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ROBERT KITCHEN / Things
Chris Hipkins has not released a report on the government’s border failures.
Pressure is mounting on the government to release a report that it commissioned its managed quarantine and isolation facilities.
The report was commissioned by the government in August after repeated border failures likely led to the second closure in Auckland. The report was compiled by former Helen Clark chief of staff, Heather Simpson, and Brian Roche, president of NZTA.
Many areas of the report are said to be critical of the management of the MIQ system by the Ministry of Health. The report is understood to partially vindicate the government’s position – and the position of former Health Minister David Clark – that health officials and personnel were not following orders issued by the Cabinet.
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The first version was delivered to the Government on September 30 and the final version was delivered on November 27.
When questioned by Chris Bishop, a spokesman for National Covid-19, Health Minister Chris Hipkins declined to say whether the report would be released by Christmas.
On Wednesday, he said decisions on the report would be made before Christmas and that the report would be released shortly after.
Hipkins said the report “makes some constructive recommendations and highlights some areas where [Simpson and Roche] believes that the Ministry of Health could have done better and reflects generally on the areas in which the machinery of government could be improved ”.
No decisions have been made on the report and Hipkins said he would not comment on its recommendations before the Cabinet decided whether to implement them or not.
He said this was out of respect for the people whose jobs could change as a result of the report; This did not mean that there would be layoffs, but that specific reporting lines could change.
“The problem is that these are some issues related to the machinery of government: some people’s jobs can be affected by the way the machinery of government is organized. It is always appropriate that we go through a proper process, ”he said.
In Parliament, Hipkins also said that the report had budgetary implications, which could mean that the report could recommend that more money be invested in the MIQ system.
Parts of the review are said to vindicate, to some extent, the Cabinet’s view that its decisions regarding border testing were not being carried out on the ground. This dissonance played a role in the end of Clark’s tenure as Minister of Health.
“It certainly reveals what, in the opinion of the review panel, could have been done better to avoid the situation we had where the Cabinet expected a degree of evidence to occur that was not happening,” Hipkins said.
Bishop went further and said he understood that the report was quite critical of the ministry.
“I understand that the report is quite critical about the Ministry of Health, the testing systems they have and the information the ministers received.
“This underscores the point: the public deserves to see the report, they deserve to know what happened,” he said.
“In fact, it makes some constructive recommendations on how the flow of information could be improved; most of that has already happened, ”he said.
