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 (00:00):
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's been working his way
through the document dump from the bank today him Michael HeLa.
It hardly seems it seems something worth keeping a secret

(00:22):
for what three months?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Does it? 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 trying to protect Adrian because I mean widely
make the point that the issues about the budget. I

(00:45):
think it's also about Adrian's personality. You know, every government
department chief executive in Wellington's had to cope with budget
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 1 (01:07):
Do you think that it was kind of sparked by
the fact that Neil quickly appears to have undermined him.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
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 bid for a
billion dollars last sort of July or August, sent it

(01:34):
up to the minister, and eventually it became clear that
the Minister and Treasury unsurprisingly're 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, are saying. Chief Executive
would also have reached much the same view that if said, look,

(01:55):
I don't like it, but in the end, she's the
Minister of Finance, it's her call. Do you think he
is the fight that the governor couldn't win and shouldn't
have got this this emotionally involved in it. There were
discraced described in the statement as the governor became distressed. Well,
you know, it's like a toddler.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Do you think he really thought that he would be
opening the conference the day after he quit?

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Well, it's sort of weird, isn't it. I mean that
email is literally an hour before the press statement went out,
and I started 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

(02:42):
someone either quickly or hawks he took on the side
and said, look, Adrian, go away, it's not your day.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Is there any explanation in the documentation as to why
they referred to his resignation as Project Baroda.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
I think that's just what corporates will do, government agencies would.
So 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 1 (03:10):
But why Baroda? What's the song?

Speaker 2 (03:12):
I mean, Broda wasn't 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, abudant
z and this may have just been the random being
name that came up.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
Brilliant, Michael, Thank you very much. Appreciated as always, Michael Radelle,
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 McDermot, Naomi Mitchell, Nick McBride, and helenkin Kaid,
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 Wednesday. But on the Monday they

(03:45):
have this meeting. They get together and they're going to
talk about it. Number one item on the agenda, well
being check in dot everybody is doing okay. We all
need to work there, just to make sure we're all okay.
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(04:07):
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