2.2 Context: the state of Aotearoa New Zealand’s pandemic preparednes­s and emergency management arrangement­s before COVID-19 Horopaki: te āhua o te takatū ki te mate urutā o Aotearoa me ngā whakaritenga whakahaere ohotata i mua o te KOWHEORI-19

National and international preparedness for pandemics has been a high-profile public health issue in recent decades as potent infectious diseases – Ebola, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), various influenza viruses – have emerged or re-emerged with increasing frequency.

Across the world, numerous pandemic strategies and plans have been drafted, enhanced surveillance and testing regimes adopted, and simulation exercises conducted.¹ Yet the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, was frank in his appraisal of what the ‘preparedness project’ had achieved by 2020:²

“Over the years we have had many reports, reviews and recommendations all saying the same thing: the world is not prepared for a pandemic. COVID-19 has laid bare the truth: when the time came, the world was still not ready.”³

Faced with a pandemic of this scale and a virus about which so little was known, it was impossible for any country to have made infallible preparations. Quite simply, the World Bank noted, ‘there are limits to preparedness’.⁴ Any assessment of Aotearoa New Zealand’s readiness to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic needs to place it in this global context.

Before COVID-19, Aotearoa New Zealand had in fact scored well in a World Health Organization assessment of its capacity to respond to health security threats.⁵ Another assessment of international pandemic preparedness, the Global Health Security Index, had scored New Zealand slightly above the average for high-income countries.⁶ But that assessment also revealed that, collectively, international preparedness was weak.ⁱⁱ A similar conclusion was reached by the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, which identified a worldwide failure to invest sufficiently in pandemic preparedness – although what an appropriate level of investment would be, both globally and nationally, has not yet been determined.⁷

Before COVID-19, a range of existing systems, legislation, plans, structures and capabilities were available to support a pandemic response. This put New Zealand in a good position when COVID-19 first emerged. However, there were areas of weakness. In particular, the Civil Defence Emergency Management System was primarily geared towards natural hazard emergencies, the New Zealand Influenza Pandemic Plan 2017 was inadequate for a pandemic like COVID-19, and the risk management system did not work as well as it could have.

For more detail on the various systems, structures, plans and models covered in this section, please see Appendix A.

2.2.1 A well-established civil defence and emergency management system was in place

The evidence we have reviewed shows a well-established civil defence emergency management system was in place at the start of 2020. It was led by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and included 16 regionally-based Civil Defence Emergency Management Groups (collectives of local and/or unitary authorities within each region). Depending on the nature of the emergency, different agencies would be expected to take on the role of ‘lead agency’ (for example, the New Zealand Police would be the lead agency for a terrorism incident).

In addition, in a significant crisis or emergency, the Officials Committee for Domestic and External Security Coordination (ODESC) system could be activated.⁸ ODESC is a group of senior officials, chaired by the Chief Executive of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. In 2020, its role was to coordinate an all-of-government response to an event and support ministers in developing the strategic direction, policies and resourcing required to deal with a crisis.

In 2020, the emergency management system was practised in dealing with disasters such as severe weather events and earthquakes. Many of the people working within it – and some based in other parts of government – were highly experienced in crisis response and/or trained in using the standardised Coordinated Incident Management System.

Because the Civil Defence Emergency Management System is tasked with responding to emergencies arising from all hazards and risks, it was in principle capable of responding to a pandemic – which was identified as a potential threat to the country in the National Risk Register.⁹ Plans drawn up before 2020 by the 16 regional Civil Defence Emergency Management Groups showed many had identified a human disease pandemic as a potential risk with significant national and local consequences.¹⁰

However, in reality the system was not prepared for a pandemic of the nature and scale of COVID-19, which required a prolonged response and had widespread and complex national impacts. For example, Civil Defence Emergency Management Groups are typically involved in providing emergency welfare support in a particular region or area and for short periods of time only, perhaps a few days or weeks but rarely months – let alone years.

2.2.2 Aotearoa New Zealand had a system for identifying national-level hazards and risks

A National Risk Framework is used across government to drive decision-making that ‘advances New Zealand’s long-term prosperity, and strengthens our resilience to the most significant hazards and threats we face’.¹¹ Broadly, it involves identifying, managing and proactively planning for national risks, including by maintaining a National Risk Register of the most significant risks Aotearoa New Zealand faces.¹² In 2020, the register listed ‘threat-type’ risks (such as terrorism and cyber security), which were overseen by the Security and Intelligence Board (now known as the National Security Board), and a larger group of ‘hazard-type’ risks, including pandemics.¹³ This latter group of risks was overseen by the Hazard Risk Board (now the National Hazards Board).¹⁴

However, this system had limitations. The Inquiry heard that while the register identified risks, the system did not then actively oversee whether and how those risks were being prepared for across government. There were limited formal oversight or accountability mechanisms to ensure agencies had appropriate plans in place to prepare for (and mitigate if possible) significant national risks. The evidence also showed that the Hazard Risk Board was not functioning optimally in early 2020. As the Auditor-General noted, it had not been meeting regularly and was ‘struggl[ing] to carry out strategic governance properly.’¹⁵

Despite evidence that the New Zealand national risk assessment and management system had little real bite, we recognise that this was also true of other countries.¹⁶

The system was not prepared for a pandemic of the nature and scale of COVID-19, which required a prolonged response and had complex national impacts.

