{"id":512585,"date":"2026-07-06T15:39:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T15:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/512585\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T15:39:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T15:39:21","slug":"covid-19-minister-asks-officials-what-to-do-following-royal-commissions-incorrect-finding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/512585\/","title":{"rendered":"Covid-19: Minister asks officials what to do following Royal Commission\u2019s incorrect finding"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhile I do not recall all of the advice we were provided over the three years, ministers kept the vaccine mandates under review and continuously sought expert advice on the safety and impact of vaccinations for under-18s,\u201d Hipkins said at the time<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Van Velden\u2019s request for advice is revealed in documents released to the Herald under the Official Information Act.<\/p>\n

Her officials responded with a number of options that she then forwarded to Health Minister Simeon Brown, who is responsible for the Government\u2019s response to the commission\u2019s report<\/a>. Ministry of Health officials also provided a summary of the options.<\/p>\n

\u201cPhase Two of the Inquiry<\/a> found that \u2018advice of 9 December [2021] from the Covid-19 Vaccine Technical Advisory Group [CV Tag] to the Ministry of Health, advising against requiring two doses for 12\u201317-year-olds, was not provided to Ministers\u2019. This finding is incorrect, as the advice was provided in a Cabinet paper considered by Ministers in early March 2022,\u201c the summary from health officials said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Department of Internal Affairs has provided her [van Velden] with advice on how concerns about a Royal Commission of Inquiry finding might be addressed after the Inquiry has reported and concluded its function.\u201d <\/p>\n

One option was to launch another formal inquiry into the matter. The \u201cmost feasible option\u201d was to address concerns through the Government\u2019s response to the commission\u2019s report.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis could include the Ministry of Health\u2019s public acknowledgement<\/a> that advice from the Covid-19 Vaccine Technical Advisory Group was delayed in being provided to Ministers and was not clearly communicated to the public in a timely way,\u201d health officials said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFurther, it could relate the direction you have subsequently given the Ministry of Health to improve its processes to ensure that science advice on the use of vaccines is made available to decision makers and the public.\u201d<\/p>\n

That direction has already been communicated in a letter from Brown to Director-General of Health Audrey Sonerson.<\/p>\n

Sir Ashley Bloomfield, the Director-General of Health at the time, has refused all interview requests and questions<\/a> over how the CV Tag advice was handled, including why he sent a briefing to Hipkins in late December 2021 that included outdated CV Tag advice.<\/p>\n

Commission chairman Grant Illingworth, KC, asked to comment about the Cabinet paper that showed Hipkins was presented with the CV Tag advice, said that his role had concluded and he had to let the commission\u2019s report speak for itself.<\/p>\n

He noted a passage in the report that said the commission, \u201cin the material we obtained from agencies\u201d, found no evidence the advice was provided to ministers.<\/p>\n

\"ThenThen director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield during a press conference in 2021 with Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n

Hipkins had leaned on the Royal Commission\u2019s incorrect finding in his statements in the House<\/a> following the release of the commission\u2019s report. <\/p>\n

The Herald understands a complaint has been laid over whether the House was misled, but a spokeswoman said Hipkins had been advised he didn\u2019t need to correct anything because he was talking about what the commission\u2019s report said, rather than whether ministers had received the advice.<\/p>\n

Van Velden told the Herald she is not launching another inquiry into the matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had concerns following the publication of the final Royal Commission report when discrepancies were found between media reporting and one of the Commission\u2019s findings. I wanted to know what recourse there was to reconcile this so I asked what the options are,\u201d she said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was advised that once a Royal Commission concludes, it is closed completely and ceases to exist as an entity that could be asked to re-examine evidence related to its findings. <\/p>\n

\u201dGiven that, the best option is to deal with the issue through the Government\u2019s response. As Minister Brown is handling the Government\u2019s response, I have provided him the advice I received and left it for his consideration.”<\/p>\n

The Government response is expected this month.<\/p>\n

\u2018Deeply concerning\u2019<\/p>\n

At the start of 2022, the Labour Government had good reason to change Covid-19 vaccine requirements for the 12-17 age group<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The CV Tag had advised<\/a> Bloomfield, in December 2021, against vaccine mandates requiring two doses for that age group due to the possibility of unnecessary risk of heart inflammation following a second dose.<\/p>\n

The group wasn\u2019t saying that young people shouldn\u2019t have two doses of the vaccine, which was considered safe and effective, albeit with the possibility of side-effects.<\/p>\n

It was saying they shouldn\u2019t be required to have two doses under workforce mandates. Those in that age group were also required to have two doses in certain settings in the vaccine passes system.<\/p>\n

Just before Christmas 2021, Bloomfield sent a briefing to Hipkins about booster shots<\/a>, which was considered by Labour\u2019s Dr Ayesha Verrall because Hipkins was on annual leave.<\/p>\n

The briefing included outdated CV Tag concerns about requiring two doses for the 12-17 age group, even though Bloomfield had the firmer and most up-to-date advice.<\/p>\n

\"Director-GeneralDirector-General of Health Audrey Sonerson and Health Minister Simeon Brown. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n

How many suffered heart inflammation<\/a> from a second or third dose is not known definitively; the self-reported data to Medsafe suggests the number is in the dozens<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There were still about 30,000 12 to 17-year-olds yet to receive a second dose when the Cabinet paper in Hipkins\u2019 name was considered at a Cabinet subcommittee. Hipkins has defended not making the CV Tag public<\/a>, saying public health experts and frontline vaccinators were better placed to talk about such matters.<\/p>\n

Brown\u2019s letter to Sonerson, sent the day after the commission\u2019s report was released, makes it clear that vaccine advice should be delivered to relevant ministers and made public.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Commission found it was a significant failure that the Ministry did not provide more fulsome advice to Ministers,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite this, the two-dose vaccine mandate remained for this age group. I regard these findings as deeply concerning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown\u2019s letter said the public deserved \u201cfull confidence\u201d that the benefits and risks of vaccines are \u201cweighed honestly and communicated openly\u201d, and this could be undermined by \u201cany perception that safety concerns have been withheld or inadequately communicated\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat means being upfront about both what vaccines protect against and where risks exist, particularly for specific groups. I expect the Ministry and Health New Zealand to embed this principle across all vaccine advice and public communications.\u201d<\/p>\n

Derek Cheng is a senior journalist who started at the Herald in 2004. He has worked several stints in the press gallery team and is a former deputy political editor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWhile I do not recall all of the advice we were provided over the three years, ministers kept…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1443,16751,13916,31036,20861,2371,17330,15245,81317,6309,2949,5504,71,42,48231,37601,10118,296,6722,43,10711,9855,3271,1361,61,40,38,41,39,183767,6923],"class_list":["post-512585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-about","tag-affairs","tag-asked","tag-asks","tag-brooke","tag-commission","tag-commissions","tag-concerned","tag-covid19","tag-do","tag-finding","tag-following","tag-from","tag-headlines","tag-incorrect","tag-inquiry","tag-internal","tag-into","tag-minister","tag-news","tag-officials","tag-royal","tag-should","tag-that","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-velden","tag-what"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}