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"The Performance of Transparency While Undermining Justice” - 20 August 2025

A scathing exposé of Winston Peters' manufactured outrage over the COVID Royal Commission

Ivor Jones The Māori Green Ltn

20 Aug 2025 — 12 min read

Mōrena koutou katoa.

In the world of Winston Peters, every inquiry is either a triumph of his own moral fortitude or a conspiracy designed to protect his political enemies. His latest Facebook tantrum, volunteering to appear before the COVID-19 Royal Commission while simultaneously branding its predecessor a "shallow sham," represents the peak of his decades-long campaign to weaponise institutional processes for his own political theatre.rnz

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The Construction of Controlled Opposition

The COVID-19 Royal Commission exists in two phases precisely because Peters and his coalition partners demanded it. When the original Royal Commission was established by Labour in December 2022, it was designed to examine New Zealand's pandemic response comprehensively. But this apparently wasn't good enough for Peters, who needed a platform for his grievances against former Labour ministers.nzherald+1

Peters invoked the coalition's "agree to disagree" clause in June 2024, refusing to accept the continuation of Phase One under Tony Blakely's leadership. This wasn't about transparency - it was about control. Peters wanted his own inquiry, with his own commissioners, examining his chosen targets under his preferred terms.rnz

Manufacturing Virtue from Vindictiveness

Peters' Facebook post represents a masterclass in populist manipulation. He positions himself as the noble truth-seeker volunteering for public scrutiny while casting former Labour ministers as cowards "hiding behind lawyers". This narrative conveniently ignores that these same ministers provided extensive private testimony to the inquiry, which the commissioners themselves acknowledged as sufficient.

The deeper issue here isn't Peters' grandstanding - it's how he systematically corrupts public institutions to serve his personal vendettas. By demanding an entirely new inquiry process, Peters has transformed what should have been a serious examination of pandemic policy into a political circus designed to embarrass his opponents.

The Sham Within the Sham: Peters' Record of Institutional Abuse

Peters' claim that he "volunteered" for previous Royal Commissions reveals his fundamental misunderstanding of how these processes work. Royal Commissions aren't platforms for political performance; they're serious judicial inquiries designed to establish facts. When Peters demands public hearings, he's not seeking transparency - he's seeking television coverage for his attacks on Labour.rnz

His characterisation of the original inquiry as a "shallow sham" is particularly rich given his own history of attacking every institution that fails to serve his interests. Peters has spent decades denouncing the Waitangi Tribunal, attacking media coverage, and questioning the integrity of judges and civil servants whenever they inconvenience him.nzherald+2

The pattern is clear: any process that doesn't elevate Peters to hero status becomes, in his telling, corrupted by his enemies.

The Politics of Grievance and Manufactured Martyrdom

Peters' entire political brand rests on positioning himself as the victim of establishment conspiracies while simultaneously being a core part of that establishment for nearly five decades. His complaint that he was "never even asked to present at the original shallow sham" ignores the obvious reality that the Phase One inquiry focused on systemic lessons rather than individual blame.rnz

This manufactured grievance serves multiple purposes. It allows Peters to present himself as the defender of transparency while actually undermining the integrity of the inquiry process. It positions him as the victim of political persecution while he simultaneously holds the country's second-highest office. Most importantly, it deflects attention from his own role in New Zealand's pandemic response as Deputy Prime Minister during the crucial early period.

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Hidden Connections: The Web of Institutional Capture

Peters' attack on Tony Blakely as compromised reveals the deeper game at play. Blakely, an epidemiologist with extensive international experience, was appointed precisely because of his expertise and independence. But in Peters' world, expertise becomes suspicious when it doesn't serve his narrative. This is the same logic that led him to attack career civil servants during his superannuation scandal, claiming they were politically motivated when they were simply doing their jobs.rnz+1

The real corruption here isn't the imagined bias of inquiry commissioners - it's Peters' systematic effort to capture and weaponise public institutions. By forcing the creation of Phase Two with new commissioners, Peters has ensured that the COVID inquiry becomes not a serious examination of policy failures, but a political show trial designed to humiliate Labour ministers.1news

The Māori Dimension: Dividing to Conquer

Peters' approach to the COVID inquiry must be understood within his broader pattern of using institutional processes to attack Māori advancement and social justice initiatives. His demand for "transparency" selectively applies only when it serves his agenda of discrediting progressive policies and politicians.

Throughout the pandemic, Māori communities bore disproportionate impacts from both the virus and the policy responses. A genuine inquiry would examine these disparities and systemic inequities. But Peters isn't interested in examining structural racism - he's interested in creating political theatre that reinforces his populist brand while avoiding scrutiny of the deeper systemic issues that harm tangata whenua.

Implications: The Corruption of Democratic Accountability

Peters' manipulation of the Royal Commission process represents a broader assault on democratic accountability. By turning what should be a serious policy review into a political performance, he undermines public trust in the very institutions designed to hold government accountable.

This has profound implications for Aotearoa's democratic culture. When senior politicians treat institutional processes as vehicles for personal vendettas rather than genuine accountability mechanisms, they erode the foundations of good governance. Peters' behaviour teaches the public that investigations are just politics by other means - a deeply corrosive message that serves only those who benefit from public cynicism about democratic institutions.

The most insidious aspect of Peters' performance is how it co-opts the language of transparency and accountability while actually undermining both. By positioning himself as the champion of public scrutiny while simultaneously corrupting the inquiry process, Peters demonstrates the authoritarian playbook of destroying institutions while claiming to reform them.

The Populist's Hollow Crown

Winston Peters' volunteering for the COVID inquiry isn't an act of transparency - it's the performance of transparency designed to obscure his role in corrupting the very process he claims to champion. His decades-long pattern of attacking institutions while exploiting them reveals the hollow core of his populist project.

As tangata whenua, we must recognise that Peters' brand of institutional manipulation serves to protect the colonial structures that harm our people while providing the illusion of accountability. His selective outrage over Labour ministers while ignoring systemic inequities demonstrates that his version of "transparency" is designed to maintain, not challenge, existing power structures.

The COVID inquiry should examine how political actors like Peters exploit crisis periods to advance their own agendas at the expense of genuine accountability. Until we confront this pattern of institutional capture and weaponisation, Aotearoa will continue to suffer from the politics of performance over the substance of justice.

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Mauri ora, kia kaha

Ivor Jones - Te Māori Green Lantern

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