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Speaker 1: So the government did release the COVID report despite any

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Speaker 1: number of indications they were not going to. So we

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Speaker 1: got a lot of pages, a lot of recommendations. Will

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Speaker 1: it make a job of difference next time round? Former

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Speaker 1: Treasury Secretary, National Health Board member in New Zealand Initiative

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Speaker 1: senior fellow these days, Doctor Murray horns with us Murray morning.

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Speaker 2: Good morning mate.

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Speaker 1: If this was it, in other words, we weren't doing

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Speaker 1: Phase two. Is it comprehensive enough?

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Speaker 2: I don't think so, and I think it misses some

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Speaker 2: big points. I think my view of it is as

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Speaker 2: a fairly and I've only read this summary, okay, so

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Speaker 2: I haven't read the full in how many other pages

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Speaker 2: it is, but I think it's quite a generous assessment

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Speaker 2: of what went on, and I think it misses a

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Speaker 2: couple of really big points. The first point I would

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Speaker 2: make is that it doesn't really pick up the fact

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Speaker 2: that the damaged done to the economy and to people's

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Speaker 2: trust in government and so on and so on was

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Speaker 2: more It was more serious than it needed to be,

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Speaker 2: because the public health response was weaker than it should

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Speaker 2: have been. Uh. Secondly, I think that you know clearly

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Speaker 2: we overdid the stimulus. Right, the government overdid the stimulus

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Speaker 2: and we're and we're paying for that now, and we'll

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Speaker 2: pay for that in terms of higher levels of debt,

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Speaker 2: more inflation, the recessions that need to be that we're

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Speaker 2: going through to try and get that inflation down. So

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Speaker 2: you know the fact that you know, New Zealand the

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Speaker 2: economy seemed to bounce back strongly. Yeah, well it's got

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Speaker 2: to help.

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Speaker 1: That's what happens when you print money.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's right, and yeah, and and you run up debt.

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Speaker 2: So you know, I think that there's a there's a

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Speaker 2: there's an important lesson there that we could have had

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Speaker 2: less locked fewer, fewer lockdowns, less severe lockdowns of the

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Speaker 2: public health response had have been had it been better.

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Speaker 2: And I'm thinking there about things like better testing, contact tracing,

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Speaker 2: you know, improving the health system's ability to cope. Using

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Speaker 2: private partners with their expertise, that we came to help

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Speaker 2: a whole lot of things that we should have been doing,

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Speaker 2: and even though we were badly prepared to begin with,

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Speaker 2: we didn't seem to learn much as we met went along.

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Speaker 2: And I think that brings us to my second point,

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Speaker 2: and probably the biggest missing of the looking forward part

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Speaker 2: of it is that the politicization of the execution of

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Speaker 2: the strategy led to the lack of adaptation and agility

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Speaker 2: in response. So you know, they come out and pick

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Speaker 2: up a couple of points at dev Gorman and I

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Speaker 2: made eighteen months ago about the need for our mosses

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Speaker 2: put scenario planning and all that sort of thing, and

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Speaker 2: getting ourselves in better shape for the next one. But

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Speaker 2: plans don't you know, there's a whole saying and war

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Speaker 2: and the plans don't survive the first contact with the enemy.

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Speaker 2: So yes, you've got to have plans, You've got to

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Speaker 2: do that. The scenario thing, good, good suggestions that they've made,

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Speaker 2: picked up the suggestions they made eighteen months ago. And

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Speaker 2: better use of the private sector as we do for

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Speaker 2: you know, farms and biosecurity. We can get farms to

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Speaker 2: protect their farms inside. But look, you don't get any

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Speaker 2: of those things f the government takes over the execution,

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Speaker 2: wants to claim that the best in the world, and

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Speaker 2: monopoly untruth has spin on everything. Marginalized criticism and monopolized execution,

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Speaker 2: which is what they did, and none of that, none

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Speaker 2: of that sort of chest beating and propagandizing is conducive

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Speaker 2: to admitting shortcomings, to learning from them, to adapting your response,

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Speaker 2: so you know, it leads to a sort of add

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Speaker 2: or you know where we got to a sort of

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Speaker 2: a fear based at or cross type approach, which which

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Speaker 2: excludes you know, the private sector, which which which doesn't

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Speaker 2: emit error and learn from them.

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Speaker 1: Exactly, It's exactly what we came to. And I just wonder, Murray,

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Speaker 1: whether we actually needed a report because most of us

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Speaker 1: came to that conclusion sometime ago. Of course, all by ourselves,

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Speaker 1: didn't we. Murray Horn a good Heaven won the pregament.

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Speaker 2: For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to

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Speaker 2: news talks.

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