“Never set up an inquiry,” as the old political saying goes, “unless you know in advance what its findings will be.” While it might seem like welcome news that New Zealand is going to have an inquiry into the Ardern government’s Covid-19 response, the reality is that it’s almost certainly going to be rigged as an arse-covering, blame-shifting exercise.
Despite repeated calls from Pauline Hanson in Australia, Labor, the Coalition and the Greens have adamantly resisted having a similar Royal Commission in Australia. Probably because they’re all scared of what it might find regarding the culpability of both state and federal governments on both sides of the political aisle.
But the Covid-19 response in NZ was very much Jacinda Ardern’s baby. Consequently, National, ACT and even the Greens have been piling pressure on for an inquiry. With her political capital at dangerously low levels, Ardern probably can’t afford to be seen to be stonewalling.
The Government has green-lighted a Royal Commission of Inquiry into our COVID-19 response.
“I think the reason that it is incredibly important though, that we use the most significant inquiry or level of inquiry that we have, is because of the significant impact of COVID-19.”
But is even Ardern so politically clueless as to set up an inquiry that has a danger of being a two-edged sword that could lop off her own head? She may be many things, but born without a long, long streak of political rat cunning, Ardern is not. She is nothing if not a low political operator.
If she has to have an inquiry, you can bet she’s going to do everything in her power to stack the outcome in her favour.
Lo and behold…
It’s a Royal Commission with a difference.
Usually led by a judge, our COVID probe will instead be led by a panel of experts.
Ah, would those be the same “experts” who so blindly pushed Covid policies that were wrong – horribly, disastrously wrong – in almost every way?
Enter ex-Treasury secretary John Whitehead, former Cabinet minister Hekia Parata and epidemiologist Tony Blakely.
Uh huh. The political-bureaucratic class are going to sit in judgement of their own. As it happens, in 2021, Blakely was urging NSW to stay in lockdown until they reached zero cases. More recently, he’s been back at it, banging the lockdown-and-mask-mandate drum again.
Already, the soft-soaping seems to be beginning.
“We’re not here to lay blame, we’re not here to pursue agencies who may have not done the best things, we’re here to learn the lessons from those things”, Blakely told Newshub.
The terms of reference are also sounding suspiciously slanted.
The summary of the terms of reference says the consideration of the interests of Maori and the impact on essential workers will be part of this mega inquiry.
But the Reserve Bank’s independent monetary decisions throughout the pandemic won’t be.
Newshub
Even more significant is the timetable. The Royal Commission report isn’t due until June 2024 — well after the next election.
This conveniently means that Ardern will be able to fob off questions over its Covid response by pontificating that they mustn’t anticipate the forthcoming Royal Commission.
If it walks like a snow job and quacks like a snow job…