New Zealand Parliament: Setting up the Epidemic Response Committee to scrutinize response to COVID-19

As the global COVID-19 pandemic spread across the world, different Commonwealth Parliaments and Legislatures have been coming up with solutions to ensure that democracy continues.

The Parliament of New Zealand swiftly established the Epidemic Response Committee on 25 March 2020 to consider and report to the House on matters relating to the New Zealand Government’s management of the COVID-19 epidemic.

The Epidemic Response Committee is a Select Committee of the 52 nd New Zealand Parliament and it is chaired by Hon. Simon Bridges, MP, the Leader of the Opposition with Michael Woodhouse, MP, the Opposition Health spokesperson designated as Deputy Chair. The Committee has eleven Members and other members are made up from the various parties represented in the New Zealand Parliament. The Committee meets via online platform Zoom.

Original concept:

• Enable the New Zealand Parliament and Parliamentarians to stay in the picture regarding the New Zealand Government’s actions and responses to the pandemic and to reinforce the accountability of the Executive to the Legislature.

• To provide an avenue for continued questions and Ministerial statements on the current pandemic when the House was not able to sit.

• To provide a way to address the practical difficulties of having virtual sittings of the whole House, as it is easier and quicker for Select Committees to move to meeting remotely and more frequently.

Background: Many Committees at the New Zealand Parliament were already using an online platform (Zoom) widely for hearing evidence from witnesses and submitters, where they would have previously travelled to attend in person. This was mainly using the webinar function of Zoom that enabled staff to control who was in a waiting room and who was promoted to a panellist to speak to Committees. The hearings were already being live streamed to the New Zealand Parliament’s social media and many MPs and parliamentary staff were already familiar with Zoom as a platform.

Establishment process was unanimous: The establishment of the Epidemic Response Committee was largely unanimous. It was proposed by the Clerk of the House, and so had an apolitical genesis. The New Zealand Government widely acknowledged that it needed to be scrutinised and following crossparty agreement and negotiations at the Business Committee in Parliament, the Epidemic Response Committee was established. The result of this approach meant that there is constructive response and buy-in from both Members and from the wider public.

Membership: Following discussion, it was decided that the Epidemic Response Committee would be chaired by the Leader of the Opposition and that the membership of the Committee would also have an Opposition majority, in recognition of the heightened Executive powers of the New Zealand Government during the current crisis. All political parties have taken a constructive approach to the Committee and, with all parties represented and with an Opposition majority, it has been the Chairperson that has made key decisions about who the Select Committee will invite, who it will hear from and when, exercising powers given to all Committee Chairs in the New Zealand Parliament’s Standing Orders to invite witnesses on behalf of the Committee.

Broad remit: All of the subject specific Select Committees in the New Zealand Parliament have terms of reference codified in the Standing Orders. However, the Epidemic Response Committee does not, nor are there any in the motion establishing the Committee. The broad remit of the Committee is not limited to just the health or economic response, and so the Epidemic Response Committee could consider anything relevant to the epidemic (for example, the Committee has been considering how to re-establish sports activities and events). It has established an inquiry into the Government response to COVID-19 as the vehicle to conduct its business.

Power to call for persons, papers and records: Only the New Zealand Parliament’s Privileges Committee has the power to call for persons, papers and records by right, however, this has also been accorded to the Epidemic Response Committee. This is unusual - any other Select Committee that wanted to summon a person to attend or produce documents has to go through the Speaker - and it signals the House’s intention for the Epidemic Response Committee to be a vehicle for strong scrutiny at an extraordinary time. The Committee has not used this power yet, but it may do.

The Epidemic Response Committee has had discussions in open hearings with the Commissioner of Police and the AttorneyGeneral about waiving legal privilege over advice from Crown Law and the Solicitor-General about the use of emergency powers granted to the Government under the Health Act, 1956. The Cabinet Manual requires the Attorney-General to approve the release of legal advice from Crown Law and he is been very clear he won’t do that. If people wish to challenge the use of these powers they should go through the courts. This continues to be an issue for the Committee. Giving the Committee this power does clearly demonstrate a willingness by the House for the Committee to scrutinise the Government.

Expert witnesses: The Epidemic Response Committee has used a series of expert witnesses to set the scene at the start of various hearings. Two to three-hour hearings on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursday have generally been themed. Finance and the economy, health, small business, hospitality industry, the media, and trade have been themes. Hearings have had a mixture of Government Ministers, departments and public submitters.

