We are no longer naive enough to think the Christchurch terror attack could be a one-off. As part of Newshub's National Correspondent Patrick Gower's new documentary On Hate, he talks to an expert - who warns another New Zealand terror attack is coming.
Five months after the tragic events of March 15, 2019, a gunman in El Paso, Texas killed 23 people in an anti-Latino attack. He cited the Christchurch terrorist's great replacement manifesto as inspiration.
New Zealand police have revealed they found 1,700 potential far-right extremists in a sweep after the Christchurch attacks. They've also revealed they stopped two other potential mass shootings around the time of March 15.
"We've kept our threat level - you know it has never come down from March 15. That is an acknowledgement that we live in an environment where risks and threats exist," Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern explains to Gower. "New Zealand is not immune to that."
Paparoa, the anti-white supremacist research collective, discovered a bomb threat against the Al Noor and Linwood mosques made on the anonymous messaging wesite 4chan this year.
"The Christchurch terrorist is not a one-off," an anonymous member of the group tells Gower.
A 27-year-old Christchurch man was arrested in March and charged with threatening to kill.
"The key issue is the increasing prominence and role of lone actors," NZ Police national security advisor Cameron Bayly explains.
But while lone actors may attack alone, they are grown in a global network of hate online.
"It will happen again," says Distinguished Professor Paul Spoonley, an expert on far-right extremism.
"It's the possibility that there is someone in New Zealand who is going to be influenced by what they see online, who gets sufficiently angry and motivated to do that again. So it only requires one person, and that's a really scary thought."
Patrick Gower: On Hate is available to watch on ThreeNow.
