New Zealand’s inquiry into the pandemic has ended early after Jacinda Ardern and other ministers at the time changed their mind and refused to appear.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern meets with staff during a visit to the Costco Warehouse, in the suburb of Westgate in Auckland, New Zealand, on Aug. 25, 2022. Phil Walter/Getty Images

Rex Widerstrom

 

The second phase of public hearings of New Zealand’s COVID-19 Royal Commission has been cancelled after key witnesses, including former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, refused to appear.

 

Other key decision-makers at the time have also refused, including former Health Minister and current Labour Leader Chris Hipkins, another former health minister and current MP, Dr. Ayesha Verrall, and former Finance Minister Grant Robertson, who now works in academia.

Last month, a spokesperson for Ardern said she would provide evidence to assist the Commission “in meeting its terms of reference. We are in discussions about the best way for this to occur.”

Commission Chairman Grant Illingworth has the power to issue a summons, but said in a statement that he would not use it on Ardern or the other former ministers.

“The COVID-19 pandemic was a significant event that affected every New Zealander. The government at the time, through its ministers, made decisions about how we as a nation responded to that pandemic, which had implications for all of us,” he said.

“We have been tasked with reviewing those decisions, and we thought it was important that the public see and hear for themselves important evidence about why some key decisions about the response to COVID-19 were made and for what reason.

“On balance, we are of the view that a summons is undesirable, given that the former ministers continue to cooperate with the evidence-gathering of the inquiry.”

Reasons for Refusal

The Inquiry’s minute documenting its decision to abandon further public hearings gives some insight into the reasons the former ministers and prime minister gave for refusing to front public hearings.

However, it doesn’t reveal whether they made separate or joint submissions, or whether it was made through a third party, such as a lawyer.

It lists three primary reasons for their refusal:

1. There is a convention that ministers and former ministers are interviewed by inquiries in private; there is no reason for a departure from that convention in this case. Acting contrary to that convention would undermine rather than enhance public confidence in this instance.
2. Because all former ministers had been cooperative in attending interviews and answering questions, repeating such questions at a public hearing would be performative rather than informative.
3. Livestreaming and publication of recordings of the hearing creates a risk of those recordings being “tampered with, manipulated or otherwise misused,” a risk which the Inquiry “ought to have foreseen and planned for.”

Speaking to reporters, Hipkins repeated the assertion that he had “shown up to the inquiry,” though in a private session.

“I have been interviewed by them twice,” he said. “They asked for two hours, but they ran out of questions after an hour.”

He said he did not coordinate his refusal with Ardern, despite the Inquiry receiving them on the same day, Aug. 7.

“She is still a very close friend of mine. We have people representing us in common, but any suggestion we colluded with this is wrong,” he said.

A Great Contrast: Opponents Critical

The decision has drawn widespread criticism from Labour’s political opponents.

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Deputy Prime Minister and ACT Party leader David Seymour said the group’s refusal to publicly appear before the Commission was a change from “invading our living rooms daily” with televised briefings.

“They wielded extraordinary powers over citizens’ lives, dismissing those who questioned them as uncaring. Now they’re refusing to even show up; what a contrast,” he said.

“Tens of thousands of New Zealanders have already engaged with the inquiry, sharing experiences of how their lives were upended. They deserve the basic respect of accountability.”

Foreign Minister and New Zealand First Party leader Winston Peters, who was deputy prime minister during the first term of the Ardern government, accused the former ministers of “colluding” in a post on social media.

“The ‘Podium of Truth’ has become the ‘Podium of Evasion,’” he said in a reference to Ardern’s claim that the daily briefings would be “the only source of truth” on the pandemic.

“These former ministers do not want to sit in a public hearing and answer the hard questions that every New Zealander deserves to know. If ever there was a definition for ‘a different kind of abuse of power,’ this is it,” Peters said.

“Those former Labour ministers have shown they care nothing about public confidence and, worse, are treating the entire public with disdain and contempt.”

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