in the national security apparatus, Little said it was “not correct” that he had not identified a problem.
“But I am well aware that I have obligations under section 15 of the Investigations Act and have already been flagged once today for violating or allegedly violating it.”
Crown Law had notified him of the possible violation after he was interviewed on Radio NZ, he said.
Green Party spokesperson for human rights, Golriz Ghahraman, said that if Kitteridge continued to maintain that the Muslim community should be targeted, then “she is absolutely incapable of running the agency.”
“The finding was that the agency was allocating resources disproportionately … monitoring the Muslim community and that was not based on evidence.”
Kitteridge said Tuesday that the Muslim community as a whole was not being monitored by the SIS, but that security people were.
Ghahraman said the report “found that there was bias at her agency and that she continues to deny that the evidence is of great concern to me for her leadership.”
