RCI Phase 1 – Excuses, Loss of Trust & Doing It Better
Our analysis: The New Zealand government covid response had nothing to do with keeping its citizens safe from a “deadly virus”. Phase 1 of the Royal Commission of inquiry (RCI) into covid has ended with the main report released. The terms set out by the previous government were such that the commission in effect provide excuses – “evolving evidence” and “perceived uncertainty” – for the terrible injustices and human rights abuses thrust upon our nation, along with a congratulatory, “little ole NZ did ok”.
While it was not in the Terms of Reference to examine vaccine safety and efficacy, the Commission was unable to ignore this aspect of the covid response fully, in particular in relation to mandates. As we prepare for the more important Phase 2, we are not dissecting this report in depth. However, certain points cannot be left unchallenged, no can unanswered questions around justification of the response be ignored.
Our Conclusion to the RCI Phase 1 Report
The refusal of the last (and current) parliament to consider sufficiently the risks of the covid measures implied a predetermined course of action to vaccinate the entire population, rather than to manage a Coronavirus pandemic in the best interests of its citizens. The lockdowns, the arbitrary determination of “essential” workers, the social distancing, the mask mandates and the censoring of discussion without taking in to account the negative impacts on our society and its economy, all point to a single goal: mass vaccination. This was, indeed, confirmed by the then Director General of Health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield, not just to vaccinate everyone, but to do it come what may, and despite clear and mounting proof of desperate dangers.
Lessons Learnt by the Commission of Inquiry
Below are the six lessons ostensibly learnt after two years of inquiry. The Commission’s lessons ore followed by our commentary.
1. Look after all aspects of people’s lives
NZDSOS would like to see true health as a priority, empowering individuals by teaching the power of nature, sun, community, clean water, good food and avoidance of toxins – including most pharmaceuticals, environmental chemicals and non-native electro-magnetic frequencies. This approach aligns with the Commission’s “overarching” lesson that “successfully managing a pandemic requries a response that looks after all aspects of people’s lives” and “minimises both immediate and long-term harms.” It would also go a long way to strengthen NZ’s public health capacity and increase the resilience of the healthcare system.
2. Make Good Decisions
May we suggest the most important lesson here is to listen, even to seek out contradictory views. Large corporations funding international “health” bodies should be banned and at no time should any multi-national body have sovereignty over New Zealand’s decisions. The recommendation of an “all of government response plan” is likely to fail, unless all voices are listened too, something that the report itself suggests, including to disquieting voices.
It is interesting to note that while emphasising Maori and community groups, the report quietly avoids mentioning dissenting academics and medical professionals.
3. Build Resilience in the Health System
The evidence for the use of public health measures such border closures, contract tracing, masking and quarantining of healthy people should be looked at in much greater detail and debated before being accepted as a recommendation of RCI 1. Rather, we refer to our points in lesson 1.
4. Build Resilience in economic and social systems
5. Work Together
NZDSOS finds it interesting that Maori, communities and the business sector are picked out as needing to work together. The commission seems to have completely overlooked, or more likely ignored, the people on the ground. The doctors who, despite great cost to themselves, saved lives.
The commission does not acknowledge or mention the censorship and professional investigation of many of these doctors, the main topic of our presentation to them.
The commission itself has continued the censorship while maintaining that they have considered all submissions.
6. Build the foundations
The Commission’s recommendations imply harder, better, faster next time suggesting that the measures “undoubtedly saved lives and reduced the burden on the health system” while also admitting the health system was not overwhelmed.
These ideas would appear to be the very definition of insanity – keep doing the same thing, expecting a different outcome. We refer to our above comments as a way to build foundations.
Our General Comments on RCI Phase 1
Lack of Public Hearings and Transparency
The report highlights that no public hearings were held during the Phase One inquiry, with engagements conducted privately. Confidentiality was assured to participants, with notes and recordings kept private, until the inquiry concluded and perhaps forever more.
