Grant Illingworth KC: Royal commission inquiry chair on phase two of COVID responses

The second phase of the Covid Inquiry starts today, with vaccine mandates proving to be a hot topic.  

The hearings will be held in Auckland, available to watch online and will be chaired by KC Grant Illingworth.  

Phase two is focused on aspects of the Covid response like vaccine mandates, the approval process and vaccine safety. 

Illingworth told Heather du Plessis Allan that there are 31-thousand submissions, with a fair chunk focused on the mandates. 

He says there's a number of people who think the mandates protected them, and many others who have an opposite view. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The second half of the COVID nineteen Royal Commission of
Inquiry gets underway today, at least as far as the
public part is concerned. Public hearings will be held all
week and they will be live streamed online. Grant Ellingworth
Casey is the chair of the Royal Commission of Inquiry
with us.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Now High Grant, good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
What do you reckon? Is going to be the most
crunchy here? The mandates or the vaccine safety? Look?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
I think mandates are the thing that people are most
excited about and that they find most ejectionable. Obviously, not
everyone does, because some people are Quite a number of
people think that the mandates protected them while they were
at work and so on. But there are of course

(00:41):
many people who take the opposite view.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
You've obviously already got some submissions that have come in.
What proportion do you reckon in support of the mandates?

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Look, we've got people assessing the submissions at the moment,
and there are thirty one thousand of them. I don't
profess to have read them all. I've read some, and
I can't give you any accurate figures as to proportions,
but there's certainly a fair chunk that will be focusing
on that issue.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Do you I mean, this has been a touchy subject
in the past. Do you think that you will get full,
unvarnished opinions from people.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yes, I think we will and we have. We've done
a lot of interviews, a lot of engagements with groups,
and people are being very open and forthright about what
they think.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Are you forming an opinion yet on whether the mandates
were necessary?

Speaker 2 (01:34):
I can't predetermine what the outcome is going to be,
but of course you get impressions along the way. We've
got to keep an open mind because we are required
to follow the principles of procedural fairness. But certainly impressions
are being gathered and many of them.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Yeah, interesting, Grant. I mean, at the start, the opposition
was largely to the vaccine. Why do you think it
and you know, questions around vaccine safety. Why do you
think the mandates have overtaken that?

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Well, vaccines were introduced at a point where we desperately
needed something to solve a very big problem, and I
think the majority of New Zealanders embraced it, and the
questions of vaccine safety became more poignant further down the track.

(02:29):
But once vaccine mandates were introduced and as that policy developed,
it affected more people and I think people felt, well,
my rights are being taken away, so you know, it
touches a nerve and people react.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Looking forward to seeing what you've got to say about that, Grant,
really appreciate your time. Grant elling with Casey, Chair of
the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID nineteen Part two.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
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