Jack Tame: The Reserve Bank's mistake was trying to protect its reputation

Whether it’s the government, international organisations, higher education, or the media, one of the defining dynamics of the social media age is the deteriorating trust in public institutions. 

It’s extraordinary, really. At a time when humans are on the whole wealthier, healthier, and more dominant than at any other time in our species’ history, we’re more distrustful of the institutions that are supposed to serve us. 

Saturday Mornings is usually a monetary policy-free zone, and I promise to mostly keep it that way for now. But it was pretty remarkable at the close of play last night to see an announcement from the Finance Minister about the Chair of the Reserve Bank. Neil Quigley had resigned, effective immediately, following further revelations about his handling of former Governor Adrian Orr’s departure. Nicola Willis confirmed to Newstalk ZB that if Quigley hadn’t offered his resignation, she’d have asked for it. 

I don’t expect everyone to follow all of the Reserve Bank dramas. But the long and short of it is that former Governor Adrian Orr got in a dispute with the government over the bank’s funding. It turned into a showdown of sorts, the Reserve Bank Board raised concerns with him about his conduct (some of which he disputed), and after taking leave for a few days he ultimately resigned. But instead of being absolutely transparent about the dispute and what had actually happened, the RBNZ Chair Neil Quigley told media that Orr had resigned for “personal reasons”. 

If this was just some rando then no harm no foul. But Adrian Orr was the Governor of the Reserve Bank, one of the most powerful public servants in the country. His pen stroke and the decisions of his Monetary Policy Committee could be the difference between thousands or hundreds of thousands of people losing their jobs or homes. 

Like many journalists, I didn’t buy the “personal reasons” explanation and felt we all deserved to know more detail about what had actually happened. Ater all, this wasn’t a private company. The Reserve Bank serves us. After Neil Quigley’s explanation, and after the Reserve Bank declined for Adrian Orr to be interviewed, I even went to the extreme length of sending him a letter at his home asking him to front. It’s something I’d almost never do, but the public deserved an explanation. And it’s taken until now and a ruling from the ombudsman for us to get the full story. 

I think there are lessons in this for all of us who work in jobs that purport to serve the public. In my role, I think about trust a lot.     

And look, I know this is very different to the Reserve Bank, much lower stakes, but I had the chance to reflect on my own work this week, and tried to lean into the spirit of introspection and openness.   

I was on a podcast, re_covering, in which Newstalk ZB’s Frank Ritchie asks journalists to reflect on a story they covered. 

I didn’t choose one which I’d absolutely nailed. Instead, I reflected on my five years as TVNZ’s US Correspondent, and on my surprise at the first election of Donald Trump. As I said on re_covering, the fact so many of us were so shocked by the result (including Trump!) shows I and the rest of the news media covering that election had done a massively insufficient job of reflecting the scale of the anger and dissatisfaction with the status quo in the US. That election changed the world. Ultimately, I hope reflecting on my surprise will make me more sceptical of conventional wisdom, and better at my job today.   

Humans are fallible. We all make mistakes. But the Reserve Bank episode demonstrates the best thing a public institution can do to protect its reputation is not try and protect its reputation. Just admit when you got things wrong. Admit things that make you look bad. Learn lessons the hard way. Convince the public you have nothing to hide by showing us you have nothing to hide. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks at b.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Whether it's the government, like international organizations, you know, like
the UN and that kind of thing, higher education so universities,
or well even the media. Actually, one of the defining
dynamics of this social media age is the deteriorating trust
in public institutions. And it's kind of extraordinary when you

(00:36):
think about it. At a time when humans are on
the whole, wealthier, healthier, more dominant than at any other
time in our species history, we are also more distrustful
of the institutions that are supposed to serve us. So look,
Saturday Mornings is usually a monetary policy free zoned. For

(00:57):
the most part, we are ninety nine point ninety seven
percent monetary policy free and I promise to mostly keep
it that way for an hour. But I gotta say
it was pretty remarkable at the close of play last
night to see an announcement from the Finance Minister about
the Chair of the Reserve Bank, Neil Quiggley, had resigned
effective immediately, following further revelations about his handling of the