To help the Committee and the viewing public know what the issues are they should be focused on in any hearing, the Committee has had experts start them off with some opening remarks, a few questions, and then into the main submitters. This has been an effective way for issues to be raised, and also for people to share experiences – important for representative function.

At the conclusion, the Committee has returned to the expert for a summing up, a few more questions, and then closing. This has been useful for the media too, and we have seen the comments of expert and submitters to the Committee showing up in media questions to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance and the Director-General of Health at their daily 1pm COVID-19 media briefing.

Open to the public: Committees in the New Zealand Parliament were already live streaming to social media channels but the decision to push proceedings out through every available channel was really important, as was strong connection with mainstream media organisations, which meant there was good pick-up. The Epidemic Response Committee proceedings have been live streamed to the Parliament website, Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, and broadcast on Parliament TV (with a repeat in the afternoons at 2pm) and Radio New Zealand (RNZ).

The cameras used for the Committee aren’t broadcast quality, which wasn’t perfect for viewers, but solutions were found quickly by parliamentary staff to assist the Committee. Hearings have live captioning with a full Hansard transcript made available promptly and available on demand.

‘Best Harry Potter’ impression: Perhaps the quirkiest element of the support provided to the Epidemic Response Committee is that the Deputy Clerk of Committee, who is the New Zealand Parliament’s resident expert in supporting the Committee Members and witnesses with Zoom, has been ‘hosting’ the meetings from her laundry cupboard. To make sure she has the strongest Wi-Fi connection possible she has been sitting at a desk as close to her Wi-Fi router as possible, which happens to be in her laundry cupboard. It’s worked really well.

Other Committee Clerks have remarked that it’s been strange to see inside Members’ homes, for MPs to have seen inside their homes, and in a couple of instances inside their bedrooms if that is where they have been working from. The media has reported on the various and varied kinds of backdrops that MPs and witnesses have had. The numerous bookshelves, fishes, flames, changing paintings etc and, in the case of one expert witness, the mini-bust statue that was behind him.

Move to alert Level 3 and beyond: The Epidemic Response Committee’s role has changed since the move to alert Level 3 and the return to more frequent sittings in Parliament. The Committee has continued to meet on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, but for between 2 and 3 hours instead of 3 to 4 hours, and no Ministers have been invited. The return of Oral Questions on sitting days may have had an impact on that. But the Committee has continued to hear from those affected by COVID-19 and to hear scrutiny of the New Zealand Government’s response and possible solutions to the challenges people and business are facing.

There are plans for the Committee to continue to operate in this way under alert Level 3, but perhaps to change again in some way when the country moves to alert Level 2 and the whole House is able to sit for more hours. In addition, it is likely that the Epidemic Response Committee will be referred some legislation in the near future and so this may change its role again, with hearings being paused temporarily whilst they examine the legislation.

Lessons learnt so far from the Epidemic Response Committee:

• Reporting – the Committee has heard around 55 hours of evidence over a five-week period. Attempting to provide the Committee with a report, even an interim report, so that it could update the House on its activities, was a massive undertaking by the parliamentary staff and mini-reports have been provided every one to two weeks instead.

• Ministerial accountability at Select Committees – previously, the only time that Government Ministers appeared at Committee in the New Zealand Parliament was for scrutiny of the Estimates. However, the Epidemic Response Committee has had Government Ministers attending every week. This has been an excellent advance in parliamentary scrutiny and will hopefully lead to more Government Ministers appearing at Committees in the future.

• Broadcasting - The lesson here is that it isn’t as difficult as you think it is to facilitate an online Committee. Parliamentary staff figured out how to run the Committee in an afternoon with the help of an incredible technical team. The increased coverage of Committee hearings on TV channels has also been a positive outcome. The Committee has had some really excellent public engagement and has shown MPs in a very positive light, engaging with each other by first name in a friendly, jovial way that members of the public often don’t see if they only watch the more formal proceedings and question time in the main Chamber.

• Opposition-dominated Committees – having the Epidemic Response Committee dominated by Opposition Members and having an Opposition party Chair has provided an excellent platform for scrutiny of the Executive in Parliament. This particular Committee has worked very cordially together and could be a model that we see more of going forward, hopefully in more positive times.

Luke Harris is the Hansard Editor at the Parliament of New Zealand. He is also a regular contributor to The Parliamentarian’s Third Reading reports.