Phase One of the Royal Commission examined four key areas of New Zealand's COVID-19 response: the public health measures (including border controls, vaccines, lockdowns, and health service delivery), the provision of essential goods and services (utilities, education, childcare, and government services), the economic response (financial support for individuals and businesses), and government communication and decision-making processes. The inquiry focused on identifying legislative and policy improvements for future pandemic preparedness, with particular attention to Te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations to Māori and support for essential workers and vulnerable communities, while excluding clinical decisions, individual case applications, vaccine efficacy, court judgments, private sector operations (except where integral to pandemic response), and specific Reserve Bank monetary policy decisions. Phase Two, commencing November 29, 2024, will investigate specific government decisions regarding vaccines, lockdowns, and testing technologies between February 2021 and October 2022.

Our recommendations include:

1. Take an all-hazards approach to nationally significant risks because these risks contain many common consequences and the true level of risk is the aggregate across this set, ie, include pandemics alongside other major risks.

2. The all-hazards approach should include ‘overarching’ and ‘cross-cutting’ policy.

3. Conduct a publicly facing National Risk Assessment that includes analysis of all global threats and hazards with escalation potential (including pandemics).

4. Include analysis of the potential ‘convergence’ of global risks (eg, cyber- and bio-risks in combination amplifying the risks of each).

5. Establish anticipatory governance of global catastrophic and nationally significant risks, for example a Parliamentary Commissioner and/or Chief Risk Officer.

6. Consider replicating the US Global Catastrophic Risks Management Act 2022 for NZ7. Develop a NZ Biological Security Strategy (potentially building on the UK approach).8. Collaborate with Australia on cross-border risks given close physical proximity and the likelihood that major risks degrade global connectedness.