2.2.3 Legislation was in place which could quickly be built upon

The system was well supported by legislation which set out the initial powers and requirements needed by government and others to manage the emerging pandemic. Appendix A provides a fuller account of the relevant statutes and other instruments, many of which remain in effect today, but in brief they were:

• The Health Act 1956,¹⁷ which provided broad powers to manage infectious diseases – including powers to require people to isolate or quarantine, close premises, limit gatherings and undergo medical testing.
• The Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002,¹⁸ which set out a framework to prepare for, deal with and recover from local, regional and national emergencies. It included powers that can be used to support emergencies such as pandemics. For example, the Act gave the Minister the mechanism to declare the state of national emergency on 25 March 2020, and unlock powers in the Act to support the response, such as requisitioning carparks for testing purposes.¹⁹ The Act also included a permanent legislative authority to assist the Crown in reimbursing local authorities for response and recovery costs in an emergency, without need for a further appropriation.²⁰ This ability was critical in the first part of the response, enabling agencies to quickly deliver necessary (and sometimes costly) supports such as food parcels until the Budget was passed on 14 May 2020, which provided more specific allocation of funding.
• National Civil Defence Emergency Management Plan Order 2015,²¹ which set out guiding principles, roles and responsibilities for government agencies, local government, lifeline utilities, emergency services and other groups involved in reduction, readiness, response and recovery from emergencies at the national level. The plan took an ‘all hazards, all risks approach’ to emergency management and applied regardless of the cause of the emergency – including ‘infectious human disease pandemics’.
• The Epidemic Preparedness Act 2006,²² which provided mechanisms to help manage a public health emergency arising from a major outbreak of a highly infectious disease. It complemented the Health Act 1956. It allowed some non-health statutory requirements to be relaxed if they were not able to be complied with during an epidemic, enabling certain activities to continue to be undertaken by people and government agencies.

In addition to these statutes, the COVID-19 Response (Urgent Management Measures) Legislation Act 2020 – an ‘omnibus’ bill which amended other existing Acts – was passed on 25 March 2020.²³ Later, some new legislation and amendments were considered necessary and introduced as the response evolved; the bespoke COVID–19 Public Health Response Act 2020 was passed in May 2020 (described in Appendix A and section 2.3.2).

Bespoke legislation that had been developed following the Canterbury and Hurunui/ Kaikōura earthquakes,²⁴ alongside the Epidemic Preparedness Act 2006, provided models that the COVID-19 response could draw on. This enabled bespoke COVID-19 legislation to be drafted and implemented at pace and meant there was a good understanding of the levers, powers, checks and balances required when developing legislation of this kind.

The Legislation Design and Advisory Committee’s submission to the Select Committee inquiry into the operation of the COVID–19 Public Health Response Act 2020 (in July 2020) noted that ‘bespoke legislation will almost certainly be required’ in the case of significant emergencies, particularly where there is concern that existing tools will need to stretch too far to fit the response measures as they evolve. It also noted the role of individual departmental stewardship in maintaining awareness of the tools available in their current legislation and undertaking ongoing reviews with an eye to maintaining operations and responding in an emergency.²⁵

However, the Law Commission’s 2022 Study Paper on the legal framework for emergencies also noted:

“The current preference for enacting bespoke legislation to deal with emergencies after they have emerged is perhaps an indictment of the usefulness of the existing standing rules or evidence of a concern about their possible misuse or both. More needs to be done in standing legislation for the reason that it will not always be possible to enact bespoke legislation in time or with appropriate public input.”²⁶

These issues are discussed further in Lesson 6.

Like other emergencies, bespoke legislation was quickly developed for the COVID-19 response.

2.2.4 The New Zealand Influenza Pandemic Plan was useful at the start of the response

The New Zealand Influenza Pandemic Plan 2017²⁷ was Aotearoa New Zealand’s sole pandemic-specific response plan at the time COVID-19 emerged. Like most national pandemic plans, this Plan was designed principally to respond to an influenza pandemic. However, the Plan noted it ‘could reasonably apply to other respiratory-type pandemics (such as severe acute respiratory syndrome – SARS)’.²⁸

Aspects of the Plan were useful early on, such as the guidance it provided on organising intersectoral workstreams and information on which public health measures to activate in the initial stages. In the first few weeks of the COVID-19 response, the public health strategy adopted by the Government followed the ‘keep it out’ and ‘stamp it out’ phases of the Plan.

