Summarised by Centrist
Former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has refused to front the Royal Commission’s public hearings into the COVID response.
While Ardern has submitted evidence in private, she declined to appear in public alongside former ministers Chris Hipkins, Grant Robertson, and Ayesha Verrall, who also all declined, prompting the inquiry to cancel the planned week-long public session altogether.
Judith Collins called the refusal “gutless and hypocritical,” asking, “1pm podium of truth, where the hell are they now?”
Despite having the power to compel testimony, inquiry chair Grant Illingworth KC chose not to issue summonses. His explanation was that the former ministers had already provided information behind closed doors.
ACT leader David Seymour called the refusal a clear case of “running from accountability.”
Hipkins criticised the inquiry’s scope for excluding Labour’s term with NZ First, calling it a platform for “conspiracy theorist views.”
But critics weren’t buying it. National MP Chris Bishop said the no-show was “perhaps unsurprising,” claiming the former ministers were “ashamed of their record” and had left the economy saddled with debt and inflation.
Winston Peters said Labour’s refusal to front was a textbook example of abusing public trust. “The ‘Podium of Truth’ has become the ‘Podium of Evasion.’ If ever there was a definition for ‘a different kind of abuse of power,’ this is it.”
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Read more at The NZ Herald and RNZ
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