I think we are all served best by transparency in government.    

Leaders should be accountable for their decisions, and they should be willing to take our questions and answer them in a public format.   

But it’s pretty clear to me the Covid Inquiry has fallen victim to bad and even cynical design, shaped by politics rather than a sincere desire to get a full accounting of our response. 

It’s a shame, because it threatens to undermine some of the inquiry’s more useful conclusions. It is a missed opportunity.   

In my view, there’s plenty of blame to share. I think the first phase of the Covid Inquiry, introduced by the last government, missed some critical elements in its terms of reference. Worst of all was the decision not to include vaccine efficacy. For something so fundamental to the response, and so important to some New Zealanders that they were willing to lose relationships, jobs, and livelihoods over it, I think the effectiveness of vaccines and whatever slim risk they carried, should have been included. I think it’s clear that different vaccines had different impacts on different variants. You can see how this might impact our procurement decisions in future. 

In principle, I supported expanding the inquiry until I saw the refreshed terms of reference. If it was to be a sincere effort to consider our Covid response, the good calls and the bad, in order to move forward and better prepare for the next pandemic shock, how could you leave out the first year of the response? Sure, much of the second phase of the Inquiry might have focused on vaccines, but it also focused on lockdowns and control measures. If you really cared about our Covid response, you’d start that line of inquiry with, you know, the start of the pandemic. To exclude the period when it wasn’t just Labour in government and to exclude what have proved to be the more popular components of the government’s response was disingenuous and cynical. 

The Covid-19 response was vast and complex. It’s almost impossible to unpick every decision because you have to try and separate the information we have now from the information we had at the time. The virus has cast a long shadow in New Zealand. Our response undoubtedly saved a lot of lives, but it wasn’t without costs. The pandemic might have been over ages ago, but the economic and social impacts endure. 

One thing I’d add to the Royal Commission’s conclusions is that next time we need to find a better, respectful way to hear and consider dissenting views. Media obviously plays a critical role in this. But although I think we did a reasonable job last time, I reckon next time is going to be much more difficult. 

Depending on the circumstances, it may not massively change government policy or the public health response. Given the conspiratorial nature of the fringiest elements, it may be an impossible task. Nevertheless, I think one of the key lessons from the Covid years is that somehow making people feel heard and respected instead of ostracised is a vital part in preventing the worst of the societal division that still afflicts us, years on.