Labour's Michael Wood says now is not the appropriate time for an inquiry into the economic response to COVID-19 as the pandemic continues to rage on.
A review is backed by National, ACT, the Greens and other commentators - including a former Reserve Bank chairman - who believe it's important to understand if mistakes were made and what could be done to avoid them during any future economic crisis.
"Obviously, we've seen massive house price inflation, but on top of that, the deepening of inequality," Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick said. "The New Zealand public deserves transparency of understanding about what's happened in this once in a generation, completely unprecedented pandemic because we're still feeling the effects of it right now."
Such an inquiry could look at the level of Government spending over the past two years, the implications of the Reserve Bank keeping interest rates low for the length of time it did, and how the bank's dual mandate to keep inflation and unemployment down influenced decisions.
Wood told AM on Friday morning that "hindsight's very easy".
"We've said that at the appropriate time, we are open to the idea of some sort of an inquiry that looks at the COVID response," the minister said.
He denied the Government isn't launching an inquiry now because it's concerned it could report back before next year's election.
"No, this is quite an important difference, actually. There is sort of this world which the National Party and some others inhabit, who say, COVID's over. It's not. We're dealing with a significant winter peak with about as many people getting COVID in a given week at the moment [as] at any stage over the last two years with pressure across our system."
The primary purpose of the inquiries suggested by various parties would be to look at the economic response to COVID-19, not the health response. While there are some financial supports still available to the public - such as the COVID-19 Leave Support Scheme - other major initiatives, like the wage subsidy, have finished.
Finance Minister Grant Robertson said this week there have been "numerous opportunities" over the course of the pandemic for the Government and officials to be quizzed about the economic response. He said there would eventually be a time when an "overall lookback" was appropriate.
Wood told AM members of Parliament's Finance and Expenditure Select Committee meet every three months with the Reserve Bank. However, a wider inquiry by the Select Committee, as Swarbrick initially proposed, has been repeatedly blocked by the Labour majority.
Appearing alongside Wood on Friday, National's Erica Stanford said an independent inquiry was necessary.
"Someone who can come in and take a really good broad look at what the Reserve Bank did and what the Government did," she said.
"You've got Kiwis this year, 60 percent of them coming off their fixed rates, and are having to face what is huge interest rates now. We are paying a massive price and we've got inflation going through the roof, that robber in your back pocket. It is hurting Kiwis. Kiwis are suffering."
"We need to take a look so we can learn from our mistakes. This whole COVID excuse, that we've still got COVID, it just doesn't fly."
Speaking to Newshub on Thursday, former Reserve Bank chairman Arthur Grimes said the response was overcooked.
"While they started out with the right intentions and probably the right policies they didn't think far enough ahead as to what their actions would do to inflation," he said.
"The Reserve Bank kept on accelerating right until the red light came up saying, whoops inflation's a huge problem now, it's too late to respond… Once you see the white of the eyes of inflation it's too late."
Most countries are facing sky-high levels of inflation currently, with supply chain issues and the war in Ukraine being significant contributors. But Treasury has said domestic demand is also partly to blame.
An OECD analysis of house price growth between quarter four of 2019 - just before the pandemic - and quarter three of 2021 shows New Zealand saw significant growth. House prices here increased 30 percent, compared to 8.3 percent in the UK, 20.2 percent in the US and 20.8 percent in Australia.
