“I saw everything,” Nathan Smith says of the March 15, 2019 terrorist attack in Christchurch in which 51 peaceful Muslims were killed, and dozens injured.
He was in Masjid An-Nur (Al Noor Mosque), and survived, without physical injury, by getting to the back of the building.
At the terrorist’s court sentencing, Smith told the Australian gunman: “After you left Mosque Al Noor I was surrounded by the injured, the dying and the dead. I held a three-year-old boy in my arms praying he was alive – he was not. You took him away. He was three.”
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* March 15 families retraumatised by state
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In 2021, an opportunity arose for Smith to make a difference, to the Muslim community and his adopted country.
The Englishman, who arrived in Christchurch in 2006 and converted to Islam in 2011, joined the Collective Impact Board, born out of a recommendation by the Royal Commission into the attack.
“I had a few things that I really wanted to push for,” says Smith.
He was told the board would fill the gaps in services for suffering Muslim families, and it could push for policy changes – “so if anything in the future happened, similar – not just to this community, but to any community in New Zealand – that they don’t have to go through the same process that we had to go through, and the same battles”.
Smith’s particular interest was reforming the accident compensation system.
Emergency workers traumatised by the attack on that Friday afternoon are entitled to paid time off through the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC), as well as rehabilitation and social support.
They deserve such support, Smith says. But why is it that survivors like him – not physically injured but traumatised – were expected to be back at work on Monday morning?
“Where’s the fairness in that?”
In May 2022, a year into the board’s two-year existence, Smith and three other board members quit – a majority of the seven community members. (According to the board’s website, the four who left were Smith, Maha Elmadani, Maha Galal, and Humaira Hakeemi.)
Before he quit, Smith refused to take the $197.50 he was entitled to claim, telling the secretariat of the board he hadn’t done anything so he didn’t deserve to be paid.
The scaffolder describes the board as a joke.
“Nothing happened while I was on the board – that’s why I left,” Smith says. “In the end, it was just a waste of time.”
“You go there, you listen, you put your hand up, you eat some food, and then you leave. That was it.”
– Nathan Smith
When the Royal Commission’s weighty report was made public in December 2020, the ongoing recovery of affected whānau, the injured, and other survivors, was a firm focus.
It recommended the Government direct the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) to work with relevant agencies and non-government organisations to ensure the Muslim community had the support it needed, and provide a single point of contact navigating the public sector on its behalf.
To do that, MSD’s existing Kaiwhakaoranga specialist case management service was expanded to include expertise from ACC, Immigration NZ, and a work broker.
The very next recommendation was to investigate setting up a Collective Impact Board, bringing agencies and the Muslim community together, to ensure everyone was getting the help they needed.
In May 2021, Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment Priyanca Radhakrishnan announced the board’s establishment. As a result, the press release stated, “the voices of those affected by the March 15 mosque attacks will be heard more effectively”.
Smith was one of the seven community members named. Six other members were government appointees, including co-chair Jane Parfitt, a former chief operating officer at the Christchurch City Council.
The board’s terms of reference said it was to provide and receive advice and guidance from the Kaiwhakaoranga service and a cross-agency group. It didn’t have formal decision-making powers, but its advice and insights would be given “appropriate consideration”.
Last year, on the third anniversary of the attack, the then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern listed the board’s establishment as one of the achievements in the Government’s response.
We asked Smith what it achieved.
“Nothing, absolutely nothing. It was a tick-box exercise,” he says.
“Some of the people there were trying their best with what they had – especially the Muslim community, because we were all there and we were all led there to do something good – and as soon as we got there, our hands were tied.”
He says members turned up to meetings with a packed agenda – decided beforehand – and were talked at by officials, with very little time for discussion or raising the unmet needs of the community.
When members did raise issues they were often told, by the chair or officials, their points went beyond the board’s scope, involved confidential issues, or brought up policies those present didn’t have the authority to change.
“You go there, you listen, you put your hand up, you eat some food, and then you leave. That was it,” Smith says.
The atmosphere was friendly, he says, but the point of the board was to achieve something, and that didn’t happen.
“How can you change anything when you’re not allowed to bring up a topic?” he asks.
“We probably spent more on us and the people from the agencies and the buffet and training days than what we actually spent on the victims, to be honest.”
