All three coalition parties are criticising Labour’s former ministers for refusing to appear at a public Covid-19 hearing, saying they’re trying to avoid scrutiny.
The second phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Covid-19 Pandemic was secured in coalition agreements between all three governing parties.
The chair, Grant Illingworth KC, on Wednesday confirmed a week-long public hearing with decision makers would not go ahead because former ministers had refused to participate.
They include former prime minister Jacinda Ardern, current Labour leader Chris Hipkins, who was at times the health and Covid-19 response minister, former finance minister Grant Robertson and former health minister Ayesha Verrall.
Those former ministers argue they have provided ample evidence privately to the commission, which — despite having the power to — declined to summons them, saying on balance it was “undesirable given that the former ministers continue to co-operate with the evidence-gathering of the inquiry”.
Labour pandemic-era ministers Chris Hipkins, Grant Robertson and Ayesha Verrall have also declined. (Source: 1News)
“We are confident that the former ministers declining to attend the hearing does not hamper us in our ability to obtain the information we need to be able to properly complete our task. Public hearings are only one mechanism of obtaining evidence, and their use is restricted under our terms of reference,” Illingworth said.
The reasoning the ministers gave to the inquiry — according to a document the inquiry released — included that former ministers were conventionally interviewed privately for Royal Commissions of Inquiry, that they had cooperated so far and repeating the evidence publicly would be “performative rather than informative”, and it risked the recordings being “tampered with, manipulated or otherwise misused”.
The document noted other witnesses and their families had faced abuse after appearing in public hearings, including in the Royal Commission held in July.
Hipkins told Morning Report he has been interviewed in private, answered every question fully and even given the commission more information than what he had originally been asked.
He accused those involved with the Royal Commission of not knowing what they wanted because they had said public hearings wouldn’t be held for five reasons, including avoiding participants being subject to abuse.
“They indicated at the end of that interview [his private appearance]… that they didn’t have any further questions and any public hearing would simply be a repeat of any questions they’d already asked me.”
Hipkins acknowledged that the pandemic was “a really difficult time”, however, he said he answered questions from both the media and the public on a daily basis.
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Asked what he had to lose by fronting up, Hipkins responded that all the former ministers had followed the same protocol for the Covid commission as had occurred in the past, citing the examples of former Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee at the Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission of inquiry and other ministers involved in the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Christchurch mosque attacks.
Ardern stood by her decision not to participate, with a spokesperson saying she had recently provided a three-hour interview and remained available to answer any further questions the commission had.
Hipkins earlier earlier spoke to reporters at Parliament to defend his decision, and Verrall provided a written statement. Robertson, who is now vice chancellor at Otago University, did not respond to RNZ’s requests for comment.
Senior National MP Chris Bishop used the general debate on Wednesday to call attention to their refusal, saying it was “perhaps unsurprising”.
“They are ashamed of their record, and they know that held up to the light the decisions they made in 2020 and 2021 and 2022 have led us into the problems we are enduring today,” he said.
“It was really clear from the second half of 2020 and into 2021 that further stimulus of the New Zealand economy was not only not required, it was counterproductive.”
He said Treasury pointed to 36% of spending for the Covid response happening after June 2021.
“At that point, GDP had already returned to its pre-pandemic levels and inflation was already outside the band and approaching 7.3%… from financial year 2015 to 2019, core Crown debt was actually flat — it actually went down a bit. But from 2019 to 2023, net core Crown debt increased by 169% to $155 billion.
“That is the debt disaster this government inherited. That is the inflation disaster this government inherited. That is the cause of the recession this government inherited.”
ACT leader David Seymour mimed running away from reporters before saying “kidding, that’s the other guys”.
He said a lot of people would see the former ministers refusing to appear publicly as “running from accountability, and that’s what erodes that trust”.
“I would have thought if you cared about this country and responding to its next pandemic, which will happen, then you’d want to front up and tell your story,” he said.
“It’s good that they’ve co-operated in privacy, we’re told, but I think the New Zealand people deserve them to show up… I think there was an opportunity here to come and explain their perspective. Maybe we have it wrong, but they’re not doing it.”
He particularly focused on Hipkins.
“The contrast between his behaviour during the pandemic — when they do anything to get in front of the cameras, when we had to endure a 20 minute lecture before they gave us the daily numbers — compared with this behavior we’ve learned about today, I think that contrast speaks for itself.”
Asked about concerns of abuse, Seymour said the former ministers had a public duty to front up.
“Are we going to let a small group of anti-social people stop our great nation from having a democratic discourse? I think the simple facts are we don’t decide that ‘because there’s a few crazies out there we’re no longer going to have a Parliament’.”
NZ First leader Winston Peters shared his views on X, saying the former ministers “colluded and decided to decline to give evidence”.
“The ‘Podium of Truth’ has become the ‘Podium of Evasion’. 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.”
He said they were undermining the second inquiry to avoid public scrutiny.
“Those former Labour Ministers have shown they care nothing about public confidence, and worse, are treating the entire public with disdain and contempt … and had a disastrous effect on the economy and future of our country — yet they refuse to be held to account.”
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