New Zealand First disagrees with Cabinet’s continued coronavirus inquiry

Winston Peters said New Zealand First disagreed with the decision to proceed with the Covid-19 inquiry in its current form, or with the approach of the current chair, which he said risked the perception of bias.

The move marks the first use of a “agree to disagree” clause in a coalition agreement.

Interior Minister Brooke van Velden has been leading the process of expanding the scope of the inquiry and announced on Tuesday afternoon that it would move into a “second phase” focusing on issues of ongoing public concern.

These include:

• Vaccine effectiveness and safety
• Auckland and Northland lockdown extended
• The extent of the impact on New Zealanders’ health, education and business

Last year, the commission delayed a decision on hearing public input until 2024 to allow the National-led Coalition Government to review its scope.

The government launched a public consultation in February on the expansion and what should now be included.

Van Velden said more than 13,000 submissions from the public had been received and the second phase would begin in November, aiming to produce final recommendations by February 2026.

She said the current commissioners will step down after the first phase and the third commissioner will continue to serve until the second phase.

“We’ll end up with two different areas of evidence gathering and expertise. I think we do need to recognise the work of the commissioners in phase one, but in phase two we’ll look at what works for all three coalition parties.

“What’s really important here is that there are new terms of reference and as we develop the new terms of reference we are looking for different areas of expertise and different areas of people to come in and participate in it.”

Van Velden hopes that the second phase will involve experts with legal, medical, public health, hygiene and economic backgrounds.

Peters announced New Zealand First’s position in a statement on Tuesday afternoon, saying the party supported setting up a “phase two” inquiry but not allowing phase one to proceed.

“We do not agree that the current inquiry should simply continue in its current form as ‘Phase 1’, with the current chair remaining in office, or with its reporting period extended further,” he said.

“We believe that ‘Phase One’ of the Royal Commission is simply a continuation of the current inquiry, which is too narrow in scope and remains compromised by the current chair’s direct involvement in the management of the previous government and in the direct planning of the COVID-19 response.

“New Zealand First’s campaign slogan is that the current Royal Commission is nothing more than a political tool of the Labour Party, being used to manufacture information through lack of vision and unsuitability of commissioners. We believe that public bias against the current chairperson creates reputational risk to the ‘first phase’ of the inquiry.”

Peters said New Zealand must have an independent, credible report summarizing the lessons learned from the COVID-19 response so that it could be used to deal with any future epidemics.

“New Zealand First respects the decision of Cabinet to invoke the ‘agree to disagree’ clause in the coalition agreement,” he said.

The deal reached with the ACT and New Zealand First commits the government to expanding the scope of the Covid-19 inquiry.

Van Velden said the government does not want to end the current investigation because it would set a precedent.

“As a government, we don’t want to set a precedent by closing a royal commission, especially months before it is due to report. So we will ask them to report their findings and then they will resign and new commissioners will take their place.

She noted that the wording of the ACT agreement provided for an expansion of the original committee’s remit, subject to public consultation.

“We have fulfilled all three agreements of the coalition (party),” she said.

“If the investigation is closed months before the expected report is released, it will be a waste of evidence, time, resources and the commissioners’ time. A lot of work has already been done in areas where the investigation should be ongoing.”

The second phase will mean additional costs, but “I think this way forward will also save taxpayers money by not requiring us to close and re-examine all the evidence that has been collected,” she said.

When Peters was asked before Question Time about his position he said: “Well, read the press statement”.

“You know how I think. I gave a speech in Whangarei about the campaign and I set out the issues that were there and we never changed our mind. We put it in the coalition agreement and we will make sure our commitments are upheld.

“We inherited this thing that was never going to work, that was designed to cover up the scandals of the Labour Party, cover up their incompetence, cover up the terrible waste that was caused by the months of Covid lockdown.

“We want the investigation to give the right results that the public can trust, and that’s what we’re going to get.”

Labour leader Chris Hipkins suggested Peters was pandering to conspiracy theorists.

