Not all of those affected by the Christchurch terror attacks will get to see the Royal Commission of Inquiry findings before it is made public.
Christchurch residents lay wreaths and condolence cards for those killed at two mosques in the city. File photo Photo: RNZ /Diego Opatowski
The bereaved and bullet injured got their copies of the 800-page report on Saturday, and on Sunday met with Prime Minister Jacinda to ask questions.
But the roughly 200 people who witnessed the attacks, will only receive a copy hours before it is publicly released on Tuesday.
Witnesses to the shootings at Al Noor and Linwood mosques received a portion of the money raised by Victim Support and were able to provide victim impact statements during the shooter's sentencing.
But unlike the bereaved and bullet injured, they will have to wait before being able to read the report that all hope will shed some light on how the shooter was able to carry out his attacks that killed 51 people.
Witness Faisal Sayed said that was unfortunate.
"There needs to be a wider dialogue and engagement with the wider community as opposed to a handful, because that may also trigger division within the community, and that will be completely counterproductive."
The early release of the findings to witnesses was a courtesy that should be paid to a group that in many cases was continuing to struggle with the memories of that day, he said.
"People are feeling the heat of trauma and ... memories flashing back. So it's going to be a very slow process. I feel that a lot of people have moved on and they would like to believe that it is not impacting them but somehow it is impacting them in some form."
Aya Al-Umari, who lost her brother, Hussein, has four days to read the report before its public release on Tuesday.
It would be upsetting to have to wait for it to be made public and then read about it in the media, she said.
"This was at least giving us a bit of a chance to formulate our own opinion and digest what the contents of the report are. Because come Tuesday there's going to be an abundance of people doing their own opinions. And as you have seen, there's many, many opinion articles already and that's before the release of the report, let alone after."
Al-Umari said it was important no other family had to go through what her family had experienced.
"My hope is that the recommendations are acted on in a very swift manner. And lastly, and I haven't read the report in its entirety yet, but I am hoping that there is some sort of accountability for what happened if there was a particular entity that failed in some sort of a process.
Asked why witnesses were not given an advanced copy of the findings at the weekend, a spokesperson for the prime minister, said they wanted to limit the numbers in receipt of them and "had to draw the line somewhere."
Another spokesperson from her office said witnesses were given a "verbal briefing" about the contents of the report on Saturday.
At the weekend Ardern made it clear that action would be taken in response to the report's recommendations and that a minister may be put in charge of implementing them.
"That was something I proactively raised with the community. We do want to make sure that after such a hefty piece of work, so much detail, so much time and energy has gone into it, that we make sure that we're acting upon it."
The first lot of changes stemming from the report could come as early as this week with the report itself released to the public on Tuesday afternoon.