The lack of public hearings has diminished confidence and trust in the report and favours those who agreed with the government’s handling of covid. Those who did suffer, stood up and many spoke out at the time and would be happy to stand in public to counter the government’s narrative again. It would seem that the lack of hearing in public was a way of shielding the government and authorities, particularly Jacinda Ardern, Chris Hipkins and Ashley Bloomfield who, as yet, have not been confronted formally for their decisions.
NZDSOS was not asked whether our presentations or evidence could be made public. We would have been happy for this to be public. We have posted much of what we presented on our website. Indeed we have been trying to get legacy media to engage for the last four years.
Acknowledgement of Limited Accountability
The report states explicitly that its aim is not to “assign blame, but to extract lessons for the future”. Rather than conducting a forensic analysis of past decisions, the Inquiry focused on identifying themes and shaping forward-looking lessons. Many aspects of decision-making, such as clinical decisions or certain judicial actions, were excluded from the Inquiry’s scope, limiting scrutiny of specific areas.
This has allowed for a whitewash of the decisions taken – no blame, no responsibility.
It is significant that clinical and judicial decisions were excluded and it is certainly not good enough when investigating New Zealand’s covid response. It appears that the Inquiry was set up to exonerate the keepers of public health and safety, including Medsafe, the then Minister for Coivd, Chris Hipkins, the Director General of Health, CARM and the Medical Council of New Zealand. Surely conclusions, however soft, cannot be drawn if clinical and legal decisions were not investigated.
The report notes that decision-making relied heavily on health expertise, which a senior Minister noted left them ill-equipped to consider wider, non-health-related impacts. This lack of broader advice potentially sidelined the devasting medical effects, as well as the economic, social, and cultural facets of the pandemic response.
No comment is made on why the decision makers relied on academic health expertise alone, except to state that there was “a common perception that health officials were reluctant to accept outside advice or input, or to share responsibility with other agencies.” This is an example of significantly poor leadership. Many groups and individuals presented or attempted to present the health authorities with evidence of alternate ways of managing covid and the harms of the direction taken. However, these people were ignored at best, and lost their livelihoods and faced criminal prosecution (e.g. protestors) at worst. There is no excuse for the sidelining of advice that may have been uncomfortable to look at. This should be part of the job of health authorities, when they are keeping the public “safe”.
Initial success but went on for too long?
While NZ can claim initial low numbers of cases, hospitalisations and deaths with covid, whatever that is, were the consequences of border closures and MIQ justifiable? The report uses the perceived “high levels of uncertainty” as a reason for many of the pandemic measures. Could this uncertainty have been clarified if officials had looked further than the now obviously fake images from China and Italy?
Even in times of uncertainty, offensive travesties such as loved ones dying alone, women giving birth alone, elderly cut off from contact with their families left confused and afraid, individuals too terrified to leave their houses are not justified. Were delays in seeking medical care for serious diseases justified? Was the decrease in immunity due to fear, masks and isolation justified. Did keeping children from education and socialisation actually stop people dying? Was the transfer of wealth from poor to rich justified in the vain attempt keep covid out of New Zealand? Of course not, except for a now wealthier few.
In the end, the elimination strategy was always going to be futile and Sars-Cov-2 spread throughout the country, as any virologist or public health professional worth their title should have predicted.
Suggesting that New Zealand was successful in that it initially limited the spread of covid-19 is a nonsense argument as all we did was delay the inevitable.
Vaccines & Vaccine Mandates
Admission is made that vaccine mandates were applied too broadly and remained in place longer than necessary, causing harm to individuals, contributing to social divisions and leading to distrust in public health systems. Note was made that some submitters stated that vaccine mandates infringed on personal freedoms and coerced individuals, worsening societal fractures and resulting in long-term mistrust. However possible infringements on the NZ Bill of Rights Act (BORA) were explained away given that government actions can be subject to judicial review and that Cabinet would have taken the BORA into consideration when legislating the Covid-19 Public Health Response Act.
Mandates were apparently justifiable for frontline healthcare workers, border workers and in prisons because they were high-risk environments where a spread of the virus could have awful consequences.