“Winston Peters is trying to win over voters and has been doing that for some time, and I think this is just the latest move,” he said.

Hipkins said chairman Tony Blakely and commissioner John Whitehead were “both men of great integrity who will do their jobs thoroughly and independently”.

“I know Winston Peters has issues with this and I presume he would prefer Liz Gunn to run the inquiry, which ultimately needs to be fair and independent.”

Peters denied Hipkins’s claims.

“Oh, yes, he can go down that rabbit hole that he talks about and stay there because his time is well and truly over, politically speaking… I’m afraid his shelf life — if it ever existed — is well and truly over.”

Then-Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced a royal commission into the response to the pandemic in December 2022, saying it would be wide-ranging and would examine the economic response, lessons that could be learned from the pandemic and how they could be applied to any future pandemics.

However, individual decisions and how policy is applied in individual cases or circumstances, as well as the judgments and decisions of courts, tribunals and other institutions, the private sector and the Reserve Bank’s independent Monetary Policy Committee, will be considered beyond the scope.

Changes to court and parliamentary procedures due to the pandemic will not be reviewed, nor will the conduct of the 2020 general election, vaccine effectiveness, and the “specific epidemiology” of the virus and its variants.

Blakely said in December that the committee welcomed the opportunity to work with the new government on an expanded remit.

Mr Van Velden said the cabinet had agreed the following points as “indicative terms of reference for phase two”:

• The use of vaccines during the pandemic, including authorization, approval process, and safety, including monitoring and reporting of adverse reactions;
• the social and economic disruptions of New Zealand’s policy response, including the impacts on social fragmentation and isolation, health and education, and inflation, debt and business activity, and the balance between these impacts and COVID-19 minimisation and protection objectives;
• The extension of the lockdown in Auckland and Northland, and in particular whether similar public health benefits could be achieved with a shorter lockdown;
• Leverage partnerships with business and professional groups; and
• Apply new technologies, new methods and international effective practices.

Hipkins said it was important to have impartial, independent and robust Covid-19 inquiries, and that the previous government knew when it made the decision that they would be judged over time.

“Of course, when you look back, if you knew then what you know now, you always look at certain things differently. Investigations tend to highlight those things. But the fact is, we didn’t know then everything we know now.”

He said the approach taken in the first survey, which was intended to better prepare for the next outbreak, was “a good one”.

“There are a lot of people who are doing really great work. I think in order to get the most out of the investigation, it needs to be done in a way that gives them the confidence to be able to speak to them openly and freely.”

He rejected the idea that an investigation into the effectiveness of the vaccine was necessary.

“Ultimately, vaccine effectiveness is for medical science to decide, not a royal commission … If it’s a medical review of vaccine effectiveness, of course it will include new information than we had at the time the decision to vaccinate was made, and as long as the inquiry presents its findings from that perspective, I have no real concerns about that.”

He said if the results of the second phase of the investigation showed that David Seymour and Peters had “concocted an investigation that reinforced their conspiracy theory, then I think New Zealanders will eventually lose confidence in the process.”

in a statementBlakely and Whitehead said the second phase of the survey would complement the work they had already done and help New Zealand better prepare for future pandemics.

They said: “Our current remit is broad enough to allow us to look at a wide range of topics related to the coronavirus pandemic, such as mandates, lockdowns and the social impacts such as the impact on education and mental health.”

“Investigations into vaccine safety and adverse events are outside our current remit, but would be a useful addition. We are already looking at vaccine mandates, which would require us to also consider vaccine effectiveness as it is integral to the overall elimination strategy. We also know that vaccine use is a very important topic for many people.”

They say it’s important to know how effective the vaccines are in preventing transmission, hospitalizations and deaths.

They said they were honoured to serve as commissioners and thanked the government for allowing an extension of the reporting date from September 30 to November 28.

“The extension means we can fully analyse and consider the thousands of submissions we received from the New Zealand public earlier this year.”