A police national security team investigated threats in the South in the years before the Christchurch terror attacks, inquiries by the Otago Daily Times have revealed.
But police say their national security investigation team (NSIT) was not active in Dunedin early this year, when the man accused of the attacks lived in the city.
On January 17, the ODT filed an Official Information Act request containing nine detailed questions regarding the activities of the team formerly known as the special investigation group (Sig), renamed the NSIT in 2016.
National security investigations manager Detective Inspector Stu Allsopp-Smith replied last month, saying officers from the Sig had investigated threats in the Southern district (Otago and Southland) between 2007 and 2018.
However, no NSIT officers were involved in any active investigations in the district as of January 17 this year, he wrote.
Det Insp Allsopp-Smith refused to disclose further details of Sig/NSIT investigations in the South, citing the Official Information Act, which allows information to be withheld if it was likely to ''prejudice the maintenance of law, including the prevention, investigation and detection of offences and the right to a fair trial''.
Responding to further questions about the role of the team, a police spokeswoman would only say the NSIT was responsible for any matter regarding national security or contributing to the national security functions of police.
Sig was established in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks, and its activities have previously generated controversy.
In 2008, The New Zealand Herald reported a man working as an informant for the group passed officers information about unions, student demonstrations and a protester who was preparing a case against them.
More recently, the NSIT was part of an inconclusive year-long police investigation into several suspicious burglaries last year targeting Canterbury University professor Anne-Marie Brady.
Analysts and scholars have said the burglaries were likely in response to her work investigating China's international influence campaigns.
Det Insp Allsopp-Smith said the 25-strong NSIT was now a national team - rather than district-based, as the Sig was - with teams in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.
However, NSIT teams were not physically based at police national headquarters in Wellington, but based in districts and reporting back to headquarters, he said.
He did not disclose where staff were based, but said no Sig/NSIT officers were, or had been, based in the Southern district.
