Jenee Tibshraeny: NZ Herald Wellington business editor on Adrian Orr threatening a former Reserve Bank economist with legal action

Former Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr has threatened one of his fiercest critics with legal action.

He has compelled a London-based central banking news publication to unpublish an article about his tumultuous resignation, written by a former Reserve Bank senior staffer, turned blogger, Michael Reddell.

NZ Herald Wellington business editor Jenee Tibshraeny explained further.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jane tib Chraney, the Herald's Wellington Business editors with us.
Hello Jane, Hi, Heather. Okay, So, now that Michael Riddell
has taken the blog down and got it unpublished from
the London based outfit, is that the end of the
legal action from Adrian All.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
It would appear so so Adrianall wasn't very happy with
Michael Riddell. He's a former Reserve Bank staffer. He's had
a long history work for the Treasury of the IMF.
Michael has been a long standing critic of the Reserve
Bank and he has this blog which all the nerdy
insiders read, and he has been meticulously doing official information

(00:35):
at requests and documenting the saga around Adrianall, also criticizing
the Reserve Bank's policymaking. So it would appear that Adrian
had enough, but he definitely didn't like an article that
Michael wrote for a central banking London based magazine got
Michael here and case on the case came in with

(00:56):
a big threat and the article was taken down. Interestingly,
the Reserve Bank also complained to the London based publication.
It's lawyer came down super hard. It's just actually released
just this afternoon a letter under the Official Information Act,
you know, showing exactly what the Reserve Bank lawyer said.

(01:18):
He came down very strongly so between the KC and
the Reserve Bank. The Central Banking magazine took the thing down.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Have you read the article?

Speaker 2 (01:31):
I have, because Michael Riddell had it on his blog
for a time and I did catch it.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
So spot the old mistakes.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Basically, Michael documented he basically wrote about a lot of
what he'd previously written about in his blog. So there
was nothing that people haven't sort of heard before. Nothing
hasn't been discussed in circles before. But you know, you
have to be very careful when you do allegations and

(02:03):
and you know, so I suppose I won't pass judgment
on whether it was defamatory. But there weren't any sort
of anything in there that hasn't been discussed in Michael's
blogs in the past.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Okay, now the Reserve Bank released its Financial Stability Report.
What are they worried about?

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah, so for once, they're not that worried about the
property market. So they note that house prices are at
the upper end of sustainable. Of course, they've come down
a lot since they peaked in twenty twenty one. The
Reserve Bank, thanks new lending isn't too risky, But what
it is worried about is the equity market. So it
says that there could be vulnerabilities below the recovery that

(02:42):
we've seen since Donald Trump announced as his tariffs. It
particularly notes, you know, things could turn if investors start
to get worried about those highly valued tech and AI stocks.
You know, those are arguably overvalued. There's a lot of
talk about those being a bubble. The bank is also
worried about health insurance. So people have noticed that their

(03:03):
health insurance premiums have gone up by nineteen percent over
the past year, which is huge. The bank, you know,
notes that health insurance are dealing with cost increases in
the health sector and is sort of keeping a close
eye on their books. So that's a bit unfortunate because
just as those home insurance premiums stopped rising super rapidly,

(03:26):
now we have health insurance going up.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Now, how does health insurance affect financial stability?

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Well, the Reserve Bank regulates insurance, so it keeps an
eye on their financials and that's why insurance is part
of their okay you know, is part.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Of them what they look at. Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
It does fall into their perview. So we never really
talk about health insurance. You know, it's all about the
housing market. So for once the health insurance a little
bit in their report was quite interesting.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
Yeah, that is fascinating. Thanks very much, appreciate it. Gene Tipcherani,
the Herald's Wellington Business editor. For more from Heather Duplessy
Allen Drive, listen live to News Talks ed B from
four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.