The Unfolding New Zealand Covid Inquiry
John Bowie, LawFuel publisher
New Zealand’s Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons Learned is racing toward its February 2026 deadline with all the grace of a three-legged horse. Chair Grant Illingworth KC insists everything is “perfectly natural” as senior staff exit stage left with increasing regularity.
The rest of us are entitled to wonder whether this inquiry will deliver the accountability New Zealanders deserve, or simply a very expensive exercise in looking busy.
The Vanishing Act
The turnover at the top reads like a particularly ruthless season of The Apprentice. Executive director Helen Potiki lasted five months before departing in February 2025, along with assisting counsel Kristy McDonald KC and Nick Whittington. Her replacement, Andrew Sweet, made it to November before announcing his own exit—citing, naturally, a “very good job” elsewhere. Commissioner Hekia Parata bowed out in 2023, while Phase One commissioners Tony Blakely and John Whitehead departed in 2024.
When your second executive director in a year decides life is better elsewhere just months before the finish line, it rather strains the “people leave for better opportunities” narrative. Illingworth maintains nobody has left dissatisfied, but the optics suggest an organisation either deeply unlucky with its recruitment or facing pressures the public isn’t hearing about.
Compare this to the UK’s Covid Inquiry, which has been granted extensions, additional funding, and the political space to compel witnesses, including former Prime Ministers, to testify publicly. New Zealand’s version has 18 months to complete Phase Two, no appetite for extensions, and ministers who won’t show up.
Ministers Who Talk in Private But Not in Public
The credibility crisis deepened in August when former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, along with Chris Hipkins, Grant Robertson, and Ayesha Verrall, declined to appear at public hearings.
They’d already given private interviews and argued that livestreamed testimony would be “performative rather than informative”. Robertson and others in the political quartet, represented by Dentons as far as we are aware, are also being advised by Chris Finlayson KC who we understand does not share a lot of love with current Attorney General Judith Collins, who along with David Seymour described as “gutless” the decision by the four not to appear.
Illingworth stated that public hearings with former ministers were critical to enhancing public confidence. Yet after considering summonses, he backed down, deeming compulsion too “adversarial” for an inquiry whose terms of reference explicitly discourage confrontation.
The result? New Zealanders who spent months locked in their homes won’t see the architects of those policies questioned on camera. The politicians avoid an uncomfortable afternoon. And the Commission must sell a report built on private chats to a deeply skeptical public.
Ministerial Tensions
Behind the scenes, the relationship between Illingworth and Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden started poorly. Documents obtained by Newsroom reveal that after the first quarterly report in January 2025, officials briefed van Velden that key requirements on planning, risk, and finances had “not been fully addressed.” The talking points were blunt, prescribingh no extra funding, no extensions, and if reporting didn’t improve, the minister should warn of “other solutions.”
Illingworth adjusted the reporting framework, and van Velden now expresses confidence. But the document exposes how politically fraught this exercise has become. Phase Two was essentially bolted on as a coalition deal to relitigate vaccine mandates and economic damage.
The Illingworth Factor
A barrister since 1974 with significant public law expertise, Grant Illingwoth handled witnesses with forensic discipline rather than theatrical grandstanding. His independence appears genuine; if anything, his push for public minister hearings suggests he understands the stakes.
But good intentions need to meet structural reality and any KC accepting this role under these terms, with this timeline, and these political expectations was likely being as being set up to fail publicly while succeeding, at best, technically.
When the final report lands near an election cycle, without the public confrontation many expected and with a trail of resignations in its wake, it will doubtless be read with appropriate skepticism. The inquiry appears half political theatre and half public affairs audit, but with staffers who walk out half way though, like a bad movie that has a predicable ending.