In the context of COVID-19, however, the Influenza Pandemic Plan had significant limitations. These limitations were by no means unique to New Zealand, with similar limitations apparent in many countries’ pre-COVID-19 pandemic plans. For example, the Plan focused on coordinating the immediate ‘emergency’ pandemic response and did not set out structures for coordinating or governing an all-of-government response that would be required over a prolonged period.

Perhaps most significantly, the Plan lacked a framework for reviewing the high-level response strategy and adapting it over time as the situation changed. While the Plan recognised the need to anticipate repeated waves of infection, it was expected that these could be managed using a mix of existing approaches (as set out under the ‘keep it out’, ‘stamp it out’ and ‘manage it’ phases), guided primarily by public health indicators.²⁹ The need for high-level strategic planning and adjustment across all sectors of society, and over several years, had not been envisaged.

Some elements of the Plan might have been useful in the response to COVID-19, but they needed more work. While the Plan emphasised the importance of engaging with Māori ‘as tāngata whenua’, for example, such engagement was largely envisaged in terms of communicating key messages and ensuring Māori had access to resources. The Plan did not address the role of Māori and iwi in decision-making, or in designing and providing services (including healthcare services), which the Crown’s te Tiriti | the Treaty obligations require it to provide for. The Plan did reference the health sector’s Māori Health Strategy (He Korowai Oranga), and ‘encourage[d] the inclusion of Māori in district, regional and national pandemic planning’.³⁰

A senior health official told us the Plan did not sufficiently address the need for government agencies to practise for the pandemic response. The Auditor-General, in his review of the all-of-government COVID-19 response, emphasised the importance of regular exercises to improve readiness and response arrangements³¹ and referred to the Ministry of Health’s own evaluation of the 2017/18 exercise, which found that the 10-year interval between exercises was too long.³²

2.2.5 Useful models of collaborative cross-agency work had been established

Before 2020, notable examples of government agencies working together to good effect on common issues included the Justice Sector Leadership Board and Te Puna Aonui, the Joint Venture for the Elimination of Family Violence and Sexual Violence.ⁱⁱⁱ When the Public Service Act 2020^iv was passed in the first year of the pandemic, it confirmed the importance of this collaborative, cross-agency approach. Among other things, it formalised a public service leadership team to provide government-wide leadership.³³

Initiatives like Te Puna Aonui and others had helped break down existing silos, created mutual goodwill and built strong relationships – all of which were usefully leveraged throughout the pandemic response. As the (then) Public Service Commissioner Peter Hughes told us, the existence of the public sector leadership team ‘gave us a real tailwind’ going into the pandemic: ‘they knew how to work well together already, which gave [us] a team basis for COVID-19’.³⁴

The Border Executive Board (established in December 2020 to deliver an integrated and effective border system in the context of COVID-19) was a good example of this collective responsibility in action, in this case through an interdepartmental executive board. The Inquiry heard that less formal arrangements at chief executive level could also be very productive in managing COVID-19. Examples included the justice and transport sectors – where existing strong relationships and clear common objectives enabled chief executives to work together on the significant challenges facing their sectors – and the Caring for our Communities Chief Executives Group, who came together to help with rapid and coordinated delivery of resources to where they were needed, developing innovative ways to work through barriers. These leadership groups also proved invaluable in helping agencies work closely with the private sector. This was critical for implementing some measures; for example, transport agencies needed to work closely with airlines to safeguard the sustainability of supply lines.

2.2.6 New Zealand’s public service was flexible, agile and dedicated

The flexibility and adaptability of the public service before COVID-19 paid off during the response. Staff stepped up to develop and deliver a coordinated, novel and innovative government response to COVID-19 – at pace and in the face of considerable uncertainty. As a senior public sector official explained to us, this flexibility was supported by pre-existing mechanisms that allowed for the movement of people across the public service and enabled a range of expertise to come together in a highly informal environment.

2.2.7 Some agencies had strong relationships with communities

There were some areas where government agencies had strong relationships with communities. Where these relationships already existed, there was higher trust in, and devolution of, decision-making at the community level.

As the pandemic response evolved, relationships between government agencies and communities often improved as communities were able to show their effectiveness and government agencies grew in confidence with the approach. We heard from many government and community organisations that there is great value in developing these relationships in advance, for improved commissioning and delivery of services in the present as well as to set the foundation needed to respond to a future crisis.

“Have the ten thousand cups of tea now, on the day-to-day work, so that when you’ve got to work at pace, no-one’s saying ‘let’s have a cup of tea. We’ll have a think about whether we want to jump on this with you.’ Critical thing is how you maintain that relationship and are ready to go.”

We heard that when local providers were valued and empowered, it resulted in locally-tailored solutions that are more effective than standard responses. This impact was demonstrated in a compilation of case studies of community action during 2020. This included examples of government agencies working differently during COVID-19, such as seconding staff directly into local organisations, to deliver a more localised response. That report on community-led responses noted the best outcomes were achieved in communities where the strongest existing relationships were already in place.³⁵