Grant Illingworth KC: Chair of phase two of Covid-19 Royal Commission inquiry on looking into vaccines, lockdowns and testing

A submission portal and an awareness campaign have been launched today as part of phase two of New Zealand's COVID-19 inquiry.

The initiative is looking into all aspects of the pandemic, and is set to receive many submissions. 

Chair of the Covid-19 Royal Commission inquiry Grant Illingworth KC joins the show to discus phase two of the inquiry. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We've got submission, We've got a submissions portal and on
Aware's campaign being launched to those part of Phase two
of our COVID inquiry. So this part looks into the
vaccines of course, lockdown's testing, tracing rats, all that sort
of stuff. Anyway, the chair of this particular part of
the COVID inquiry is Grant Illingworth k C, who's will us.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Very good morning, Yes, good morning, Mike.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
And so you open a portal and you say, give
me your feelings. Are you braced for the fury?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, yes, we're braced for the fury. We are expecting
a lot of people to respond, but we really want
that to happen. This is a really important issue. We
want to get things right for the future, and we've
been given some sharp questions to answer, so we need help.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Does opinion carry weight? So just because I didn't like
the mandate, does that count for anything or not?

Speaker 2 (00:50):
It can if you give reasons as to why you
didn't like it, then those reasons will be important to
us to consider and they can constitute a line of
inquiry that we might need to follow in.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
So is this a democratic exercise in the sense that
if I say I don't like the mandate because they
made me get jabbed, and if I didn't get jabbed,
I lost my job. If enough people say that, does
that sway your eventual report or do you take something
from the medical fraternity? You go, Yep. A lot of
people didn't like it, but that's why we did what
we did the latter.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
It's not a matter of being swayed by public opinion.
And the answer is we are required to approach this
whole task of answering the questions that we've been given.
We're required to do it impartially, independently and using a
fair process. So we've got to weigh up the evidence.
It's going to be evidence based and that's exactly what

(01:45):
we plan to do.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Are you constrained in any way as far as you're
concerned in terms of terms of reference?

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Yes, the terms of reference are very precise. So we're
reviewing key decisions that were made by government from the
period of February twenty twenty one to October twenty twenty two,
and those decisions are further narrowed by topics. So the
topics are lockdowns, vaccines, and procurement issues, and they are

(02:17):
specifically spout out for our terms of reference.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Ultimately, will you do you think be prescriptive in what
you say in the report? In other words, a lot
of people said that in lockdowns, we think this should happen.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Going forward, we will try to identify lessons for the future.
It's not a matter of saying you must do this, obviously.
The whole purpose of this inquiry is to facilitate good
decision making. And you can't make a decision in circumstances

(02:51):
of uncertainty and urgency and complexity without putting your brain
into gear. It's the it's what you take into account
when you're making those decisions. What you should balance, what
you should trade off one from one thing to another.
Those are the issues that we'll be looking.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
At when they rang you, did you go into this
eyes wide open with the belief that potentially it could
just be another door stop once you've written your report,
or you hand on heart think you can make a difference.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
I think we can make a difference. These issues are
not simple and straightforward, and the more you look into
the questions that we've been asked to consider, the more
complexity you see. And there needs to be a big
change in the way we deal with emergencies, particularly public

(03:45):
health emergencies, to be better prepared than we were last
time round. It's pretty obvious, I think to everyone that
we weren't well prepared. We didn't have all our ducks
in a row, and we need to do that next time,
all right.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
Grant go well and Grant Hilling with KC out of
the Curbon inquiries. When I was talking about terms of reference,
the things they're not looking at, and this is how
court procedures and parliament processes were adapted during the pandemic,
the conduct of the general election during the pandemic, I
probably agree with that, But then this decisions made by
the Reserve Bank's Independent Monetary Policy Committee, I would argue

(04:20):
that was a critical and still effective piece of not
effective in a positive way, but effective piece of policy
that still to this day affects our lives in a
fairy dramatic way. So why they're not looking at that?
I got no idea For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast,
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