The Covid inquiries

Brooke van Velden announced:

Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says this coalition Government is delivering on our commitment to expand the terms of reference for the independent Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons Learned.

“There will be a second phase to the Royal Commission which features new commissioners and an expanded terms of reference. It will 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,” says Ms van Velden. …

“The current commissioners, Professor Tony Blakely and John Whitehead, will resign in November after delivering a report on the first phase of the inquiry in November. I will confirm the appointment of new Commissioners, along with the detailed terms of reference, in August.

I can see why the Government has done this, but it is fairly inelegant to have effectively two different sets of Commissioners for different phases.

The two remaining Commissioners for the first phase are people of integrity, but both somewhat compromised. One was a frequent unofficial advisor to the Government and key officials on the response, and the other was a former Labour parliamentary staffer (and then civil servant). This will make it easy to dismiss their conclusions. However starting the whole thing again doesn’t appeal either.