4. General life in New Zealand

4.1 Overview

1

We are satisfied that by the time the individual arrived in New Zealand in August 2017 he intended to commit a terrorist attack. This was the primary focus of his life in New Zealand. It involved, amongst other things, equipping himself with weapons, developing firearms expertise, bulking up at a gym, identifying targets and planning.

2

In the next chapter we discuss in detail his preparation and planning. In this chapter we seek to provide context for what is to come, discussing those of his activities that were not focused on preparations for a terrorist attack. We address his arrival in New Zealand and taking up residence in Dunedin, his finances, associations with others, international travel from New Zealand, internet activity and donations to overseas right-wing organisations and individuals.

4.2 Arrival in New Zealand and taking up residence in Dunedin

3

The individual flew into New Zealand on 17 August 2017. As an Australian citizen, he was eligible for, and was granted, a resident visa on arrival in New Zealand. This is discussed in more detail in Part 8, chapter 8.

4

On arrival at Auckland International Airport, the individual was picked up by gaming friend and their parent. They drove him to their home in Waikato where he stayed for three nights before flying to Dunedin on 20 August 2017. Gaming friend said that, during this visit, they took the individual to the same shooting club that they visited in 2013. There is no record of the individual attending the shooting club in August 2017. However, gaming friend and their parent are recorded as attending the shooting club on 18 and 19 August 2017. Given the individual was staying with gaming friend and their parent during this time, and the evidence of gaming friend, we think it is likely that the individual attended the shooting club in August 2017.

5

The individual told friends and family that he chose to live in Dunedin because of its climate, Scottish heritage, and low levels of immigration. He told us that he was also interested in the architecture. He rented a flat at 112 Somerville Street, Dunedin and started living there on 24 August 2017. Except for three trips overseas, he lived there until 15 March 2019.

6

The Somerville Street flat was very bare. There was a main bedroom, a second bedroom with computer, desk and chair, and a lounge with only a bed to sit on.

4.3 Finances

7

When the individual arrived in New Zealand, he had several bank accounts with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. These accounts held a large proportion of the individual’s funds.

8

After arriving in New Zealand, the individual opened two bank accounts with ANZ Bank (Australian and New Zealand Banking Group) on 23 August 2017 and obtained a debit card. He primarily used one of his accounts with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and one of his ANZ Bank accounts to pay for expenses in New Zealand. When paying for expenses using his ANZ Bank account, the individual would transfer money from his Commonwealth Bank of Australia accounts into his ANZ Bank account. The total amount credited to his ANZ Bank account between 23 August 2017 and 15 March 2019 was $57,018.03. These transfers were not likely to, and did not, give rise to any suspicious transaction reporting by ANZ Bank.

9

In addition, the individual and Lauren Tarrant had purchased a rental property on 13 January 2017 in New South Wales. The individual received payments from Lauren Tarrant between March 2017 and March 2019, which represented his share of the rent from the jointly owned property.

10

Throughout the time he lived in Dunedin, the individual’s living expenses and preparation for the terrorist attack were entirely funded from the money he received from his father and income from investments made with that money, including the rental property. We provide more detail on this later in this Part.

11

The individual gave no concrete indication to anyone of what he would do when the money ran out beyond indicating to his sister that he might kill himself and later telling family members and gaming friend that he would go to the Ukraine to live. We have seen no indication that the individual gave serious thought to working for a living.

12

As will become apparent from the individual’s planning documents, his dwindling financial reserves influenced the timing of his terrorist attack.

4.4 Associations with others

13

The individual’s social interactions in Dunedin were limited. He had only routine dealings with his landlord and property manager and little contact with neighbours. His interactions with people he met at shooting clubs and the gym were superficial. There were also one-off transactional exchanges with people when buying and selling items online.

14

His association with gaming friend continued. Gaming friend described to us their friendship with the individual as being “mainly online friends” and referred to him as “just a friend”, not a good friend. They would be in touch through online gaming up to three times a week but there were lengthy periods of time (of up to seven or eight months) when there was no contact at all. As noted, the individual stayed with gaming friend and their family for three nights when he first arrived in New Zealand in August 2017 and, as well, in January 2018, the individual and gaming friend travelled to Japan together for two weeks. This was the full extent of their face-to-face engagement during this period.

15

The individual remained in touch, to a limited extent, with school friend one. In their statement to the Australian Federal Police, school friend one said that from late 2017 onwards they did not hear from the individual for long periods of time.

