Kerre Woodham: The hard questions about Covid need to be asked

A second Covid inquiry has been announced. And while that may sound like two Covid inquiries too many, this one may well get the answer a lot of us are looking for. New Zealand First has invoked the Agree to Disagree clause that allows a party within a coalition government to disagree in relation to issues on which the parties wish to maintain a different position in public. Generally, in a coalition agreement you like to present a united front, but when there are real disagreements, the clause can be invoked and that is what Peters has done.  

He wanted the first inquiry scrapped, saying it was nothing more than a political tool being used to craft a message through its limited scope and the lack of suitability of the Commissioners. The chair is epidemiologist Professor Tony Blakely, who advised during the pandemic, the economist John Whitehead, and former National MP Hekia Parata. He's not wrong, though. Unlike most other recent Royal Commissions, New Zealand's focus is explicitly on planning for the next pandemic, rather than assigning blame for any failings from the decision makers. It's like oh well, that happened, let's look ahead and see what we can do next time around. Its full name is “New Zealand Royal Commission Covid -19 Lessons Learned”, and the parliamentary order bringing it into being describes its intentions as examining the lessons learned from Aotearoa New Zealand's response to Covid-19 that should be applied in preparation for any future pandemic.  

So there would be no blame, no finger pointing, no public floggings in the public square. Really, it would be more like a series of patsy questions in Parliament. Did you do well? [Previous Labour government]. Thank you. Just how well did you think you did? [Previous Labour government]. What learnings do you think you can take forward? How many lives were saved? [Labour government]. You know, that sort of thing.  

Now Brooke van Velden, Internal Affairs Minister, says that when this inquiry finishes its work a second one will get under way and this one will ask the hard questions. 

 

“Where I think people are looking for more focus and what Phase Two will focus on, are things like the government's response and how that was weighed up against education, health, business, inflation. What its response did to debt and business activity? The social division that was caused in our society, and importantly also touches on New Zealand First’s commitment where they wish to look into vaccine efficacy. So it's a bit broader in range and I think answers a lot of those questions that will be on the top of people's minds. Was the government too fixated on just one aspect of its response?” 

 

And I think that's a reasonable question. That was Brooke van Velden talking to Mike Hosking this morning. I think those are really relevant questions. The vaccine efficacy and safety, the extended lockdowns in Auckland, in Northland. Now that we have the luxury of hindsight, you have to look and say, okay was that worth it? Was having borders at the Bombay Hills worth it?  

I'd be really interested to know whether there's any explanation for ‘the computer says no’ letters that so many families were given when they couldn't be with loved ones who were very, very ill or dying. Despite the fact that they were vaccinated, the family they were going to were vaccinated, there was just a simple computer say no denial from MBIE, a nameless official at MBIE, saying they could not be with a dying family member, or somebody who was very, very ill. And the pain that that caused was immeasurable. The grief that that generated was immeasurable. So I'd really love to know how you made the decision and who these faceless, nameless people were at MBIE who just deny, deny, denied access across the border, which all sounds incredibly weird.  

You know, I think you have to ask those questions before you can move forward. I don't know that it's going to resolve anything. I mean basically I'd be quite happy with stocks in the public square, quite frankly. But then there are others who will be not satisfied until anybody who dared to so much as criticise any of the decisions made, abases themselves before the likes of Ardern, and Hipkins, and Robertson, and all the public health officials and kisses the hem of their garment and repeats three times, I am so sorry. I am so grateful to be alive and it's only thanks to you. I am so sorry. I'm so grateful to be alive. And it's only thanks to you, which I think is tosh.  

I do think the hard questions have to be asked this first patsy inquiry was precisely that. How well did you do Labour government? Ooh very well. Really. Just how well? Exceptionally well. Any learnings? Oh, a few. You have to be able to weigh the costs. You have to be able to weigh the different decisions that were made that had so many impacts on so many different people's lives. Some breezed through, loved it, thought it was amazing, thought every decision made was the right one, but not everybody did. And I think we're going to see the damage for a very long time to come. As I've always said, it'll be 100 years from now, there'll still be people debating whether that second year of decision making they were making the right decisions. But it would be good to start now, to ask a few tough questions now, rather than just sugar coating the response, which is all we'd have got from the first inquiry. 

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