(01:19):
former Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Or's departure. Nikola Willis then
confirmed to news Talks he'd be that if Quiggly hadn't
offered his resignation, she would have asked for it. Now, look,
I do not expect anyone to follow all of the
Reserve Bank dramas. But the long and short of it

(01:41):
is that the condensed version is that the former governor,
Adrian Or, got in a dispute with the government about
the bank's funding and it kind of turned into a
bit of a showdown of sorts, and the Reserve Bank
Board raised concerns with him about his conduct, some of
which he disputed, and after taking leave for a couple
of days you remember this, Adrian Or ultimately resigned. But

(02:04):
instead of being absolutely transparent about the dispute and about
what had actually happened, the Reserve Bank chair Neil quickly
told media at the time that Adrian Or had resigned
for quote personal reasons. Ah, yes, the old personal reasons. Eh. Look,

(02:25):
if this was just some rando, then no harm, no foul.
But Adrian Or was the governor of the Reserve Bank,
one of the most powerful public servants in the country,
if not the most powerful public servants in the country.
His pen stroke the decisions of the Monetary Policy Committee
can be the difference between like thousands or hundreds of

(02:48):
thousands of people losing their jobs or homes. Let me
just think about the decisions they made over the last
few years. Got all the decisions over COVID that contributed
to huge spike in inflation in this country. But then
the Reserve Bank has effectively admitted that it has deliberately
engineered a recession. I mean that committee and the decisions

(03:08):
of the Reserve Bank Governor directly impact the lives of
hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of us. So, like
many journos, I didn't buy the personal reasons explanation, and
I just kind of felt like we all deserve to
have more detail about what had actually happened. After all,
this wasn't a private company. The Reserve Bank serves us.

(03:31):
And after Neil Quigley's explanation, after the Reserve Bank declined
for Adrian Or to be interviewed, I personally went to
the extreme length of sending Adrian Or a letter at
his home asking him to do an interview. Now, that
is something that I would usually never do. I would
usually never do something like that, but I just felt

(03:52):
so strongly the public deserved an explanation, and it's taken
until now and a ruling from the ombudsman for us
to actually get the full story. So look, I think
there are lessons in this for all of us who
work in job that purport to serve the public. And
even though my job was very different to that of

(04:13):
the Reserve Bank governor, I think about trust a lot,
and look, I get it. This is totally different to
the Reserve Bank. I'm not setting interest rates much much,
much lower stakes. But I had the chance to reflect
on my own work this week, and in the spirit
of introspection and openness, I tried to lean in. So

(04:35):
I was on this podcast. The podcast is called Recovering,
in which news storks zedb's Frank Ritchie asks journalists to
reflect on a story that they covered in the past.
And I didn't choose a story that I had absolutely nailed.
This wasn't a big award winner, right. Instead, I reflected
on my five years as TVNZ's US correspondent, and this

(05:00):
is going back a few years, but I reflected on
my surprise at the first election of Donald Trump back
in twenty sixteen, and as I said on recovering the
fact that so many of us, not just in the
media but in society were so shocked by the results,
including Donald Trump. I'll remind you. I just think it

(05:21):
shows that I and the rest of the news media
covering that election had done a massively insufficient job of
reflecting the scale of the anger and the dissatisfaction with
the status quo in the US. I mean that election
changed the world, and ultimately I hope that reflecting on
my surprise at the result will make me more skeptical

(05:44):
of conventional wisdom and better at my job today. The
thing is humans are fallible a we all make mistakes,
we all do. But the Reserve Bank episode demonstrates that
the best thing a public institution can do to protect
its reputation is not try and protect its reputation. Just
admit when you got things wrong, Admit when things are

(06:07):
a bit awkward, Admit things that make you look bad.
Learn lessons the hard way. Convince the public that you
have nothing to hide by showing us you have nothing
to hide.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
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