It is confusing that the commissioners can state that the vaccine mandates were applied too broadly and were justified in certain circumstances, when they were not charged with looking at the safety and efficacy of the vaccinations. Vaccine efficacy was only 0.84% (not the megaphoned 95% deception) according to the Pfizer clinical trial, and the government expected 1.1% of vaccinees to experience a severe or serious adverse event. These two data points alone mean there was no justification for any mandate and the government jab should never have been granted provisional consent.
Given that vaccination did not work at either preventing the disease or transmission, the statement that “vaccination remained fundamental to the effectiveness of Aotearoa New Zealand’s pandemic response” calls into question, the whole report. The justification for this is a modelling study and not real world data.
The report also stated that it was “important that the Pfizer vaccine undergo independent assessment by …Medsafe“. It is implied that this happened in the regulartory process, while NZDSOS has previously exposed that Medsafe did not undertake any independent testing and the outcome of the initial risk-benefit assessment was ‘not clear’ requiring referral to the anonymous MAAC.
Critics noted that communication about vaccine risks was insufficient, failing to ensure informed consent or manage public perception and that the “evolving nature” of vaccine safety evidence created an impression that information was being withheld, which contributed to vaccine hesitancy.
We purport that it was not the evolving nature of vaccine safety evidence that created an impression that information was being withheld, it was the gaslighting, censoring, prizes, bribes, mandates and inability to answer basic questions when challenged. Most importantly, rather than engaging with doctors and scientists (outside of the hopelessly conflicted chosen few) who actually did know about the safety evidence, the Ardern government persisted with their “one source of truth” approach. This led to a loss of trust and to vaccine hesitancy – and rightly so as more and more damning evidence comes to light, on top of what was already known at the time of the mandates.
NZDSOS will be presenting on these aspects of the injections in phase 2.
Public Trust, societal cohesion & the Silencing of dissent
The report states that the pandemic significantly eroded public trust in government, particularly among some communities such as Māori and Pacific peoples. The “team of five million” and “be kind” messaging, intended to foster unity, were criticised as hypocritical during divisive measures like mandates and vaccine passes.
The inquiry report states that “poor planning” resulting in inconsistent application of restrictions, led to public unrest such as the 2022 parliamentary protests. The refusal to listen to the people, which appeared deliberate rather than poorly planned, was one reason among many that led to the protests.
The silencing of dissenting voices set a concerning precedent for stifling scientific and public debate. At no time were ethicists consulted or discussion allowed. This is a grave error of leadership and a display of hubris that has resulted in ongoing mandates by employers and continued suffering, even as we approach 2025.
The only way to protect citizens is to allow the free flow of ideas and argument. When scientific and public debate is stifled, everyone is worse off.
It is unlikely that New Zealand society will recover within our generation. In any future emergency, social cohesion and improving trust will need to be prioritised. This can be done by obeying human rights law absolutes, and listening to all sides of an argument rather than censoring those with different views – an action that only serves to foster division.
To restore trust, those harmed must be made visible and compensated; those responsible must be made to answer to the people and acknowledge the harm they have caused. Tax payers should not be called on to foot the bill for compensation, rather elected officials, charitable trusts and the for-profit corporates who were involved in the covid response should be required to contribute personally to ease the suffering they have caused.
Trust in government and its institutions in and of itself is not a valid goal. The purpose of government is not self-replication (pun intended) but to serve the people honestly and with integrity. It is only then that its institutions can start to regain the trust they have lost
Vaccination at all costs
The report narrowly focuses on vaccines as the central pandemic tool while downplaying other strategies like non-pharmaceutical interventions, repurposed drugs and improving the health of the population.
It seems that whether vaccination harmed or indeed even “worked” was irrelevant to those at the top. The only message was vaccinate at all costs. Of course, RCI Phase 1 does not question this. Given the lack of response from current and past politicians, we can only guess at the motivation for the ‘vaccination at all costs’ strategy that was let loose on our country.