16

School friend two was living in Japan in early 2018 and, as we will explain, the individual met up with them there in January 2018. This was the last time they met, despite school friend two moving to Queenstown, New Zealand later in 2018. It takes less than four hours to drive from Dunedin to Queenstown but neither took the time to meet up.

17

The individual remained in contact with his mother and sister. He visited them in Australia and his mother visited him in Dunedin. Her visit warrants brief discussion. By the time of her visit (late December 2018 and early January 2019) the individual was starting to finalise his plan to carry out a terrorist attack and he was fixated on what lay ahead.

18

On 24 December 2018, Sharon Tarrant and her current partner, who is of Indian ethnicity, flew to New Zealand for a holiday in the North Island. They changed their travel plans so that they could see the individual in Dunedin from 31 December 2018 to 3 January 2019. During their visit, the individual took his mother and her partner sightseeing in and around Dunedin and to Milford Sound, Te Anau and Invercargill. He also took them to the Otago Shooting Sports Rifle and Pistol Club (which we discuss in more detail below), but they could not access the range as the individual was unable to unlock the gate.

19

Interactions between the individual and Sharon Tarrant and her partner were awkward and at times tense. Illustrative of this is an incident on 2 January 2019, when Sharon Tarrant and her partner took the individual out for breakfast. They went into one café, but soon left after the individual refused to spend money in "migrant cafés". He told his mother he wanted his money going to "white New Zealanders". They all had to find somewhere else to eat. Afterwards, they drove back to the individual’s flat in silence.

20

The individual told his mother he would not renew the lease on his flat and wanted to sell his belongings and move to the Ukraine. That was the last time Sharon Tarrant and her partner saw the individual before the terrorist attack.

21

Sharon Tarrant later told Australian Federal Police that when she left New Zealand, she felt “petrified” about the individual’s mental health and increasingly racist views. She felt he had no friends and had isolated himself in a small, empty flat. She said that she was so worried that the night she left the individual, she searched online for information about white supremacy groups in Ukraine. She said that she emailed the individual an article about extreme right-wing groups in Ukraine that groomed young men like him and she pleaded for him to come home to Australia. He never responded.

4.5 International travel from New Zealand

22

Between 16 January 2018 and 15 March 2019, the individual left New Zealand three times to travel overseas. These three trips are detailed in the table below and also shown on a world map in chapter 3 of this Part.

Table 3: The individual’s international travel from New Zealand 2018–2019

23

The individual’s trip to Japan in January 2018 was with gaming friend. According to gaming friend, this holiday involved ordinary tourist activities, such as sightseeing. One night they went out drinking with school friend two, who was working in Tokyo at the time.

24

The individual’s trip home to Australia in May 2018 was for his sister’s 30th birthday. The individual’s mother described him as being very tense during this visit and unable to relax at the family gathering.

25

The third trip was between 17 October 2018 and 28 December 2018. The individual spent the last five days of this trip in Australia. During this time, the individual told his sister and her partner that he wanted to move to Ukraine as he thought it would be cheaper to live there and Dunedin was too multicultural. He also met school friend one at a local gym for a workout. School friend one described this meeting as unremarkable.

26

There is one curious feature of the third trip, which we discuss in chapter 6 of this Part. Aside from this feature, the international trips taken from New Zealand between January 2018 and December 2018 are not particularly material to our inquiry.

4.6 Internet activity

Attempts to minimise digital footprint

27

The individual took a number of steps intended to minimise his digital footprint so as to reduce the chances of relevant Public sector agencies, following the terrorist attack, being able to obtain a full understanding of his internet activity. For example, the individual removed the hard drive from his computer and this has not been located. He also tried to delete emails.

Facebook

28

Although he became a Facebook member in 2013, the individual’s history on Facebook is erratic. From time to time he deleted data and removed Facebook friends. And for six months in 2018 he did not post at all.

29

The individual’s use of his own Facebook page was intermittent, but he occasionally used it to post far right material. Gaming friend also said that the individual had a number of Facebook accounts over the last few years, randomly closing one down and creating a new one. In one Facebook conversation with three Facebook friends, he included a link to an 8chan board, but the link cannot be recreated.

