A public complaint has been raised against Grant Illingworth KC, Chair of Phase Two of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 “Lessons Learned”, with allegations of bias prompting calls for a review of the inquiry’s integrity.
In an open letter addressed to Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden and Health Minister Simeon Brown, filmmaker Gaylene Barnes argues that comments made by Illingworth during a post-submissions interview with former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern demonstrate a pre-determined stance toward participants in the 2022 Parliament protest.
The letter criticises Illingworth for referencing a documentary film about Ardern as a basis for assessing protestor motivations, claiming it presented a narrow and misleading portrayal of events while overlooking broader concerns raised by attendees, including opposition to vaccine mandates and their social and economic impacts. Barnes, who directed the separate documentary film River of Freedom offering protestor perspectives, says the Commission had access to alternative material and tens of thousands of public submissions but failed to reflect those viewpoints in its approach.
“During a recorded interview with former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on 7 October 2025 — months after the public submissions closed — Mr Illingworth made the following statement about the 2022 Parliament protestors,” wrote Barnes.
“’We don’t want to make the Hilary Clinton mistake and call people ‘undesirables’ but it seems even as portrayed in the Prime Minister movie, which I have seen, that there were people who had virulent hatred for what Government was doing during the period of time, to the point where it’s very, very difficult to understand the motivation behind it unless you accept the idea that they were believing stuff that is just totally inconsistent with the science.’”
“This comment reveals an extraordinary level of pre-judgment and bias. Mr Illingworth openly relied on Prime Minister – a panegyric documentary produced by Augusto, Jacinda Ardern’s favoured advertising agency – as “evidence” of the protestors’ motivations. He treated this US-edited film as a legitimate portrayal of events.”
She further contends that the Chair’s remarks suggest a lack of neutrality, undermining confidence in the inquiry’s findings and its stated goal of restoring public trust. The letter calls on ministers to assess Illingworth’s conduct, reconsider the Phase Two report, and potentially appoint new leadership to ensure a more impartial review of the evidence.
OPEN LETTER
Hon Brooke van Velden@BrookevanVelden
Minister of Internal Affairs
Hon. Simeon Brown@SimeonBrownMP
Minister of HealthDear Ministers van Velden and Brown,
As the Ministers tasked with receiving and reviewing the Phase Two report of the Royal Commission of…
— Gaylene Barnes (@GayleneABarnes) April 11, 2026
This Illingworth chap should be ashamed of himself. I’m not only outraged with his comment find it deeply concerning we are increasingly being treated as outlaws just for existing and saying no to forced injections and protesting government overreach. I guess this is the face of medical fascism. I support this open letter. As for science Mr Illingworth..if it cannot be questioned then it is not science. End of. No one I know regret not getting that damn injection and they all seem pretty damn healthy to me.
Exactly, those who did not are very much still here and healthy. They are just pissed because we didn’t take it.
Yeah and pissed because they DID take it.
I distinctly remember saying to my husband, what’s the rush, why are they pushing it, and that once it was inside our bodies there was nothing we could do to ever remove it.
So glad I held the line. Saved my husband and one of my sons.
Don’t drink!
Well said. I got the distinct impression that Mr Illingworth was biased from his type of questioning and his manner during the submissions that I watched.
And you are right, science is never settled and should be questioned. Even if they believed the science was settled, even an average person like me who can read found empirical evidence that these shots were still in trial, that released papers from the Japanese govt and by the federal court in the US showed the juice went all throughout the body, didn’t stop transmission and had a high incidence of injury and death. You on;y had to take some time to look, instead of sitting and having 30 second sound bites fed to you at 6 o’clock, a bunch of paid off politicians and a director general who I wouldn’t even trust to be my GP spouting a whole lot of lines fed to them by Bill Gates (a who incidentally had SHARES in Pfizer, the WEF and the WHO.
Trust is gone, I don’t want the “nedicine” pushed onto us by people who want us injured, poor or better still, dead.
illingworth lost any credibility when he allowed Jabcinda and chipmunk to do their interviews in private.
The whole lot of them disgust me. Our “juctice” system is munted as well.
Anyone who thinks a government “inquiry” is going to find anything other than the government wants found also probably thinks voting in “elections” for fake democratic “parties” is going to make a difference.
You’re 100% right.
Mr Illingworth will be hoping for more work from the government so he was not concerned about getting to the truth.
Absolute disgrace, the verdict was already in before the enquiries began, they are all a pack of cowards because if they speak out it will be career ending.
They are selected for the job because they can be relied on to tow the government line.
That “virulent hatred for what the government was doing….” Demonstrated by placards and effigies and other displays of ‘violence’ towards the government in general and certain individuals in particular.
Like this had never happened before in living memory?
Hop in the time machine back to 2012 when we were protesting rather passionately against the then National government selling off state assets.
It was LOUD. It was MASSIVE.
And it came with a very violent mock guillotining of the lifesized photo effigies of the leading government perpetrators of what what seen as treason.
Key, English, Bennett, Collins….all got their ‘heads’ lopped off to loud cheering from the assembled and accompanying fake blood.
Oh, yes siree, it was VIOLENT. And, there were Children present.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/guest-blog-suzie-dawson-remembering-the-left/
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1207/S00070/asset-sales-march-in-auckland-ends-in-beheading.htm
And those self-same activists who considered that 2012 display of anti government violence acceptable ‘political theater’ railed against those protesting the mandating of an experimental pharmaceutical product…especially with regards to children and young people…calling them a “river of filth”.
Look carefully at the few remaining photos of the 2012 protest…you’ll see some familiar faces.
They should be ashamed. But they’re not.
Never will be.
They happily risked the lives and future health of our children and young people…happily. Think of the evil that entails.
Never, ever forgive. Never, ever forget.
Does anyone take this so called inquiry seriously. Its the political establishment investigating itself, what could possibly go wrong?
As many others have observed, the final report was a pre-determined whitewash. I wrote two articles about the theatrical farce that the NZ public paid hundreds of thousand for, the first one looking at Day 4 of the public procedings and the second the report itself.
.
Mindwars: A Ritual of Containment –NZ COVID-19 Royal Commission as Choreographed Theatre
https://www.mindwars-ghosted.com/mindwars-a-ritual-of-containment/
Mindwars: The Pandemic Report That Named the Wounded And Left Out Those Responsible
https://www.mindwars-ghosted.com/mindwars-the-pandemic-report-that-named-the-wounded-and-left-out-those-responsible/