Speaker 1: Kiyota.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. The long
Speaker 2: tale of COVID is still being felt for some parts
Speaker 2: of our society. The second stage of the Royal Commission
Speaker 2: into the COVID nineteen response kicked off this week with
Speaker 2: public testimony from business owners and those impacted by vaccine
Speaker 2: mandates and the lengthy lockdowns in Auckland and Northland. It's
Speaker 2: part of the coalition deal between National and both ACT
Speaker 2: and ENZ First and has prompted criticism over being overtly
Speaker 2: political and spotlighting conspiracy theorists. But with so many in
Speaker 2: the community still focused on the events of twenty twenty
Speaker 2: and twenty twenty one, are we ever going.
Speaker 1: To just move past it.
Speaker 2: We'll discuss that later with independent political and social commentator
Speaker 2: Grant Duncan, But first on the Front Page News Talks,
Speaker 2: that'd be reporter Emily ansel Is with us to explain
Speaker 2: what's been happening with the Royal Commission. Emily, what is
Speaker 2: the point of this second stage of the Royal Commission
Speaker 2: of the COVID response.
Speaker 3: So this second phase is taking place so that those
Speaker 3: who felt like they hadn't been heard in the first
Speaker 3: could have their say on their experiences. Specifically this phase,
Speaker 3: the Commission's job is to focus on the large lockdown
Speaker 3: in Auckland, the twenty twenty one lockdown and how that
Speaker 3: affected Auckland is but also Northlands, those in White cut
Speaker 3: Or and around the rest of the country. They are
Speaker 3: also looking at the vaccine mandates and the decisions made
Speaker 3: around there and hearing from a variety of people who
Speaker 3: both oppose and praise the vaccine mandates to understand and
Speaker 3: I guess learn from how we responded and what we
Speaker 3: can do next time.
Speaker 1: What are the sorts of people we've been hearing from
Speaker 1: so far?
Speaker 3: We've heard from a variety lots of leaders and experts
Speaker 3: in their sectors. We've heard from prominent GPS such as
Speaker 3: Brian Betty and Angus Chambers. We've also heard from those
Speaker 3: in the education sectors such as the president of the
Speaker 3: New Zealand Principles Federation, Lean all Tenure, and spokespeople from
Speaker 3: Kaitaia College speaking about their experience. We've heard from business
Speaker 3: leaders in Auckland and Northland. We've heard from Marty, health
Speaker 3: and social group leaders, community leaders from the Pacific community,
Speaker 3: so a real briepth and depth of people from around
Speaker 3: all parts of New Zealand society.
Speaker 4: Has it been all conspiracy theorists like Labors Chris Hopkins
Speaker 4: is alleged, or mostly just people with some sort of
Speaker 4: issue with the response, I would say it doesn't seem
Speaker 4: like there have been a lot of people who are
Speaker 4: overly positive about the experience.
Speaker 3: With regard to the conspiracy side of things, I would
Speaker 3: say no, I hadn't heard much in the way of
Speaker 3: conspiracy up into today. We're hearing from people who have
Speaker 3: been accused of spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories. But as
Speaker 3: I said, a lot of this week we've heard from experts,
Speaker 3: from prominent leaders and the health and education and business sected,
Speaker 3: basically just wanting to share what their experience was like.
Speaker 3: I guess these decisions affected everyone and these were the
Speaker 3: groups who felt like their experiences hadn't properly been considered.
Speaker 3: So yesterday, the fourth day of the second phase of
Speaker 3: this inquiry, we saw groups such as Voices for Freedom.
Speaker 3: They were questioned I would say a little harder than
Speaker 3: I had seen other groups by commissioners asking them to
Speaker 3: be more direct in their answers, accusing them at least
Speaker 3: once of avoiding the question questions such as do you
Speaker 3: see that the government had a right to enforce quite
Speaker 3: drastic actions in a crisis and a health crisis. But
Speaker 3: the Commissioner did say right at the end that although
Speaker 3: he did press them, that is not in any way
Speaker 3: an indication of their stance. They have not made up
Speaker 3: their mind. So they really are trying to emphasize that
Speaker 3: they are listening and taking everything into account before they conclude.
Speaker 5: Telling people they have conspiracy theorist views doesn't stop them
Speaker 5: having conspiracy theorist views. And in many cases, as you
Speaker 5: discovered on the lawn of.
Speaker 1: Parliament, you make them worse.
