Treating NZ’s far right groups as terrorist organisations could make monitoring extremists even harder

Abstract

The government’s recently proposed changes to New Zealand’s counter-terrorism legislation are focusing attention on how best to equip law enforcement agencies with the tools to prevent the kind of atrocity witnessed in Christchurch on March 15, 2019. The amendments to the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 and Search and Surveillance Act 2012 are mostly reasonable responses to recommendations by the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Christchurch terror attack.

However, by broadening the definition of a terrorist act to one intended to induce “fear” rather than “terror” in a population, there is a risk the new law may go too far.