Geof Mortlock: Former Reserve Bank Senior Staffer on Adrian Orr's resignation, performance as Governor

A former Reserve Bank senior staffer ranks Adrien Orr as the least competent Reserve Bank Governor New Zealand's ever had. 

Orr's announced he's quitting two years into his second five year tenure. 

Geof Mortlock told Mike Hosking there's been many negative results from his monetary policies. 

He contends Orr has left New Zealand taxpayers with more than $10 billion of debt. 

His shock exit announcement yesterday comes as the bank is in the process of agreeing its funding increase for the next five years. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So Adrianaor's departure seemingly coming out of nowhere. He is
halfway through a second term, years to go on the contract,
and he's gone for more Reserve Bank senior staff for
Jeff Mortloguxe. But it's Jeff, very good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Yes, yeah, morning, Mike, as he pecked as said he
appears to have and with no apparent reason for it
and no explanation.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Could we read into it that the funding debate between
the government and the Board at the moment might have
something to do with it.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Well, look, that would be a reasonable interpretation. I think
the understanding I have is that there have been tensions
between the Reserve Bank and the Minister over the funding
negotiations and that wouldn't surprise me given how much the
budget has increased, just how much they have been spending

(00:51):
in the last seven years under Asian all.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Exactly why have they needed or wanted so much more
money and what have they spent it on into end?

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Well, look, some of it was probably reasonable in the
sense that they have been upgrading the banking supervision area
from a very low level of staffing to a more
reasonable level. Some of it is gearing up for the
deposit insurance scheme, so that I can understand. But the
where it gets strange is they are the increased staffing

(01:26):
dramatically in the pr area to an astronomical level. A
lot of it seems to have gone into some of
the nefarious projects, some of their cultural projects and so forth.
And when you look at the staffing levels dramatically increased,

(01:48):
was he just building a flight wing? Wrong? Sorry?

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Was he just building a fivedom? Well?

Speaker 2 (01:55):
I think that the setting an element of that. He
was wanting, I think to increase his loud speaker so
that he could involve the Reserve Bank in the kind
of issues that he wanted to see it more proactive in.
And some of those issues were not even ones that

(02:15):
were really part of the Reserve Bank's core mandate.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Given what happened yesterday, literally in the fact he let
the building know and could explain it properly, do they
owe us an explanation or is.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
That just life now? I think they do. I mean,
he was governor of the Reserve Bank. It's a key role,
and I think that when the chief executive of a
major public institution resigns there should be an explanation. And
I think if it doesn't come from the resigning governor

(02:51):
in a formal statement, then it should come from the
chairman of the board. And yesterday we had yet another
demonstration of evasive explanations from the German Neil quickly.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
In simple terms, where's he said? Hopeless worst moderate?

Speaker 2 (03:15):
I was thinking that, going through all of the governors
since nineteen thirty four, I would rank him as the
worst in terms of competence, based really on the monetary
policy results. You look at the inflation burst, and some

(03:37):
of that was external, but some of it was definitely
a function of monetary policy actions. He's left taxpayers with
over ten billion dollars of debt that could have gone
into the public health system and other such things. He's
nearly doubled the staff numbers of the Reserve Bank, and

(04:03):
he's jacked up bank capital ratios to levels that I
think are going to make it more difficult for the
economy to actually start growing again.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Well, so, Jeff, appreciate it. Jeff Motlock, I used to
work at the Reserve Bank.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
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