Speaker 6: Well, you're also giving them a platform, doesn't make them,
Speaker 6: doesn't make them better.
Speaker 5: Is it a platform or is it a place where
Speaker 5: they can be heard?
Speaker 6: Well, you know, have you mentioned the protest at Parliament?
Speaker 6: There are people they're hanging nooses in the trees. Do
Speaker 6: you really think that that was their constructive engagement? They're
Speaker 6: not a platform for constructive engagement.
Speaker 5: Well, before we saw the nurses, and we don't know
Speaker 5: who put the nurses up, of what they were there for.
Speaker 6: They hung them on the first who hung them. They
Speaker 6: hang them on the first day they're own, and they
Speaker 6: had names on them. Why was one of them? Who
Speaker 6: are not going to go down and talk to them?
Speaker 2: And you've been listening all week, Emily, in terms of
Speaker 2: the submitters and the submissions that you've heard, are there
Speaker 2: any that's stuck out to you? Have any quite been
Speaker 2: quite emotional or did you learn something that you didn't know?
Speaker 3: Perhaps there have been a few that have been emotional
Speaker 3: for the people speaking. The ones that stand out in
Speaker 3: that category would be people speaking about and members of
Speaker 3: the public. They're also members of the public providing video
Speaker 3: testimonies about how they missed out on farewelling their loved ones,
Speaker 3: whether that for some of them that was really important
Speaker 3: culturally the way that usually plays out, and they were
Speaker 3: unable to do so. One woman spoke of losing her husband,
Speaker 3: who was suffering with dementia, but he, according to her,
Speaker 3: deteriorated quite quickly after the lockdowns, because she believed it
Speaker 3: was because she was unable to see him as often
Speaker 3: restricted in seeing him. One woman also spoke about losing
Speaker 3: her sister, what she says was due to COVID nineteen
Speaker 3: vaccine complications, so it's fair to say that the impact
Speaker 3: that all of these measures had on people was pretty drastic,
Speaker 3: and the people who were speaking at this inquiry really
Speaker 3: wanted to make that clear. There was another one that
Speaker 3: stood out to me with regards to some MARDI and
Speaker 3: Pacific community leaders speaking about the use of vaccine vouchers
Speaker 3: as an incentive to get people to get vaccinated. One
Speaker 3: person said this in future probably wouldn't be the best
Speaker 3: strategy just because it wasn't sustainable, and another woman spoke
Speaker 3: of having to speak to a member of the public
Speaker 3: who came through to get these vouchers to get vaccinated
Speaker 3: three times because he didn't have any food and he
Speaker 3: wanted to get those one hundred dollar food vouchers that
Speaker 3: were being given out. So that was an interesting point
Speaker 3: that kind of stood out to me. The other thing, though,
Speaker 3: that stood out to me, was that this hasn't all
Speaker 3: been negative. There has been praise of the vaccine mandates
Speaker 3: from people with disabilities who feel that they can now
Speaker 3: be a part of society and that they are safe
Speaker 3: and healthy. People who have compared our response to those
Speaker 3: overseas and the level of deaths at other countries experience.
Speaker 3: Other people have praised the government's quick action the lockdowns
Speaker 3: for stopping the spread for vulnerable communities. So it has been,
Speaker 3: from what I've observed, a fairly balanced experience and a
Speaker 3: fairly balanced take on what people went through.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Emily, no problem. For more on
Speaker 2: the ramifications of our continued focus on COVID nineteen, we're
Speaker 2: joined now by commentator Grant Duncan.
Speaker 1: Grant, how has social unity been since COVID?
Speaker 2: It felt like we were pretty united there for a while,
Speaker 2: but then it kind of took a wrong turn, didn't
Speaker 2: that what changed?
Speaker 7: Well? Look, can I be a little bit contrary for
Speaker 7: a moment with you and suggest that back in twenty
Speaker 7: twenty before the election, things weren't as united as we
Speaker 7: thought they were. Yeah. Sure, the government of the day
Speaker 7: had a lot of popular support and trust, particularly mid
Speaker 7: twenty twenty, but it wasn't universal and that was clear
Speaker 7: from a survey that I did, and that particularly on
Speaker 7: the right, there was quite a strong level of agreement
Speaker 7: with the idea that the economic costs of the public
Speaker 7: health measures outweighed the benefits of those measures, and so
Speaker 7: that would be a constituents of people, particularly in small
Speaker 7: business and things like this who were directly feeling the
Speaker 7: effect on their businesses, and so I don't entirely agree
Speaker 7: with the idea that New Zealand was a team of
Speaker 7: five million at that time. Yes, I agree, of course
Speaker 7: that the durn led government at that time was getting
Speaker 7: a really strong level of support and they got an
Speaker 7: amazing election result fifty percent. But what about the other
Speaker 7: fifty percent? They weren't so happy. It's just that you
Speaker 7: weren't hearing much from them at that.