Criticism of the board from an ex-member is a blow for the Government’s already weak line about progress on meeting the Royal Commission recommendations.
Sure, a long-awaited firearms registry went live last weekend, but what about the harder, thornier issues such as re-writing hate speech laws, public investment in making the country safer and more inclusive, and the creation of a new national intelligence and security agency?
Also, if establishing a Collective Impact Board was indeed a tick-box exercise, how many other “completed” recommendations does that call into question?
Email released after Ombudsman intervention
Newsroom started making enquiries about the board’s rupture a year ago, after Smith and three other members quit.
In November we asked the Ministry of Social Development for copies of all resignation letters. It provided four brief emails – including one that said “the team is doing a great job”.
One email was withheld in its entirety for “privacy” reasons. “The need to protect the privacy of these individuals outweighs any public interest in this information,” said Diane McDermott, Canterbury’s regional commissioner, at the time.
Newsroom complained to the Office of the Ombudsman, which investigated and disagreed. The email, presumably written in May last year when the others were, was released last month.
Smith confirms he didn’t write it. It backs many of his concerns.
The email’s writer, whose name is redacted, said they met victims during the first two months of their board membership to discuss needs and understand gaps in services. They submitted a memo, summarising what they found, in August 2021.
“Till now, most of the points were not discussed, leaving the needs unaddressed and the victims suffering as a result.”
Board meetings – held once a month, for about three hours – were mostly spent listening, the email said, as there wasn’t enough time for discussion.
An example from April last year was a report from MSD that included recommendations for the board which members either voted to accept or decline “without active discussion”.
It took until November 2021, five months after the board was established, for the board’s work plan to be cemented – a plan decided by the chair, Hamimah (Tuyan) Ahmat, “with no input from members”.
The ex-member wrote they weren’t allowed to add items to the meeting agenda, and were shushed by the chair “in an inappropriate way” when they asked for “proper time” for discussion.
“To summarise,” the resignation email said, “the board did not address the urgent needs of the victims I identified and informed the board [of] several times.” The board “does not serve the purpose of its establishment”.
“Varying views, opinions, priorities and expectations are part of working in a team.” – Hamimah (Tuyan) Ahmat
Asked for a response, MSD passed on a statement from the board chair.
(Ahmat’s husband, Zekeriya Tuyan, was shot at Masjid an-Nur, and when he died in hospital 48 days later, he was the 51st Shaheed. The Sakinah Community Trust, chaired by Ahmat, is behind the “unity week” initiative.)
“Every point the departing member raised has been included in the board’s work plan,” Ahmat says – although this is the plan the ex-member said was decided unilaterally.
The role of chair is to support open dialogue and active involvement, she says, while trying to keep meetings efficient, productive and considerate of everyone’s time.
“Every member is encouraged to contribute and speak. Due to time constraints we agree on an agenda in advance, and if new issues are raised these may need to be discussed at a future meeting.”
The board is advising the Kaiwhakaoranga service and it’s engaging with the community about a “best practice guide” for agencies providing services after such tragedies.
“These are the purposes for which the board was established.”
Members don’t always agree, Ahmat says, but they’re all committed to supporting those affected by the mosque attacks.
“Most board members were directly impacted ourselves. People we love were killed that day. Some of us were there; some were injured.
“Addressing the needs of victims is the sole reason any member serves on the board. I know this is true of all current members and all former ones too.”
Asked this week about Smith’s comments, Ahmat says the board comes from diverse backgrounds, that it is juggling multiple commitments and is still navigating grief.
“We’re assisting a community with complex and challenging situations. Varying views, opinions, priorities and expectations are part of working in a team.
“We appreciate the personal commitment this mahi has required from all community board representatives – both current and former.”
This is strikingly similar to a comment from MSD’s Canterbury commissioner Blair McKenzie on June 1: “We recognise the substantial progress the board has made toward completing its work programme, and we acknowledge the personal commitment this has required from all community board representatives – both current and former.”
McKenzie said at the time the board had identified 40 “themes” for its work programme, and made 11 recommendations to the Kaiwhakaoranga service, which were all implemented.
The board’s annual report, released in August last year, listed 10 recommendations to the service. One was “all people in the service looking for work have a CV, a cover letter, and an employment plan”. Another was for the service to run a CV, cover letter, job search and interview skills workshop for job seekers.
Is this not work MSD already does?
