Tony Blakely: Outgoing Head of the Covid Inquiry on the findings of phase 1

The outgoing head of the Covid inquiry has found vaccine mandates caused huge pain to a "substantial minority” during the pandemic. 

Tony Blakely says the Government should look at whether their benefits outweighed the harm they caused. 

Blakely will deliver the report from the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry to Internal Affairs Minister Brook van Velden today, but the Government may not release it until next year. 

He says New Zealand did well, although mistakes were made. 

Blakely describes the response as a game of two halves, with New Zealand doing well in the first year, and less so after that – which isn't surprising given the length of the pandemic. 

He says there’s still work to be done after their comprehensive investigations.  

Blakely told Mike Hosking they've done about 80% of the work, with incoming Chair Grant Illingworth's team coming in to do the next 20%.  

He says they may uncover new findings on topics they look at more in depth, such as mandates and vaccine harm. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We have the first bit of the COVID inquiry done O.
The government will receive the report later on today. Won't
be releasing it though, which is a story in itself.
I think outgoing COVID Inquiry chare Tony Blakeley is back
with this tiny morning.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
What in micadlessness?

Speaker 1 (00:12):
If this was all there was? In other words, there's
no Part two. Is it comprehensive enough?

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Absolutely? Our terms of reference abroad and our report. What
we've done is we've looked back at what happened, We've
looked forward at the lessons, and we've made recommendations. And
when we look back, we've covered all of all of
government decision making, the lockdowns board as an MiQ, health
system response, economic and social response, vaccination and in particular

(00:42):
the use of mandatoriness or compulsion about some of those
measures like vaccination, master testing and all that. We've covered
pretty much all of it. Phase two will do a
little bit of different stuff, which is particularly around vaccine harm.
So for example, people having an adverse evend to vaccines
more closely to that where that was outside of our
terms of reference.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
So is that necessary or not?

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Is what necessary?

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Part two?

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Well, that's not my decision made now.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
I know that. But if you're telling me that what
you've done is the big picture and this is all
we need to know, why are we doing part two?

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Do you think, Well, that's the government's decision. But what
I would say, Mike, is that grant Elling with who's
the incoming chair has been really really good in the
handover heaps of integrity, and I reckon it's a bit
like the eighty twenty rule. We had a really big
job to do and we've probably got eighty percent of
everything done on the terms of reference, and there's an

(01:39):
extra twenty percent, and sometimes that twenty percent is important.
They may find some stuff we haven't found on things
like mandates which they'll be looking at, and more debt
and lockdowns that they'll be looking at in more debt,
but also they'll be looking at the vaccine harm and safety,
which for many citizens of our tier own New Zealand
is a particularly important issue. And you know, good, that's
good that they're doing the mandates.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
In the comments you've made about the mandates, is that
a change of mind on your part or not?

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Ah, it's an evolution. I think we've all learned a lot.
What I will say at this point is that you know,
mandates are sort of a PLoP shelf thing. You should
only really be using them when you absolutely have to.
And we've got a lot to say about that report.
If I can reflect overseas previous Premier Purite New South

(02:26):
Wales Conservative government and a valedictory speech who said as
one major regrupt was the over use of mandates and compulsion.
And I think for a lot of us around the
world are learning that those mandates might have gone a
bit too far for a bit too long. It's a
very delicate balance and a future pandemic which is what
we're ready focused on now. You can't rule out the

(02:47):
need for doing mandatory measures again because the virus might
be two four times is fatal and two or four
times of infectious and you just need to do everything. However,
if we had something like COVID again, I think all
of us are saying that if we prepare pet to
have better contact tracing them, would need less of the
mandatory measures like lockdowns and vaccine manager.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
I reckon hand on the Blakeley's i EU, the Bloomfields,
the Bakers, et cetera. Would have had the gonads to
stand up to a zealots like a Dern who was
determined to lock us down.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
I think you're probably going to bit fire there, Mike.
Let me rethink about that. So I think that people,
both the all of the policy people, the bloomfields, the academics,
the bakers, and the government viadorens, if you like, everybody

(03:41):
was doing the best that they possibly could and making
decisions and incredibly complicated and fast moving circumstances going forward.
And again the UK Enquiry has made this quite clear
and we speak to as well. It's really, really really
important to make sure that you have a diversity of
advice coming in that you're very agile and you don't
get stuck in your ways. So a key there's two

(04:05):
key s words here, scenarios and strategy. So scenarios we
need to be thinking about what type of scenarios next
pandemic is and investing in preparation for that. And then
when the next pandemic, courts were constantly thinking about where
this thing going to go. What mightn't you take to
is a society on board with us and be able
to agile adapt. Which comes to the strategy part is

(04:27):
that I think a lot of countries, learned that you
need to really protect that strategy function. So you've got
a group that's always looking forward and planning for the
next possible steps.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Good stuff, Tony, good to talk to. You appreciate it
very much. Tony Blakeley outgoing our COVID inquiry chair. He
will hand it over at two pm this afternoon. My
reference earlier to Brook van Veldt, and she has said
this doesn't get made public now. It will be made
public at some point after Phase two is underway, which
strikes me as Machaveelian, which is highly unlikely, highly unusual

(04:58):
for the act Party. I would have thought, but that's
that's a question for another day.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
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