Speaker 2: Time, and what's happening now We're hearing from them now. Hey,
Speaker 2: a lot of people unhappy with the lockdowns are getting
Speaker 2: to have their say at the Royal Commission at the moment.
Speaker 2: We also saw the other week a girl who was
Speaker 2: eleven at the time of the Parliament occupation. She winna
Speaker 2: go ahead, ensued sear Trevet Mallard overplaying baby shark and
Speaker 2: turning the sprinklers on on the protesters. Why does it
Speaker 2: feel like people who were most unhappy and are most
Speaker 2: unhappy still with the way that we went about things
Speaker 2: with COVID.
Speaker 1: Why can't they quite move on from it?
Speaker 7: Well, I'm not one of those people. I mean, I
Speaker 7: got vaccinated and so forth, But my job is a
Speaker 7: political scientist to try and understand other people's opinions, not
Speaker 7: to impose my own. And you know, I've spoken with
Speaker 7: a lot of people of that kind of opinion. You know,
Speaker 7: I've had an ear bashing or two about vaccines and
Speaker 7: so forth, and I've tried my best to understand the
Speaker 7: opinions of people who feel excluded. They don't just feel excluded,
Speaker 7: that actually were excluded. Remember, you know, some of them
Speaker 7: lost their jobs. They couldn't go into cafes and get
Speaker 7: normal service and things like that, and so suddenly it
Speaker 7: wasn't a team of five million anymore. There was a
Speaker 7: radical exclusion of a minority of people. But here's the
Speaker 7: other thing. I think we focused too much attention sometimes
Speaker 7: on that relatively small minority, because what was also going
Speaker 7: on under the surface, and we weren't hearing much about it,
Speaker 7: was that people just generally getting worn out and annoyed
Speaker 7: with many of the consequences of the low down. These
Speaker 7: were people who would have been quite moderate, quite compliant,
Speaker 7: probably got vaccinated, but when they saw the consequences of
Speaker 7: trying to book online on MiQ or you know, the
Speaker 7: consequences for people whom they knew or difficulties getting stuff done,
Speaker 7: traveling and so forth, or the isolation, the loneliness for
Speaker 7: a lot of people, it started to wear them down.
Speaker 7: And so I think we shouldn't put all of our attention,
Speaker 7: so to speak, when we're thinking about shift of political
Speaker 7: opinion and social cohesion here on a small minority represented
Speaker 7: by people who protested outside of parliament for a couple
Speaker 7: of weeks in February twenty twenty two, because that doesn't
Speaker 7: fully explain why Labor lost so badly in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 7: The reason, one of the reasons why they lost so
Speaker 7: badly in twenty twenty three was that they lost the
Speaker 7: confidence of quite a large swath of the population who
Speaker 7: weren't necessarily protesting outside of parliament and that kind of thing.
Speaker 7: They were probably even vaccinated, but they were just worn
Speaker 7: down by the effects, and quite reasonably so, because there
Speaker 7: were real impacts on people's businesses, their private lives, their
Speaker 7: family lives, and the government. I think that it was
Speaker 7: lacking the leadership at that time to reach out to
Speaker 7: those people and just say, hey, we understand the effect
Speaker 7: that this is having.
Speaker 2: Do you reckon if we had a COVID two point
Speaker 2: zero now and the government went about the same measures,
Speaker 2: even though it was successful, and we know that we
Speaker 2: were one of the better off countries in the world.
Speaker 2: Do you think there would be more people in the
Speaker 2: camp saying actually no, I.
