Accountability through Dialogue: New Zealand’s Experience during the COVID-19 Pandemic

New Zealand successfully pursued an elimination strategy during the COVID-19 pandemic, managing to stamp out community transmission of the virus through lockdowns, border control, contact tracing and other public health measures. This chapter evaluates the accountability of government during the height of the pandemic, while emergency settings applied and aggressive measures were deployed. The analysis adopts a relational or dialogical conception of accountability – focusing on explanation, interrogation, judgement and consequences – and looks across the political, constitutional and learning (continuous improvement) dimensions of accountability. Overall, concerns about an accountability deficit during the pandemic generally did not arise in New Zealand because the government continued to render account for its actions – the ability of various forums to scrutinise and judge the government’s actions was maintained and, in some cases, was enhanced.