“Polling shows that Kiwis want an independent investigation into the impacts of the COVID response so we don’t make the same mistakes in the future, as ACT has been calling for since May 2020,” says ACT Leader David Seymour.

“Curia polling showed 46 per cent want a Royal Commission of Inquiry, 41 per cent did not want one, and 13 per cent were unsure.

“What’s interesting is the age breakup. Net support by age was +37 per cent for under 40s, while -3 per cent for 40-59s and -18 per cent for over 60s.

“The people who want an investigation are those who are going to suffer the most from the impacts of the COVID response. ACT has repeatedly said we can’t afford to have a lost generation who loses out without even looking at what we could have done better and ensuring we don’t make the same mistakes again.

“We have reason to believe there will be significant impacts on childrens’ educations, mental health, benefit dependency, crime, social cohesion, business strength and infrastructure for years and years to come.

“Kiwis deserve better than another $80 billion debt from an experimental response the next time a pandemic arises.

“We were the first to call for a Royal Commission into the Government’s COVID response, but Jacinda Ardern is pathologically unable to admit fault. As we saw in the Charlotte Bellis saga, you need to take the Government to court to get an apology for malice and incompetence, and even then it’s not certain.

“Under Labour, the only illumination we get is from gaslighting. It pretends against all rational evidence that actions aren’t the reason our health system is crumbling and our businesses are closing.

“Any investigation can’t be an inhouse affair. New Zealand is too small for an objective investigation. ACT has promised an investigation that would lean on experts from a range of countries that did things well, and not so well, to give an honest review. We would ask Taiwanese, Swedish, and Australian experts, for example, to be part of the investigation.

“The investigation is not simply about learning what Labour did wrong. It is about working out what we need to do right. There will be another pandemic. Probably not this year, hopefully not in the next decade, but almost certainly in our lifetime. In the future, it could save New Zealand billions of dollars in costly mistakes. We literally cannot afford to repeat Labour’s handling of this pandemic.”

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