The New Zealand government is set to strengthen the country’s hate speech and counter-terrorism laws following the release Monday of a Royal Commission of Inquiry’s report on the March 2019 Christchurch terror attack.

The commission was tasked in March 2019 with investigating the terror attack at a Christchurch mosque, which resulted in 51 fatalities. The victims’ families and the survivors were “at the heart of [the] inquiry”.

The report made 44 recommendations. In a statement to Parliament on Tuesday, the country’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the government has accepted all recommendations “in principle.” These include reframing the country’s hate speech laws by repealing section 131 of the Human Rights Act 1993. Instead, it recommended criminalizing “hate-motivated offending” under the the country’s key criminal law code, the Crimes Act 1961, amending the Summary Offences Act 1981 and updating the definition of “objectionable” in section 3 of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993 to include “racial superiority, racial hatred and racial discrimination.” This would provide greater certainty to the country’s hate speech legal landscape by making it illegal to “[stir] up or [provoke] hatred against a group of persons defined by protected characteristics, which should include religious affiliation.” According to the report this change “reflect[s] the seriousness of the offences and increase[s] the resulting penalty.”

In her statement, Ardern said one of the government’s immediate responses to the recommendations will be to “work with parties across Parliament on the gaps in hate speech legislation.”

The report also recommended establishing by law a new national intelligence and security agency to “deliver a more systematic approach to addressing extremism and preventing, detecting and responding to current and emerging threats of violent extremism and terrorism” and steward national security laws, especially the Intelligence and Security Act 2017 and Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 (the Terrorism Act).

Moreover, the report criticized the Terrorism Act for failing to criminalize “activities that are preliminary to acts of terrorism” and that the terrorism offences provided for in the Terrorism Act “do not apply to the activities of lone actor terrorists,” such as the perpetrator in the Christchurch attack. Noting that the Terrorism Act’s fitness for purpose has not been reviewed in the almost two decades since its introduction, the report recommended that legislation provide for it to be regularly reviewed, “say every five years,” and that all other counter-terrorism laws “be reviewed and updated.” Ardern commented that the recommendation to improve counter-terrorism laws “was something the Government had started work on prior to March 15” and that it “will now bring those amendments to the House.”

Ardern named Andrew Little as the minister responsible for coordinating the government’s continued response to the inquiry’s recommendations.