Speaker 7: Thoroughly do think that exactly. And in other words, one
Speaker 7: thing that I think needs to come out of this
Speaker 7: COVID inquiry is recommendations about doing it differently next time,
Speaker 7: partly because there's now quite a significantly ingrained level of
Speaker 7: skepticism and a sense of oh no, not that again,
Speaker 7: thank you very much. And as I said, not just
Speaker 7: talking about people who were vaccine refuse nicks. I'm also
Speaker 7: talking about people who, to a large extent, we're willing
Speaker 7: to comply with the government's orders. So let's not just
Speaker 7: focus on the conspiracy theorists for a moment and think
Speaker 7: about the broad middle ground of New Zealand opinion. I
Speaker 7: think that they've been through this experience. They know the
Speaker 7: drill now, and they know people are pretty savvy. They
Speaker 7: know what works and what doesn't work. They know what
Speaker 7: kinds of risks they're prepared to take if once they
Speaker 7: understand the nature of a pandemic. And I personally think
Speaker 7: that if we had a COVID two point zero. The
Speaker 7: government of the day would need to take quite a
Speaker 7: different approach, put much more responsibility on individuals and non firms,
Speaker 7: employers and people like that to take more responsibility for
Speaker 7: how they protect themselves and the people around them.
Speaker 8: There might have been some differences around who was required
Speaker 8: to get them versus who, you know, just needs to
Speaker 8: stay home a bit longer and waited out for people
Speaker 8: like me are able to get them. I think overall, though,
Speaker 8: they did the best they could with information they have,
Speaker 8: and if we keep the base of that game and
Speaker 8: just alter it depending on, you know, whatever a new
Speaker 8: disease comes over where, I think we'll keep saving lives
Speaker 8: and we'll keep having a productive workforce because of it.
Speaker 2: We are seeing, though, especially during this inquiry, that the
Speaker 2: conspiracy theorists or the people that are most displeased with
Speaker 2: how we went about things do tend to be the loudest, right,
Speaker 2: So we had a point now that we're just letting
Speaker 2: everyone air their thoughts in a public forum, and I
Speaker 2: guess hope everyone moves on.
Speaker 7: Well, it is a democracy, and the people who are
Speaker 7: so disgruntled are our fellow citizens, and I don't think
Speaker 7: we should refuse to listen to them. I think they
Speaker 7: should be given a hearing, because sweeping things under the
Speaker 7: carpet in a democracy, the ever works just boilers up
Speaker 7: later on. So it may be a little bit painful
Speaker 7: for some people to have to listen to some of
Speaker 7: those complaints. But unfortunately, I think we should hear them out,
Speaker 7: and a sensible commission of inquiry, will you know, explain
Speaker 7: that you know, these are the views of certain people.
Speaker 7: They may be minority views, there may be reasons why,
Speaker 7: perhaps some of those views are incorrect, why they don't
Speaker 7: stack up against scientific evidence, et cetera. But that's the
Speaker 7: purpose of a commission of inquiries, to sort the wheek
Speaker 7: from the chaff like that. But it would be worse
Speaker 7: in the long run if those people kept saying, look,
Speaker 7: no one's listening to us.
Speaker 2: I guess overall, we are also quite divided politically. We
Speaker 2: have a pretty established left and right political blocks at
Speaker 2: the moment, with a close fifty to fifty divide. Is
Speaker 2: that concerning that we don't have much of a center?
Speaker 7: Now? I don't agree. I mean, I think that's just normal.
Speaker 7: It's perhaps been a little bit exacerbated, obviously exacerbated by
Speaker 7: COVID and also by the Treaty principles. Build debate, for instance,
Speaker 7: has tended to damage social cohesion to some extent. But
Speaker 7: you know, we have these upsets every now and then.
Speaker 7: The Springbok tour was perhaps the most extreme example in
Speaker 7: living memory. So you know, we do, we move on,
Speaker 7: We forgive, and we forget. Maybe don't forget, but we
Speaker 7: just forgive one another a little bit, and we do
Speaker 7: come back together. But the nature of a democracy is
Speaker 7: of course that there will be a division more or
Speaker 7: less down the middle between say, you know, forragments sacer
Speaker 7: left and the right. That's perfectly normal. One of the
Speaker 7: problems that we have now is not just in New
Speaker 7: Zealand but elsewhere, is that polarization is rather more intense,
Speaker 7: and it is exacerbated by a whole range of issues.
Speaker 7: You know, even for instance, the attacks on the Gaza
Speaker 7: Strip for example, are really roiling up a lot of
Speaker 7: those kinds of divisions. So these things happen. The question
Speaker 7: really is not can we bring in everyone together and
Speaker 7: make them agree? The question is how do we reach
Speaker 7: across our disagreements, and how do governments handle all those
Speaker 7: kinds of conflicts, and how do we well, we start
Speaker 7: by listening to people. It is a democracy and so
Speaker 7: the first place, the first thing to do is to
Speaker 7: listen to what people have to say. If we have
Speaker 7: to disagree with them, we disagree, but we ought to
Speaker 7: do it respectfully. And I think that's where Kitkens and
Speaker 7: Adoern got it wrong in February twenty twenty two. They
Speaker 7: refuse to listen and disagree respectfully and explain to the
Speaker 7: people out there outside Parliament why their demands could not
Speaker 7: be met. And that was a complete failure of political
Speaker 7: leadership on their part and they paid the price for that.
