MPs debate lessons learned from the pandemic

0:00Kura Nama Kijifuri, welcome to the house, Kuluwakalanzoho. Parliament began this week with Minister of Health, Simeon Brown, standing up to tell the house that the final report from the Royal Commission of Enquiry into COVID-19 lessons learned had been released. When reports like this land, it's not unusual for Parliament to take time to debate them. Today was no different with Brown delivering a ministerial statement to the house. All this report asks is whether the decisions made by decision makers were the right ones, and whether New Zealanders were well served by their government. Those are important questions and New Zealanders deserve honest answers. But it is also an election year, and it would perhaps be naive to expect MPs not to mind the commission's findings for material that could double as campaign talking points. For National, who have spent much of the previous week dealing with unfavorable polling, the report offered a chance to revisit some of the more contentious moments of the pandemic response.

1:02The political message was fairly clear, remind voters of the length and impact of lockdowns under the previous government. The Commission finds former ministers chose to keep Auckland in alert level four lockdown against public health advice and unredacted cabinet papers obtained by the Royal Commission also reveal that former ministers kept an Auckland boundary in place over Christmas and New Year against the explicit advice of the Ministry of Health. New Zealanders were not told this at the time. The boundary remained for more than a month, preventing some Kiwis from travelling to see friends and family over the holiday period. The Commission also finds that the COVID-19 Vaccine Technical Advisory Group advised against a two-dose vaccine mandate for 12 to 17-year-olds due to myocarditis risks. Former ministers were informed of those concerns. Unlike some statements that resemble more of a constructive press conference, this one quickly took on the tone of a political debate about the legacy of pandemic decisions. Labour leader Chris Hipkins chose to respond to the government with a speech defending

2:05the record of the government he was a part of. I want to quote directly from the Royal Commission's findings, which I note was something the Minister did not do. And perhaps some of the most telling findings of the Royal Commission. A direct quote sums up what I think is a high-quality report. Quote, evidence shows New Zealand had one of the best pandemic responses in the world. End quote. By further quote, by many measures, Ulta Rau and New Zealand's response to the pandemic was enviable. We recorded lower case numbers and fewer COVID-19 deaths per capita than nearly all comparable countries. The Greens, meanwhile, occupied a slightly awkward middle ground. They weren't formally part of the government during the pandemic, but they had supported Labour through confidence and supply agreements. At the same time, they have little political incentive to campaign heavily on revisiting decisions made by a party they may rely on again for coalition arrangements.

3:09Thank you, Mr Speaker. My following question is whether he is committed to working in a cross-party manner to achieve consensus on how the recommendations will be implemented and if not, why not? The first point I would make is we will be as a government working through the recommendations. There will be some areas which no doubt will require consideration across the parliament. Acts leader David Seymour, on the other hand, had fewer constraints. Although he is currently deputy prime minister in the coalition government, Seymour made it clear that ACT has its own perspective on the pandemic response, and the party had pushed for the expanded inquiry. Just like the response itself, they did not consider the impact of the response on the rest of society only that singular goal that increasingly consumed and ultimately devastated their government. It is because this coalition government, and I might say the ACT party, that has campaigned

4:12and won a revised terms of reference with revised commissioners, that all those New Zealanders who suffered will get some truth and some understanding of what happened. New Zealand first later, Winston Peters, took yet another approach. Rather than delivering just speech as Seymour had done, Peters used questions directed at the minister. But the questions themselves appeared designed less to extract new information and more to reinforce criticism of the previous government. Does the inquiry show that ministers agree with the finding of the inquiry and third does the inquiry show full? Did the inquiry show that five and six did the inquiry identify? Does the inquiry show that it is on the health and education of workforces? The final contribution came from Tipati Modi, co-leader Debby Narua Packer. Interestingly, while the Greens avoided criticizing the previous government directly, Narua Packer did raise some concerns about aspects in the pandemic response, despite the likelihood that Tipati Modi would rely on Labour in any future coalition agreement.

5:13The state was missing an action. We had the largest Modi caucus, then we still had to endure warrantless searches on Marae. We had to endure a te kunga that was harsh, that didn't have any input from EVA across the MOTU. We had to have tongue-hunga challenges, and we also saw mandates, and they were cruel and harsh on our people. We saw supply of resources that didn't arrive. The government is expected to release its formal response to the report in July. With the elections scheduled for November, the report, and competing interpretations of the pandemic response, will likely resurface as a political issue in the months ahead. Iti Fakarangakwaikati Fuddi, you've been listening to The House, a programme made with funding from Parliament's Office of the Clark, Matiwa.