Megan Woods says the Government has spoken with US officials after a gunman killed 10 people in New York at the weekend - in an attack that mirrored the Christchurch terror attack.
The suspect, Payton Gendron, killed 10 people in a "mass shooting" at a supermarket in a Black neighbourhood in Buffalo on Saturday afternoon (local time).
Local authorities said the attack was racially motivated and Gendron allegedly published a racist manifesto on the internet two days beforehand. He also broadcast the attack in real time on the social media platform Twitch.
The manifesto, which is believed to be authored by Gendron, referenced the Christchurch terror attack as inspiration for the massacre.
On March 15, 2019 terrorist Brenton Tarrant opened fire at Al Noor Mosque before moving to the Linwood Islamic Centre. Tarrant killed 51 people and injured a further 40.
The attack sparked Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and French President Emmanuel Macron to join forces to tackle the use of tech platforms to distribute and find extremist violent content.
Speaking with AM's Ryan Bridge on Monday, Megan Woods, who was filling in for the Prime Minister, said Government officials have reached out to their US counterparts after the attack.
"My understanding is that officials have been speaking to counterparts in the US. As you say the terrorist in the US directly referenced what happened here in New Zealand on March 15 and I think that's incredibly difficult for many people, not least of which our Muslim communities in Christchurch," Woods said.
She said the Muslim community is understandably shaken but is taking great heart in the positive changes that have been implemented since the Christchurch attack.
"One of the things they did take great heart in was that things could act a lot more swiftly in terms of the online content than what we saw after the March 15 attack.
"That we actually have seen the fruition of some of the work of the Christchurch Call and I think that they see that very much as something that they can give in the wake of a tragedy - that their experience has done some good.
The Buffalo shooting follows other racially motivated mass murders in recent years, including a Pittsburgh synagogue attack that left 11 dead in October 2018, and the Atlanta spa shootings in March 2021 in which a white man killed eight people, targeting Asians.