Speaker 7: This is the thing. But they're still, i think, refusing
Speaker 7: to admit that they got it wrong and they paid
Speaker 7: a price for it. Maybe deep inside they do, but
Speaker 7: publicly they won't admit it. So these are the sorts
Speaker 7: of things that I think need to be done. And
Speaker 7: so New Zealand has been through these polarising moments every
Speaker 7: now and then. We get over them, we move through them.
Speaker 7: Sometimes we sweep the issues under the carpet and they
Speaker 7: just arise again. With the Treaty Principal's issue, it'll be back,
Speaker 7: I can assure you. But with COVID, for instance, yes,
Speaker 7: the difficulty. There is of the obvious risk that the
Speaker 7: in our lifetime there may very well be another such event,
Speaker 7: and we need to be better prepared. New Zealand was
Speaker 7: simply not well prepared in a public health sense, or
Speaker 7: in terms of law, or any of those responses. Back
Speaker 7: in twenty twenty two, the government fumbled around for about
Speaker 7: three months before anything serious was done. This whole idea
Speaker 7: that we went and hard and went in fast is
Speaker 7: absolute nonsense. The New Zealand government fumbled around was about
Speaker 7: three months of fumbling around doing stuff, all before effective
Speaker 7: pandemic measures were taken to close the border for instance,
Speaker 7: way behind the ball compared to Taiwan. So we need
Speaker 7: to be much better prepared like Taiwan was in twenty
Speaker 7: twenty for the next one that comes along. But also,
Speaker 7: and this is the point of this Royal Commission, we
Speaker 7: need to make sure that people's disagreements have been aired
Speaker 7: and heard and responded to so that when the next
Speaker 7: one comes around, governments are better prepared in terms of
Speaker 7: the kinds of messages that they give about why we're
Speaker 7: doing what we're doing and why we need to do
Speaker 7: it this way. Given that you know, as we learned
Speaker 7: from the last pandemic. There's no nice way through it.
Speaker 7: There's no kind way of getting through a pandemic.
Speaker 2: And just lastly, grant, if we were to look at
Speaker 2: social unity in New Zealand today, say on a sliding
Speaker 2: scale between one and I don't know ten, being a
Speaker 2: utopian society, I suppose where do you reckon we are
Speaker 2: at the moment?
Speaker 7: Ye, that's a good question. I mean, I guess I'd
Speaker 7: put us at about a five. I mean, I think,
Speaker 7: But on the other hand, five is probably normal, you know.
Speaker 7: I mean, we've seen you know, when I think about
Speaker 7: the divisions that happened in like Naty Wonderings, Bring Book Tour,
Speaker 7: or when a lot of controversy erupted around Don Brash's
Speaker 7: notorious Audiois speech in two thousand and four, these things
Speaker 7: happen every now and then. What happens is that a quiet,
Speaker 7: underlying division has brought out onto the suit by some
Speaker 7: kind of event that divides public opinion, and it becomes
Speaker 7: a politically crucial yes or no kind of question for
Speaker 7: or against question, and it polarizes public opinion. But what
Speaker 7: you're seeing there really is the surfacing of what's what's
Speaker 7: previously been under the surface, and part of the thing
Speaker 7: of being a democracy is that people are permitted to
Speaker 7: argue and express their differences of opinion. And so I
Speaker 7: don't think we should be aiming for a ten honestly well,
Speaker 7: because as you say, that's a kind of utopian dream
Speaker 7: and we'll never get to ten perfect social cohesion. So
Speaker 7: the question really for a society like ours is how
Speaker 7: do we manage our differences when they do come up,
Speaker 7: and how do we act democratically to hear one another
Speaker 7: out and to act respectfully across the political divide.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Grant.
Speaker 7: Thank you.
Speaker 2: That said for this episode of The Front Page. You
Speaker 2: can read more about to stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 2: at enzdherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
Speaker 2: produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also
Speaker 2: a sound engineer.
Speaker 1: I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Speaker 2: Subscribe to The Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you
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