Lockdown overlords missing in action from the Podium of Truth

“Jacinda Ardern, Chris Hipkins, Grant Robertson, and Ayesha Verrall’s refusal to front up to the COVID inquiry is a big change from invading our living rooms daily. What’s changed?” asks ACT Leader David Seymour.

“Hipkins and co loved the limelight at 1pm every day. They wielded extraordinary powers over citizens’ lives, dismissing those who questioned them as uncaring. Now they're refusing to even show up, what a contrast.

“The then-Government used emergency powers more dramatically than any other in our country’s peacetime history. Those powers included:

• ⁠Separating families at the border and in hospitals even at times of birth, death, and severe illness

• ⁠Letting unused Rapid Antigen Tests expire by the million, while locking down Auckland for over 100 days longer than the rest of the country.

• ⁠Locking down Northland down for 11 days on false information that humiliated three women. Officials apologised, but Hipkins refused to.

• ⁠Being were slow to close the border in early 2020, and even slower to adapt when Omicron made their Delta-era rules obsolete.

• ⁠Sticking to outdated restrictions that hurt people but couldn’t stop Omicron, keeping MIQ in place long after the virus was widespread in the community.

• ⁠Putting surgeries, screenings, and medical treatments on hold.

• ⁠Damaging the education of a generation, with school attendance still bounding back from the Government’s forced closures.

• ⁠Making strange, inconsistent rules that often hurt small businesses to the benefit of large chains– supermarkets could open, but butchers couldn’t.

• ⁠Ignoring Treasury warnings to spend $66 billion, driving inflation over 7%, and sparking a cost-of-living crisis and mortgage crunch households are still paying for.

• Appointing a Royal Commission of Inquiry that would ignore most of the above costs, by focusing on the effectiveness of the COVID response rather than its costs.

“ACT campaigned to expand the Royal Commission inquiry and opened it to the public. If another pandemic arrives, we literally cannot afford to repeat the mistakes made during COVID, the bond ratings agencies will see to that. Facing another pandemic more successfully requires honest reflection from the decisionmakers of that period.

“Tens of thousands of New Zealanders have already engaged with the inquiry, sharing heart-wrenching experiences of how their lives were upended. They deserve the basic respect of accountability. If Chris Hipkins can’t front up for a single day of questioning, he is not fit to act as Opposition leader, let alone return to Government.

“Jacinda Ardern, Chris Hipkins, Grant Robertson, and Ayesha Verrall must change course and agree to publicly front the Royal Commission. It is a matter of duty and respect.”

Editor's note: A Curia poll suggests 69% of New Zealanders believe Ardern, Hipkins, Bloomfield, and other key decision-makers should testify in person at the Covid Inquiry hearings.