The Royal Commission welcomes the Minister of Internal Affairs’ decision to extend the inquiry deadline to 26 November 2020 to enable the completion of its report.

"When seeking an extension earlier this year to report back by 31 July 2020, we informed the Government that the delivery of our report by that date would be dependent on getting full access to information stored on a secure and classified network so that we could complete sending out extracts of our draft report to individuals and organisations seeking comment on adverse findings, and seeking consent to the use of quotes, fact checking and classification matters,” said Commissioner Sir William Young.

“We expected some delays due to Covid-19, but the natural justice process has taken longer than we expected. Some responses are yet to be received. We have had to bear in mind that some individuals and State sector agencies have understandably been diverted to Covid-19 work. We expect all responses will be with us in the next month”.

“We still have a lot of work to do to finalise our report,” said Commissioner Jacqui Caine. “We need time to consider comments received from individuals, community groups or organisations and State sector agencies. And we are still working through what classified information will be included in our report, and what ‘sensitive information’, as defined by section 202 of the Intelligence and Security Act 2017, must not be disclosed.”

“We continue to make good progress towards finalising our report, but we need the extra time until 26 November 2020 to ensure we are able to produce a complete and authoritative report,” said Commissioner Jacqui Caine.

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