The incoming Government has promised an inquiry "as a matter of urgency" into the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic that will focus on vaccine procurement and efficacy as well as the use of multiple lockdowns.
Despite there already being a Royal Commission of Inquiry into New Zealand's COVID-19 response in the works, announced by then-Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in December, the now-outgoing Government decided not to include decisions by clinicians and vaccine efficacy in its probe.
"We want to broaden the terms of the COVID inquiry so that it considers more things," incoming Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told reporters on Friday in announcing his coalition deal with ACT and NZ First. "It's going to include a range of topics including social but also economic impacts as well."
NZ First leader and incoming deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters had campaigned on holding a more wide-ranging probe into the pandemic.
National's coalition agreement with NZ First reads: "Ensure, as a matter of urgency in establishment and completion, a full scale, wide ranging, independent inquiry conducted publicly with local and international experts, into how the COVID pandemic was handled in New Zealand, including covering: Use of multiple lockdowns, vaccine procurement and efficacy, the social and economic impacts on both regional and national levels, and whether the decisions made, and steps taken, were justified."
New Zealand's initial handling of the COVID-19 pandemic - being quick to impose lockdowns and pursuing an elimination strategy - was heralded around the world. However, the now-outgoing Government was later criticised for its handling of the chaotic anti-vaccine mandate protests at Parliament early last year as well as being slower to reopen New Zealand's borders than many other countries.
During the election campaign, Peters said New Zealanders deserved an inquiry not "restricted and narrow in its scope".
ACT leader David Seymour, Luxon and Peters' coalition partner, had also questioned the outgoing Government's COVID-19 inquiry and called for public submissions to allow New Zealanders to have their say about what was being investigated.
"One of the key problems of our COVID-19 response was a failure to take an overall wellbeing response - weighing up all the costs and benefits of major decisions. But investigating how the Government's response affected education, business and mental health has been ruled out," ACT said in September.
At the time of announcing the initial inquiry, Ardern noted New Zealand experienced fewer cases, hospitalisations and deaths than nearly any other country in the first two years of the pandemic but there has undoubtedly been a huge impact on New Zealanders both here and abroad".
New Zealand's official COVID-19 death toll is 5066, according to health figures.