Health is not delivered at the end of needle, especially one that maims and kills.
A Whitewash & Worse
With Bird Flu now apparently having made its highly anticipated way to New Zealand, we are gravely concerned by the recommendations of the Inquiry to build a foundation for future pandemics, including the use of lockdowns, quarantines, isolation, and monitoring. The recommendations also suggest improving international alliances and identifying circumstances where vaccination requirements would be recommended.
This report has been described by mainstream media as a whitewash. For once we can agree with them. This report was designed so that no-one would be held responsible for the horrific mistakes, whether intentional or not. Certainly Jacinda Ardern, Chris Hipkins and Ashley Bloomfield were provided with information to make different decisions. They chose to ignore them and they are choosing not to take responsibility. This is a massive devolution of leadership.
The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Covid-19 Phase 1 report provides excuses for those in authority at the time and highlights the loss of trust in the government. “Doing it better next time” will not improve trust in authorities, only harden attitudes further and set up confrontation.
Listening to a wide range of positions, the health care professionals on the ground and its citizens may start the process of restoring trust. However, those responsible must be held to account for trust really to be restored.
Breaking
Just as we publish this, the US Government releases its own Pandemic Congressional Report after a 2 year inquiry. It pulls far fewer punches than Professor Blakely’s inquiry. Apart from a raised eyebrow about Operation Warp Speed’s alleged benefits, it seems a more comprehensive and honest document, and reads as an attempt to heal, bring accountability and puts some individuals on notice of criminal charges. It promises less of the same, not more, unlike the main topic of this post, NZ’s RCI Phase 1.
NZ DSOS – thank you for your excellent analysis! Here is what I wrote several days ago and have just updated it to include a reference to your report:
https://www.garymoller.com/post/covid-inquiry-report-are-we-doomed-to-repeat-a-70-billion-blunder
Again, thank you!
100% agree with your article.
Congrats 2 u all & the work u continue 2 do.
“At no time were ethicists consulted or discussion allowed. This is a grave error of leadership and a display of hubris that has resulted in ongoing mandates by employers and continued suffering, even as we approach 2025”
“The only way to protect citizens is to allow the free flow of ideas and argument. When scientific and public debate is stifled, everyone is worse off”
These two quotes from your excellent analysis go to the core of what went on. One is left asking, WHY? When you consider that most of the rest of the world took the same approach you are on your way to realising that it was planned.
Good article, though I don’t agree with the statement “It is unlikely that New Zealand society will recover within our generation”.
Rather than being adults, people still flock to their doctors who they still have on pedestals, still trust the ‘science’, and continue to take symptom suppressants in the mistaken belief that their symptoms are their disease, supported by their doctors of course.
When people understand that:
Virology is a psuedo-science in that Koch’s postulates are never fulfilled, and proper controls are not used when verifying the existence of a ‘virus’. Also ‘viruses’ have never been proven to exist because the ‘virus’ has never being isolated from everything else in the growth medium in the petrie dish.
Contagion has never been scientifically proven, read Daniel Roytas: Can You Catch a Cold, with over 200 studies that failed to prove that sick people make well people sick, including the famous Dr. Rosenau experiments with the deadly Spanish Flu in 1918.
Only then can people let go of their fear and stand up for their freedoms from those who would control us.
WE WILL BE SUBJECTED TO THIS TYPE OF MISSINFORMATION FROM ANY TYPE OF GOVT PAID PUPPET BOARD AS LONG AS THEY ARE BEING PAID WITH OUR TAX MONEY.
LUXON IS LOSING VAVOUR AS FAR AS BEING THE PREFERED PM AS PEOPLE ARE AWAKENING TO THE AUTROCITIES THAT ARE BEING IMPLEMENTED UPON US VIA THE GLOBALIST AGENDA.
