Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: This Covid inquiry still matters for accountability

The big Covid inquiry - the Royal Commission of Inquiry - is out and to be honest, I don’t think it’s a game-changer.

It doesn’t tell you anything you didn’t already know or at least strongly suspect. Aucklanders, who were the most affected, lived through it.

We already knew that Grant, Jacinda and Chippy kept us in that 2021 lockdown for too long. We already knew the Auckland border could have been lifted earlier. Now we simply have the proof in writing that we were right.

If there is a revelation here, it’s that Ashley Bloomfield wasn’t the conservative one urging caution. In fact, he was more reasonable than the Government. They ended up ignoring his advice and kept Auckland in lockdown longer than he recommended.

Here’s how it played out in September 2021:

On 12 September, Bloomfield told ministers that Auckland had been in Level 4 long enough - almost four weeks by that point - and that the city could move down a level on 16 September.

Chippy took that to Cabinet but put forward his own idea - keep Auckland in for longer than Bloomfield advised. He suggested staying in until 21 September, an extra five days. Cabinet agreed with Chippy.

Remember, that lockdown was costing Auckland up to $100 million every single day. So Chippy unnecessarily killed jobs and businesses when he didn’t have to. Auckland’s border restrictions also stayed in place longer than officials said was necessary and mandates were kept longer than needed.

What this Royal Commission of Inquiry does is vindicate anyone who said at the time that Auckland should have come out of lockdown and out of its border controls earlier. And it’s an indictment on those who kept those restrictions in place when they didn’t need to.

Five years on, most of us have moved on. We can still get triggered from time to time, but for the most part it feels like ancient history now.

But we shouldn’t forget how hard it was for Aucklanders, how many lives and businesses were broken and how we are still paying the price in today’s cost-of-living crisis for those poor decisions.

As I said, it’s not a game-changer - but it is an official record that what they did at the end of Covid was wrong and unnecessary. And that has value. It matters for accountability, even if only because it’s now on the public record.

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