the letter he sent in March<\/a> to Bloomfield\u2019s successor, Director-General of Health Audrey Sonerson, with transparency expectations for expert advice, a further tranche of which has since been released.<\/p>\n\u201cThe New Zealand public deserves full confidence that the benefits and risks of vaccines are weighed honestly and communicated openly,\u201d his letter said.<\/p>\n
The Royal Commission reports said New Zealand\u2019s response was successful in 2020, but struggled more in 2021 as it transitioned from elimination to living with the virus in the middle of a Delta outbreak.<\/p>\n
They said the mandates were justifiable in late 2021 but a case could have been made for them to be lifted in early 2022, when Omicron was displacing Delta. <\/p>\n
The reports found about half of the $60 billion Covid-19 Response and Recovery Fund, spent across more than 800 programmes, were not directly related to the pandemic. Labour has defended this as economic stimulus that kept people in jobs during the economic downturn from closed borders.<\/p>\n
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters, who is in coalition with National and Act, said the Government\u2019s response was \u201cpathetic\u201d, the terms of reference for the \u201clame duck\u201d inquiry were \u201cinadequate\u201d, and all other political parties were part of a \u201ccover up\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to make sure there\u2019s another inquiry, so people who were maltreated and abused and not given the right advice do get some justice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Labour MP Kieran McAnulty called the Government\u2019s response a \u201cdistraction\u201d and said Labour would remain focused on the cost of living.<\/p>\n
Epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker said response was \u201cencouraging\u201d, but was concerned that the Government had rejected the World Health Organisation\u2019s International Health Regulations, \u201cwhich are the key global legal framework for pandemic prevention and rapid response\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis decision places New Zealand among a very small number of countries that have chosen not to support these updated international health rules.\u201d<\/p>\n
Phase One report\u2019s recommendations<\/p>\n
Strengthen all-of-government coordination and accountability for pandemic preparednessEstablish a central agency function to coordinate all-of-government pandemic preparedness and other national risks.Ensure access to scenario-planning and modelling capability.Create a pandemic expert advisory group.Strengthen oversight and accountability through chief executive and ministerial\/Cabinet structures.Publish the National Risk Register and improve preparedness transparency.Treasury to advise on sustainable funding for preparedness and resilience. <\/p>\n
Ensure an all-of-government pandemic plan, response structure and supporting processes are ready<\/p>\n
Develop an all-of-government pandemic response plan.Update the plan after national pandemic exercises.Develop a pandemic response structure that can be rapidly activated.Develop surge workforce and capability transfer arrangements.Prepare guidance and templates for urgent decision-making.Establish processes to protect democratic and human rights during pandemic responses.<\/p>\n
Strengthen public health measures that may be required in a pandemic<\/p>\n
Refine the health-system pandemic plan.Develop a comprehensive quarantine and isolation plan.Ensure rapid scaling of testing, tracing, vaccination and infection-control functions.Improve planning for border restrictions.Strengthen border operational capability.Maintain public health surveillance capability.Improve preparedness for vaccination programmes and vaccine delivery.<\/p>\n
Ensure all sectors are prepared for a pandemic and ready to respond<\/p>\n
Develop economic sector pandemic preparedness arrangements.Develop social sector pandemic preparedness arrangements.Develop education sector pandemic preparedness arrangements.Develop justice sector pandemic preparedness arrangements.Strengthen business continuity planning.Improve economic resilience and recovery planning.Improve social support and welfare planning.Improve community-level preparedness.Strengthen support for vulnerable populations.Improve continuity planning for essential services.Strengthen infrastructure and lifeline utility resilience.Improve supply-chain resilience. <\/p>\n
Ensure enablers are in place<\/p>\n
Improve Crown-M\u0101ori partnership arrangements for future pandemics.Ensure pandemic legislation is fit for purpose.Improve national data systems and information-sharing.Strengthen research, evidence and analytical capability.Improve communication systems and public information capability.Ensure critical infrastructure and digital enablers are ready.Implement the recommendationsEstablish formal oversight and accountability for implementation.Report progress regularly to Ministers and Parliament and review preparedness periodically.<\/p>\n
Phase Two report\u2019s recommendations<\/p>\n
Systems that promote good Government decision-making <\/p>\n
Limit exemptions from Regulatory Impact Statements to genuinely time-critical decisions.Update the Cabinet Manual to require prompt and regular reviews of decisions made outside normal quality-assurance processes.Present elimination strategies as temporary from the outset.Investigate establishing a permanent strategic function in Treasury or the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, with function responsibility for rapid epidemiological modelling; estimating health, social, economic and education impacts; improving real-time data; developing frameworks for weighing competing impactsCreate external triggers for regular, transparent strategic reviews through statutory reporting to Parliament and\/or an independent review board.<\/p>\n
Legislation as the guardrail for rights and freedoms<\/p>\n
Develop standing primary pandemic legislation.Ensure legislation contains clear emergency powers, clear triggers, clear decision-makers, exemption mechanisms, procedural and substantive safeguards and flexibility for changing circumstances.Develop legislation through ordinary democratic processes, including consultation and select committee scrutiny.Limit urgent and bespoke legislation to exceptional situations and use sunset clauses.Publish advice relating to the exercise of pandemic powers, particularly advice concerning Bill of Rights consistency.<\/p>\n
Agile and robust economic policy<\/p>\n
Prepare and maintain a pandemic guide for decision-makers.Treasury to publish a Financial Resilience Report at least every four years.Government to align Fiscal Strategy Reports with the Financial Resilience Report.Clarify the respective roles of fiscal and monetary policy during major shocks.Develop implementable income-support and business-support options before the next pandemic.Investigate more frequent publication of economic indicators.Investigate an infrastructure maintenance priorities programme.Undertake further research on unconventional monetary policies used during Covid-19.Improve transparency and controls around Crown guarantees and indemnities.<\/p>\n
Readiness for social impacts and post-pandemic recovery<\/p>\n
Research service recovery after Covid-19, factors that enabled rapid recovery, delayed recovery factorsm, deteriorated outcomes and most effective interventions.Ensure governments use the best available science, explain evidence and limitations, and explain how decisions were reached.Assign an agency to monitor trust and social cohesion research and provide policy advice.Develop a clear evidence base on trust and social cohesion trends in New Zealand.<\/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":"The Royal Commission of Inquiry Phase One report, ordered by the previous Government and released in November 2024,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1665,49653,4057,52494,8607,4731,16639,1342,3273,266,37601,4277,661,117,111,43,139,69,1523,180808,21041,4990,82743,5034,12718,1973,56954,10119,19135],"class_list":["post-549699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-advice","tag-affecting","tag-behind","tag-committing","tag-covid","tag-days","tag-decisions","tag-five","tag-future","tag-government","tag-inquiry","tag-key","tag-major","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-pandemics","tag-peoples","tag-releasing","tag-requirements","tag-response","tag-rights","tag-sets","tag-transparency","tag-within","tag-working"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549699","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=549699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}