Petra Bagust

speaker

3,300 appearances 7 recordings 1 series first heard Apr 2026 last heard 3 Jun

Petra Bagust’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 7 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 4.

Appearances

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Grey Areas with Petra Bagust · Pushed to my limits | Sir Ashley Bloomfield · 3 Jun 2026 podcast

We were doing our best.

What do you say to people who don't believe that, don't agree with that, don't think that?

I just say well look at the data because it was an experiment and the amazing thing is we were able to compare ourselves with every other country and I've just been giving a lecture to first year population health students today and it's always important you look at well what were the things we set out to do and how did we go and we had one of the if not the lowest death rate in the world and other countries were doing their best but

we pulled out a big game and so I think and the other thing that I sort of reflect on is I know the people involved right across the public sector and the way we worked and the way people behaved and the genuine focus on serving the public and the interests of the country and everything we did

And so I can put my hand on my heart and say we absolutely every day got up to do the best we could for the country and put New Zealand and New Zealanders' interests first.

Yeah.

I asked that, I guess, because, well, three things.

I was at Auckland Writers' Festival and I heard Jacinda Ardern speak about her book on the closing night.

She was the closing event.

And she said, we set out to do two things.

And one was to save as many lives as possible.

And the other was to be united.

And we achieved the first one and we didn't quite achieve the second one.

She said division arose and we did fracture in the end.

And she said when people protest, which they do at every event she appears at, she said she is glad they're alive to protest.

Yeah.

And I thought it's, again, I was away at a fundraising event on the weekend and a lady said, we were talking about having watched the documentary Prime Minister.

And the other lady said, oh, no, I just can't watch it.

I can't watch it.

And I said, it's worth watching to understand.

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