Over two dozen constructive letters were sent to the Prime Minister, Ministers, and officials coordinating the Government’s response: • Expressing our willingness to help the Government ensure its response to COVID-19 is fair, effective and proportionate. • Seeking assurance and offering support in respect of protecting disabled people (24% of our population) during Alert Level 4. • Urging health officials to ensure access to healthcare for people with terminal and acute conditions were safeguarded. • Calling for decisions on the allocation of resources and treatment to be transparent, evidence-based, and non-discriminatory.2 • Raising concerns in the Chief Commissioner’s role as Chair of the Central National Preventive Mechanism about the rights of people in detention, including people held in prisons, police cells, Oranga Tamariki residences, intellectual disability units, aged care facilities, and temporary places of detention for quarantine purposes during the response to the pandemic.3 • Advocating to avoid discriminatory prioritisation of medical assistance. As details emerged about community workers struggling to access personal protective equipment (PPE) to visit people with high needs and vulnerabilities we urged officials to urgently make PPE available to community-based carers. Our concerns were supported by the findings of the Auditor-General who found there were mixed messages about PPE guidance, that some emergency plans were out of date, that there was a lack of integration between various parts of the health and disability system, and that DHBs did not have links to all providers.4 We also encouraged women to seek help immediately if they found themselves in an abusive situation during the COVID-19 isolation5 and people to stand up to racism during the crisis.6 Commissioners and staff strengthened connections with iwi and the most marginalised communities to ensure their views were reflected in decision making. We set up a central repository for COVID-19 and human rights information to ensure groups had access to the right information and were able to report issues and concerns.7 Our enquiries and complaints function saw a dramatic increase in demand with over 300 enquiries and complaints related to COVID-19 between January and the start of May 2020. When necessary, we held decision-makers to account.8 We established the Kaiwhakatara Accountability Advisory Group to help us to ensure a clear rights-based message was reaching Government. The members of this group are Andrew Butler, Associate Professor Dr Claire Charters, Dr Carwyn Jones, Frances Joychild QC, Richard Leung, Professor Margaret Mutu, Professor Gail Pacheco, Dr Teuila Percival, Bernadette Ingham and Julia Amua Whaipooti.9 https://www.hrc.co.nz/news/access-healthcare-terminal-and-acute-patients-must-be-safeguarded/ https://www.hrc.co.nz/news/concerns-about-rights-people-detention-during-response-covid-19/ 4 https://www.hrc.co.nz/news/auditor-general-review-findings-failings-ppe-distribution-no-surprise-says-disability-rightscommissioner/ 5 https://covid19.hrc.co.nz/unsafe_at_home_reach_out_for_help_says_women_s_rights_commissioner 6 https://covid19.hrc.co.nz/meng_foon_covid_19_coronavirus_fear_no_excuse_for_racism 7 https://covid19.hrc.co.nz/your-rights 8 https://www.hrc.co.nz/news/letter-all-new-zealanders-commissioners-human-rights-commission-our-responsecovid-19/ 9 https://covid19.hrc.co.nz/about 2 3 17