Recommendation five from the board was for the service to meet Immigration NZ to discuss “complexities and gaps”, and the ninth recommendation was “the service provides more insights to the board on general themes impacting the community”.
If the board was established so “the voices of those affected by the March 15 mosque attacks will be heard more effectively”, it’s fair to ask why it’s the bureaucrats being asked to provide the insights.
A year ago, we asked Associate Minister Radhakrishnan’s office if she was concerned about the resignations of four board members. On the third attempt to get an answer, her office said: “At this point there is no reason for the minister to be concerned.”
What about now, with Smith’s claims that it’s a waste of time? Has she sought assurances from officials about its work, and is she sure the voices of those affected by the March 15 mosque attacks are being “heard more effectively”?
Radhakrishnan’s response – which didn’t state if she was concerned – echoes the answers from Ahmat and McKenzie.
“The Collective Impact Board has made substantial progress towards completing its work programme, and I acknowledge the personal commitment this has required from all current and former board members.
“The board has tackled complex and challenging situations while also managing grief. Their contributions have been, and continue to be, a valued part of the Kaiwhakaoranga specialist case management service offered to communities.”
McKenzie, the MSD Canterbury boss, confirms the board’s work has been extended until November thanks to additional money announced in last month’s Budget.
In its first year, the board cost $221,000, almost three-quarters of which was spent on secretariat support from MSD.
The suffering continues
Another person critical of the board is Mirwais Waziri, who owns a commercial and residential moving business.
At the terrorist’s sentencing hearing in 2020, Waziri, an injured survivor from Masjid An-Nur, said he had been called a terrorist in the 17 years he had lived in New Zealand.
“Today you are called a terrorist, and you proved to the world that I was not and us, as Muslims, were not,” he said, to applause.
On Tuesday, Waziri told Newsroom he hadn’t heard from the board much, and he’d only been to one of their meetings, which was attended by five or six people from the Muslim community. Most people there were government officials or the families of board members, he says.
“It’s not well-known by people, and because of this they’re not providing any services for the victims. Everybody has an MSD case officer, and that case officer is dealing with our needs.
“This board has done nothing, achieved nothing.”
The existence of the board might give the Government an opportunity to say it’s doing something, he says, “but I don’t believe that they have done anything so far, especially for the victims”.
Waziri mentions a poll within the Muslim community about the board’s work, which was run recently by the 15 March Whānau Trust, whose chair is Maha Galal, a former Collective Impact Board member. (Galal declined to comment for our story.)
The trust issued a statement saying the majority of victims aren’t satisfied with the board. In fact, most victims have never been contacted by it.
“The only entity that has maintained good communication with the victims is MSD through its case managers.”
The trust has established a reparation team to support victims who have fallen through the cracks, and to work with agencies to address the needs raised by victims.
That sounds an awful lot like what the Collective Impact Board was meant to do.
Waziri, who still sees a counsellor for mental distress, says the community is still suffering.
“It’s not a normal situation we can move on from easily – it will never be forgotten,” he says. “Whenever we go to the mosque, it’s a reminder for us.”
Former Collective Impact Board member Smith says: “The community is now broken because of what has happened – not intentionally, I’m not blaming anyone – but it’s broken.”
What’s needed now, Smith suggests, is for highly professional people being brought in to ask the community, as a group, what they need in a transparent way so everyone can understand where the gaps are.
The wider public is probably sick of hearing about March 15, Smith says – “but we’re still here and we’re still battling”.
He adds: “We need help, the children need help, everyone needs help.”
(Warren Forster, a Wellington lawyer who specialises in ACC issues, says the compensation system “discriminates” against certain groups, such as stroke victims and the uninjured survivors of the terror attack, and it’s a problem Parliament needs to fix.)
Smith says the Government has done a lot to support Shaheed families, the injured and survivors, including allowing their families to come from overseas to support them. But he believes it hasn’t done the basics well.
For example, those overseas family members are now suffering because they can’t get jobs.
It’s personally disappointing for Smith that the Collective Impact Board has been so ineffectual.
“I’m nobody special, and I thought this could be my one chance that I could do something for the community. But yeah, it was a joke.”
He’d like to know what the board thinks it has achieved.
“I want it to be published so that everyone can see how they’ve helped, who they’ve helped, and what they’ve actually done because I don’t think they’ve done anything, personally.”
