Thomas Coughlan: NZ Herald political editor on the new documents revealing why Adrian Orr resigned as Reserve Bank Governor

Revelation of long-awaited details of Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr's March resignation.

In February, Orr emailed his board - saying there were significant differences in the funding needed and how much the Government would provide.

The bank confirmed its board agreed to a lesser amount of funding and that caused Orr's resignation.

NZ Herald political editor Thomas Coughlan says it's unclear why the central bank was so secretive about this matter.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thomas Coglan, the Herald's political editors, with us A Thomas Afternoon.
Why did the Reserve Bank keep this a secret?

Speaker 2 (00:06):
I mean, this is the real question. So we've been
waiting for months now for these documents on the Reserve
Bank Governor Adrian Law's resignation to be released. He resigned
on the fifth of March usually when these things are
supposed to be released in twenty working days. So do
the met on that they were released today and they
have confirmed what we suspected at the time. In fact,

(00:26):
we put it on the front page of The Herald
at the time, which is that he quit over the
funding agreement, which is the deal that the bank does
with the Finance Minister to determine their budget for the
next five years. So no one knows, and even Nikola Willis,
the Finance Minister, is pretty unimpressed with the time it's
taken the bank to release.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
But even she herself has been asked by myself on
the show numerous times why it was that he quit,
and she would not say.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
What.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Why did everybody keep it a secret till today? It's
not even that it's not even that.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Explosive, honestly, that this is we don't know, we haven't
done it's a receiss weeks, we haven't been able to
ask anyone about it, and and and when the politicians
pop their heads up, when when Parliament comes back to
sit again, and then that will be the first question
we ask them. And obviously on your show too, it's
it's it is such a The strange thing to me

(01:18):
is that the truth of the matter, which is that
this was this dispute over the funding agreement, it's actually
quite you know, none, it's benign.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
It's it's totally benign.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
It's almost boring. It's it's it's predictable. It was known
at the time, was suspected at the time, so no
one can really explain why the bank has been so
secretive about this. It's strange. If I just speculated myself,
I think that the bank, the Reserve Bank, does have
a bit of a culture of you know, it's less transparent, sire,

(01:48):
we say than other other agencies in the government.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Yeah, I agree. I think the Reserve Bank has got
so deep into keeping secrets that it doesn't even know
what a worthwhile secret is anymore. It's just kind of
got a default secrecy. Do you know what I mean,
But does it look to you, Thomas like what happened
is he packed the tanty. He was undermined by Neil
Quigley who said, yeah, actually, don't worry, We'll take a
funding cut. That set him off. That happened over the weekend.

(02:10):
He then said, right, if I can't get my money,
I'm quitting. Didn't turn up to work on Monday, and
everybody went, oh, geez, maybe he isn't. So they convened
a meeting at the Reserve Bank. What happens if he
does actually resign? Nicola Willis got ready and then he
quit on Wednesday. Finally, is that what it looks like happened?

Speaker 2 (02:25):
That's yeah, I mean, that's that's that's roughly the chain
of events. But but I mean, even then there was this.
Even then, it doesn't seem to be a recognition of
the gravity of what was going on and just how
this was play out. But the day that Adrian All
actually the resignation was announced and basically you know that
the chain of events became irreversible. He was still thinking
that he'd appear the next day at that that Central

(02:46):
Banking conference in Wellington, and but actually explained to everyone
what went, Yeah, don't.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
You think that was a chirpy little threat?

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Though, well, that's yeah, that's that is certainly one way
to read it. That is, that is certainly one way
to read it. That was that was an internal and
internal message though but perhaps yea, perhaps it wasn't interpreted
as a.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Board he had a falling out with it. I mean,
that's how I like to deliver my threats, don't you
my voice?

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Well, the other interesting thing as well is that the board.
She and Neil quickly spoke to Interest the Interest website
today and at the time he said in the talking
points revealed today was that the you know, the the
decision to resign was a personal one of the governor,
and obviously every decision to resign it's usually partly personal.
But he was asked by Interest, you know these documents
in dashaw that actually wasn't a personal reason for for

(03:31):
the resignation. It was a professional reason. That was, it
was a matter of principle that he refused to take
this funding cut, and and and Neil quickly didn't really
he did. He didn't. When speaking to Interest Square the Circle,
he was not able to to to describe how that
personal decision that that personal remark that he made a
few months ago squared with the truth of the matter,

(03:54):
which is that this clearly was a professional resignation.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Okay, so this brings us to something else, because clearly
what's happened is the resil Bank has just been caught fibbing,
haven't they? Like they have been playing with semantics to
the point that actually they it crossed into a lie arguably.
So now the problem is they just look like a
bunch of fibbers, don't they. And this brings us to
what's going on with a lot of pr at the moment.
You have media people just outright telling fibbs.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Yeah, I mean, I mean that would you can only
really speak to what they can only speak to to
what they have known and what they have said. And
if there is any difference between the truth of the
matter that they know to be the truth and what
they have said, well, certainly, certainly what was said in
March seems quite different to what these documents reveal.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thomas Thomas Coglan,
the Herald's political editor. So what Thomas was talking about
is interest dot co, Doon and Z got Neil quickly
on the phone, right because he had previously said Adrian
Or had resigned due to a personal decision that was
not motivated by any policy disagreements. So they got him
on the phone interest dock Codin and said, and they said, Tom, hey,
why did you say that when it was obviously actually

(04:59):
a policy disagree it was it was the funding disagreement.
And he said he stood by he stood by what
he had said, and he said, the things that I
said at the time were true. It was a personal
decision for him to resign, which is just a load
of crap, isn't it. I mean, every every every person
resigns for a personal reason. It's their personal decision in
the end, isn't it. But that's not what people take
from the phrase personal decision. I'm not interested said Neil

(05:22):
in having you question me like you're a lawyer. For
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