Michael Reddell: former Reserve Bank economist on the new reports revealing why Adrian Orr left the RBNZ

A former Reserve Bank economist is calling out his former employers' lack of transparency.

The bank today revealed Adrian Orr quit as Governor in March, when the five-year funding for the RBNZ was much less than anticipated. 

Michael Reddell says the bank waited far too long to say why Orr left so abruptly.  

"It's just extraordinary - maybe they couldn't tell us the full story on the day, but the new Reserve Bank funding agreement was published on the 16th of April. There's absolutely no excuse at this point for lack of clarity." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
So we've finally being told the real reason why Adrian
all quit his Reserve Bank governor job, and it's surprisingly benign.
He quit because the Finance Minister wouldn't give the Reserve
Bank as much money as he wanted. Now, Michael Riddell
is a former Reserve Bank Economisty he's been working his
way through the document dump from the bank today him Michael, Heila.
It hardly seems it seems something worth keeping a secret

(00:38):
for what three months? Does it?

Speaker 3 (00:40):
No, it's just extraordinary. I mean, you know, maybe they
couldn't tell off the full story on the day that
the new Reserve Bank funding agreement was published on sixteenth
of April. There's absolutely no excuse for lack of clarity
at that point. I mean, who knows quite why. I
probably try to protect Adrian because I mean, while you
make the point that the issues about the budget, I

(01:02):
think it's also about Adrian's personality. You know, every government
department chief executive in Wellington's had to cope with cuts
in the last eighteen months. A lot of them probably
thought they should grow their own agencies. But they acted
like adults. They got on, they didn't toss their toys
walk out without notice. You know, Adrian's behaved more like
a moody teenager over inevitable fiscal restraint.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Do you think that it was kind of sparked by
the fact that Neil quickly appears to have undermined him.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
No, I reached out that. I mean, Neil has spent
all the time he's been chair basically providing cover for
the governor. I mean, I think where you'd rephrase that
is that the board seems to have eventually faced reality
in a way that the governor wouldn't. So, you know,
the board signed on to this massive bed for a
billion dollars last sort of July or August, sent up

(01:51):
to the minister, and eventually it became the year that
the Minister and Treasury unsurprisingly not going to agree with that.
You know, any sensible person on that board would have gone,
you know, will ultimately ministers make these decisions, not us,
We have to bow to reality. A s chief executive
would also have reached much the same view that I

(02:11):
seem like, I don't like it, but in the end
she's the Minister of Finance. It's her call.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Do you think he.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
Is the fight that the governor couldn't win and shouldn't
have got this this emotionally involved in it. There were
disgraced described in the statement as the governor became distressed. Well,
you know, it's like a toddler.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Do you think he really thought that he would be
opening the conference the day after he quit?

Speaker 3 (02:38):
Well, it's sort of weird, isn't it. I mean that
email is literally an hour before the press statement went out,
and that's fun. It beyond comprehension. I mean maybe he
must have I mean it's there, but how you know,
there just seems to have a bit of detachment from reality.
Presumably someone either quickly or hawks he took on the

(03:00):
side and said, look, Adrian, go away, it's not your day.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Is there any explanation in the documentary as to why
they referred to his resignation as Project Baroda.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
I think that's just what corporates will do, government agencies
will do. You want to have some innocuous name so
that if people are searching around your document managements, they
don't find document resignation of governor.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
But why Baroda what's the song.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
Of I mean BRODA was them as a bank that
was operating in New Zealand, one of the Indian ones.
But they might just have some alphabetical list that you know,
ABU down to Z and this may have just been
the random being name that came up.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Brilliant, Michael, Thank you very much. Appreciated as always. Michael Riddell,
former Reserve Bank Governor. Look, I don't know what this
tells you about working in the public service. But they
have the meeting, right so they're having this meeting. It's
Christian hawksby John McDermott, Naomi Mitchell, Nick McBride and helenkincaid,
and they're having this meeting with on the Monday. He's
packed the tanty over the weekend and he's quitting, and
he finally quits on the Wednesday. But on the Monday

(04:02):
they have this meeting. They get together and they're going
to talk about it. Number one item on the agenda. Well,
be chick in dot everybody is doing okay. We all
need to work there, just to make sure we're all okay.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
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