30

In 2017, the individual joined The Lads Society’s Facebook group, having changed his username to “Barry Harry Tarry”. Later, he joined The Lads Society Season Two Facebook page, which was a private group. He made his first post on 19 September 2017. He was an active contributor, posting on topics related to issues occurring in Europe, New Zealand and his own life, far right memes, media articles, YouTube links (many of which have since been removed for breaching YouTube’s content agreements), and posts about people who were either for or against his views. He also encouraged others to donate to Martin Sellner, a far right Austrian politician. Two sets of comments warrant particular mention.

31

In early February 2018, the individual (under the Barry Harry Tarry username) engaged in online discussion with members of The Lads Society Season Two Facebook group about Mein Kampf.¹² In particular, they discussed Hitler’s suggestion that grievance should be the focus of propaganda, “galvanising” those who see themselves as persecuted and “drawing in new sympathisers”. The individual commented: 

...

32

“Boil the frogs” is a metaphor, the premise of which is that if a frog is put into boiling water it will jump out, but if placed into tepid water which is then brought to the boil slowly, it will not perceive the danger or change in circumstances, despite being boiled alive. For other members of The Lads Society Season Two, it would have been clear that the individual was referring to Muslim migrants when speaking of immigrants and what he said aligns with his manifesto, The Great Replacement. The assertion that “we can’t be a violent group” was made around the same time as the first of the planning documents discussed in the next chapter was created, a document that evidences a clear intention to carry out a terrorist attack.

33

As we set out in Part 2, chapter 5, those who subscribe to extreme right-wing ideologies often “tone down” their language to avoid endorsing violence but, at the same time, use divisive rhetoric towards different ethnic or religious groups. We see the language used by the individual in the posts as consistent with that used by those on the extreme right-wing. In addition, ethno-nationalists often implicitly support violence within closed groups. Having identified the apparent problem of Muslim immigration rates, but offering no democratic solution, we consider the post by the individual was an implied call to violence and, in this way, another illustration of his ethno-nationalist beliefs.

34

On 12 February 2018, the individual, still using the Barry Harry Tarry username, made several posts to The Lads Society Season Two Facebook page. Some we do not reproduce here, because they contain references to particular individuals and publishing them would give rise to privacy and safety concerns that cannot be practically mitigated by redaction. The drift of what he had to say however, emerges clearly enough from the comments that follow:

...

...

...

Then, after comments from others about Muslim schools:

35

In this context, “JK” stands for “just kidding” but is often used ironically (that is by someone who in fact is not “just kidding”). In this instance, the individual was not “just kidding”. We know this because he had already completed a planning document that envisaged mass murder, as we discuss below.

36

When we put these comments to the individual, he acknowledged that the expression, “No. 1 on the prank list” could be seen as a threat of harm. We note that the 15 March 2019 terrorist attack is sometimes referred to on far right forums as “the mosque prank”. Consistently with what seemed to be a general reluctance on his part to acknowledge lapses of operational security, the individual did not accept that his comments would have been of concern to counter‑terrorism agencies. He thought this because of the very large number of similar comments that can be found on the internet. Later in the interview, however, he said that these were the worst of the comments he had posted. We return to discuss this issue in Part 7: Detecting a potential terrorist.

37

On 9 April 2018, the individual left The Lads Society Season Two Facebook group. Six days later he deleted 134 Facebook friends, including those made through The Lads Society, such as Thomas Sewell. For the next six months the individual did not use his Facebook account. When he did return to Facebook it was in a careful and measured manner. He denied to us that his April 2018 departure from the group may have been as a result of concerns about the February 2018 comments, claiming that it was instead due to his social anxiety.

38

He used Facebook Messenger to keep in touch with his family and Facebook friends, and later on as a method of contacting people to whom he had sold goods online.

39

He reprimanded his mother for using the term “neo-Nazi” in Facebook Messenger when she commented on his shaved hair and rhetoric. His mother understood that he was not offended at being called a “neo-Nazi”, but rather was worried that her use of the term on a popular messaging platform would be detected. Similarly, in a conversation with his sister on Facebook, the individual expressed concerns about the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation tracking him and asked her to change names on banking details to anonymise transactions relating to him. When we interviewed him, he said that there was an element of play-acting in all of this and that it is common for those on the far right to pretend to believe that they are under surveillance. This explanation exemplifies the problem identified in Part 2, chapter 5 – that is, the difficulty in distinguishing between what is ironic and what is meant literally. We are inclined to see these incidents as evidence of his genuine concern about operational security.

