Limited Hangouts, the Royal Commission, and Silencing Doctors

Introduction

This article is about the "NZ Royal Commission COVID-19: Lessons Learned", beginning with my recommendation that it has a name change to this:

"NZ Royal Commission COVID-19: Lessons Carefully Avoided (with a Few Selectively Learned for Show)".

I want to explain a concept that helps make sense of what’s going on with the Royal Commission into New Zealand’s COVID response: the limited hangout.

I first came across this term in an article by Phillip Altman on Substack, where he described how governments and agencies sometimes release carefully selected fragments of truth to appear transparent while keeping the most damaging truths hidden. His analysis struck a chord with me, because it explained perfectly what so many of us are seeing now, and with a growing sense of dread that we are being set up to be swindled out of justice. You can read his original piece here: Phillip Altman – Causes of Autism & Presidential Announcement.

A limited hangout is a classic political tactic. Those in power concede a small part of the truth, often with great fanfare, so the public believes transparency is happening. But the bigger, more damaging truths remain buried. It’s not the same as a red herring. A red herring drags us onto something irrelevant. A limited hangout releases a controlled dose of truth precisely so we stop looking deeper.

How this looks in New Zealand

The Royal Commission has admitted some faults in our pandemic response such as communication gaps, uneven preparedness, strain on the health system. It may even nod at the hardship of mandates or the fact that some people were harmed by vaccines. But what many of us see is the shape of a limited hangout:

• A little truth admitted – yes, the rollout wasn’t perfect, yes, a small group of people were injured.

• The deeper truth omitted – the real scale of harm, the suppression of early warning voices, and the betrayal of those now living with long-term injury.

• The effect – the public is soothed, the system protects itself, and those responsible remain beyond reach.

We’ve been here before. Erebus. Pike River. Inquiries that acknowledged some truths while avoiding the full exposure of institutional rot. Lessons supposedly “learned,” but justice never truly done.

Doctors under attack

What makes this feel even more like a limited hangout is the ongoing persecution of doctors who dared to speak the truth. Even today, with evidence piling up that many of their concerns were justified, agencies such as the Medical Council continue to pursue them relentlessly.

Their “crime” was raising questions about safety, about side effects, about the ethics of coercion. The absense of informed consent. Many doctors and other health professionals, some my friends, were suspended, or forced out. Others dragged through hearings. The result is a chilling effect: fewer clinicians willing to stand by their patients against official policy. Years have passed, yet they are not letting up with their efforts to silence dissent by health professionals.

If the Royal Commission were a genuine exercise in truth-seeking, wouldn’t it want to hear from these people? Instead, the system is still silencing them. That looks like narrative control: controlled release of partial truth in public, while those who might tell the full story are discredited or punished. Meanwhile, those those who parrot half tuths and misinformation, in support of the official narrative, are delivered softballs by the Inquiry:

https://www.garymoller.com/post/graham-le-gros-testifies-to-royal-commission-of-inquiry

The tactic of delay

There is another tactic that goes hand-in-hand with limited hangouts and red herrings: dragging things out.

Draw a process out long enough and people tire, forget, or simply give up. For those who are sick, injured, and financially stretched, time is the cruellest weapon of all. The very people seeking treatment, rehabilitation, compensation, and justice are often the least able to endure drawn-out battles.

This is not new. Look at the Fosamax trials in the United States. Class actions alleged harm from so-called “bone-sparing” bisphosphonate drugs.

http://blog.garymoller.com/search?q=fosamax

What happened? Big Pharma and Big Medicine bogged these cases down in years of costly legal procedures and appeals. Eventually, they won some cases — but by then many of the thousands of claimants - yes - thousands of very unwell claimants had given up or died before justice was done. That was no accident. Delay was the strategy. They continue to sell these multi-billion dollar "bone-sparing" drugs because the profits far outweigh the cost of defending being sued by people like your grandmother.

The same cynicism lurks behind slow-moving inquiries and endless reviews. Time is used as a shield, not as a search for truth.

Why it matters

If this pattern continues, the Royal Commission will deliver another polite report that soothes rather than resolves. We’ll hear about “lessons learned” and “better preparedness next time.” Meanwhile:

• People who were injured will feel doubly betrayed.

• Clinicians who acted in good faith will remain under a cloud.

• The agencies responsible for harm will escape scrutiny. The perpetrators move on, organisations are restructured or even wound up.

• And the years will tick by until people tire, grow older, grow sicker, or die.

What we must demand

• Protection for whistleblowers and clinicians who present evidence in good faith.

• Transparent reporting of vaccine-injury claims, independently audited.

• A Royal Commission remit that explicitly examines suppression of dissent, the tactic of delay, and the treatment of the vaccine-injured.

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Concluding Words

I’m not saying every disciplinary action was wrong. But when the balance tilts towards silencing dissent while offering small, controlled admissions of fault — and then dragging things out until people tire or pass away — the public should be suspicious. That is the essence of a limited hangout with delay as its twin strategy.

We must not settle for crumbs of truth. We must demand the whole story — for the sake of those harmed, and for the integrity of New Zealand’s future.

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Medical disclaimer: I am not your doctor. The information here is for general knowledge and public debate. If you have health concerns, consult a qualified health professional you trust.