New Zealand is to expand the terms of reference for the independent Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons Learned, as Internal Affairs Minister Brooke Van Velden announces the inquiry will enter a second phase with new commissioners.
That has prompted New Zealand First—one of three parties that make up the government, along with National and ACT—to use the “agree to disagree” clause of the coalition agreement to signal its opposition.
The party agrees with the scope of the next phase of the inquiry but strongly opposes the decision to first complete the current Royal Commission and allow its chair, Tony Blakely, to remain in place until it does.
The existing inquiry is due to report back in November. The second phase will begin after that and report back with recommendations by February 2026.
It will have new terms of reference to allow it to “focus on matters of ongoing public concern including vaccine efficacy and safety, the extended lockdowns in Auckland and Northland, and the extent of disruption to New Zealanders’ health, education, and business,” Ms. Van Velden said.
The current commissioners, Professor Blakely and John Whitehead, will resign in November after delivering their report, and the minister will confirm the appointment of new Commissioners in August. They would “ideally” have expertise in law, medicine, public health, and economics.
“Having a second phase of the Royal Commission meets the requirements in both the ACT and New Zealand First coalition agreements while maintaining the integrity of the statutory inquiry system,” Ms. Van Velden said.
She said she preferred the government not set a precedent by ending a Royal Commission of Inquiry, particularly given it was originally expected to report back in September, and claimed the conditions of the coalition agreements had been met.
NZ First’s invocation of the “agree to disagree” provision—the first time this has happened this term—was simply a “serious, little, tiny, little bit where we have disagreed,” Ms. Van Velden said.
NZ First Leader Winston Peters—currently also deputy prime minister—said his party believed the current Royal Commission was “far too narrow in scope and remains compromised by the current Chair’s direct involvement with the previous government’s administration and direct planning of the COVID pandemic response.”
This led to a perception of bias, undermining the credibility of that part of the inquiry, Mr. Peters argues.
The former Labour Government set up the Royal Commission in December 2022, with its focus restricted to the lessons learnt that could improve the response to future pandemics.
It was strongly criticised at the time by National, ACT, and NZ First, which all accused Labour of trying to dodge accountability for its decisions.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins characterised the new inquiry phase as “an attempt by [ACT Leader] David Seymour and Winston Peters to try and cook up an inquiry that reinforces their conspiracy theories.”
The second phase inquiry is expected to cost about $14 million (US$8.6 million), and the minister understood the first phase had cost about $17 million to date.