WHEN OUR GOVT IS NOT DOING THE WILL OF IT’S CITIZENS AND BOWING DOWN TO THE WEF, WHO, UN IT’S TIME TO FORCE AN ELECTION VIA A VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE.
or simply defund them ?,if they are obviously no longer fit for purpose and plainly have signed on to mr Glowballs population reduction plan, we need to start again . This is why the US founders spelled it out ,’ it is the right and duty of the people , to remove those guards ,and install new ones that serve them more properly’ [ from memory which does leak a bit ,but basically if your public servants have become your slave masters kick them out ,and start again ,there is no God given law saying you must be slaves , rather the opposite . This is actually the main reason behind the 2nd Amendment ,that hopefully just the fact the people are armed and dangerous, would keep the servants with a Cesar complex under control, when they say they will be your ‘one sauce of truth ‘ ,I think the tipping point is past ,and proven .
We need to include the scam of Labour government giving clinics $120 per PCR/RAT test, and $35-45 per vaccine dose administered, while they were sending people home and not treating them during 2021-2022. This only came to light after an OIA request.
The healthcare, border, prison mandate justification is a joke too, it’s proven in mainstream studies and government reports from Denmark, Sweden, UK, Scotland, Canada, NZ, Australia, Cleveland that the vaccine INCREASED the spread with a NEGATIVE efficacy of from -20 to -400%, in UK/Scotland showing WORSE outcomes for post-covid hospitalization, death and eventually all-cause deaths for each age groups per 100,000 people, until they changed the baseline and stopped releasing the reports.
For an educated commission they have their heads up their bum.
It is a simple truth that no government inquiry (into it’s own malfeasance) will ever find truth, apportion blame, focus on corrupt politicians, acknowledge their real agenda and who is setting it. (I first understood this when I discovered that there were 10 such inquiries into how much the US Government allowed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; each inquiry was rejected as yet another whitewash until the amount of paperwork created would require several lifetimes to read and history becomes mired in myth and mystery. The same tactic likewise applies to the JFK assassination, USS Liberty, 9/11 etc.). The stark exception to this pattern was Judge Peter Mahon’s “Erebus” Inquiry whose memorable phrase “an orchestrated litany of lies” is a rare moment of truth. Speaking such truth to power ultimately cost him his health and social standing within the Establishment.
Until you can find a judge of the courage, stature and intelligence as Peter Mahon, then the whole model of Commissions of Inquiry is designed to keep corrupt politicians free from blame.
As Otto von Bismarck said: “The only lesson we learn from History, is that no-one learns from History”.
It is well known that Ardern, like Macron, Trudeau, etc etc etc was a WEF puppet. Her pandemic response was simply following the orders of her WEF masters. The whole thing was planned at event 201. There was no actual pandemic, there was no actual virus, it was all propaganda backed up by a totally fraudulent PCR test. The so called vaccine was simply a genocide tool which has safely and effectively caused excess deaths world wide. The villains who have perpetrated this crime have got away with murder for the last few centuries and until we see Christ reign again as king of nations and societies we will not see an inquiry admitting the real truth and the elites brought to justice.
Likewise the bird flu virus is fake. Like humans, birds get sick sometimes. But a cull of 80000 birds is not caused be a virus, it is caused by fake science being used to justify making it harder for the poor to get the basics in life. Let’s put the price of eggs and chickens up.
In my opinion, the government and all authorites that went along with the fake pandemic need to own up to the fact that there was no virus, deadly or not and to be held accountable as should all businesses that made obscene amounts of money out of it – not to mention the businesses that took the no jab no job route
no surprises at all on the report…the same parties and people( apart from a few newbies) were in that bullhive and not ONE had the guts to talk to the people protesting in wellington, we have never ever had a government of and for the people of new zealand…now it’s all racism on both sides and division of our once beautiful country…now it’s like the rest of the false world…LOST i feel…
don’t lose hope , there are only a few rat bags ,and many more good people [ or goodish and that should do ],check out the actual 1835 NZ Maori govt . Plus we now have an internationally recognized court of Equity ,a world first ,in Hamilton ,if the NZ police corporation do their job fulfill their contract, and their oaths and provide ‘policing services’ to this highest court ,we have a path forward ,peaceful and lawful .