Other internet activity

40

In a gaming site chat room that gaming friend participated in, the individual posted numerous links to Reddit posts, Wikipedia pages and YouTube videos. According to gaming friend these posts were far right in nature. The links have since been deleted.

41

On 17 October 2017, the individual set up a Trade Me account, which he used to purchase and sell items, including some of his firearms magazines and some firearms equipment (such as gun slings). The only point of interest in relation to his use of this account is his username “Kiwi14words”. This is a reference to a white supremacist 14-word slogan, “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children”. This username did not apparently attract attention.

42

The individual contributed to the NZ Hunting and Shooting online forum. Most of the posts he made related to the sale of firearms and firearms equipment. Although his exchanges with others on this forum were at times testy, they are not material to our inquiry.

43

The individual used the internet to buy far right books, ebooks, publications and accessories to send to his family, such as a “black sun” patch and a Celtic knot necklace with symbols used by white supremacist groups. The books purchased were Fascism: 100 Questions Asked and Answered by Oswald Mosley, The Decline of the West by Oswald Spengler and A Short History of Decay by E M Cioran. These books were delivered to Lauren Tarrant for her partner (the first listed book) and Sharon Tarrant (the second and third books), possibly to introduce them to his beliefs. Right-wing publications were also delivered to Lauren Tarrant’s house in the two years preceding the terrorist attack.

44

A copy of the manifesto written by the Oslo terrorist, a list of the individual’s accounts and passwords and deleted firearms videos that had been downloaded from the internet were on the SD card from the individual’s drone. As we will shortly explain, the individual used this drone to fly over Masjid an-Nur for reconnaissance. We will discuss the possible significance of the firearms videos in Part 6: What Public sector agencies knew about the terrorist.

45

The individual told us that he had accessed the dark web to make purchases. We know that he had used Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) when travelling and he told us that he was familiar with Tor browsers and was thus capable of interacting on the internet in ways that would make him difficult to trace. He was also familiar with how to encrypt emails.

46

The individual claimed that he was not a frequent commenter on extreme right-wing sites and that YouTube was, for him, a far more significant source of information and inspiration. Although he did frequent extreme right-wing discussion boards such as those on 4chan and 8chan, the evidence we have seen is indicative of more substantial use of YouTube and is therefore consistent with what he told us.

4.7 Donations to overseas right-wing organisations and individuals

47

While living in New Zealand, the individual made at least another 14 donations to far right, anti-immigration groups and individuals. Some of these donations were made directly from the individual’s Australian bank account through PayPal and totalled AU$6,305.78. We are also aware of five donations made by the individual using Bitcoin. The largest Bitcoin donation was made on 14 January 2018 and was the equivalent of US$1,377. We have provided a full list of the donations in the table below.

Table 4: The individual’s donations to overseas right-wing organisations and individuals while in New Zealand 

48

As will be apparent, there were multiple donations to the French branch of Generation Identity – Génération Identitaire (see Part 2, chapter 5), a European far right movement, and also a donation directly to Identitarian Movement Austria’s leader, Martin Sellner.¹³

49

Following the individual’s donation to Martin Sellner they exchanged several emails in January 2018. The relevant emails have been provided to us by Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz und Terrorismusbekämpfung, the Austrian domestic intelligence agency. We set out some of the emails below:

50

We have no evidence that the individual met with either Blair Cottrell or Thomas Sewell (see chapter 3). In referring to Blair Cottrell and Thomas Sewell in the emails, the individual was not speaking on their behalf. Instead, it is likely that the individual referred to them in an attempt to impress Martin Sellner by implying that the individual knew them personally, when he did not.

51

The individual travelled to Austria and he was there on 9 November 2018 in transit and from 26 November 2018 to 4 December 2018. He told us that he did not meet Martin Sellner at those times and had not tried to do so. We are inclined to accept this denial. There is no evidence to suggest they did meet and by this stage we think it unlikely that the individual would have wished to do anything that might attract the attention of international intelligence and security agencies.

52

During our interview with him, the individual indicated he had donated to more organisations than those we have listed. It is distinctly possible therefore that he made donations of which we are not aware.

_{12. Mein Kampf was written by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler in 1925.}

_{13. Génération Identitaire refunded the individual AU$1,340.19 on 20 September 2017. Génération Identitaire did not provide financial support to the individual as this was a repayment of the 16 September 2017 donation. The individual then made a second donation on 20 September 2017 of almost the same amount as the 16 September 2017 donation.}