Latest / Best of Business / Michael Reddell: former Reserve Bank economist on the new reports revealing why Adrian Orr left the RBNZ

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Michael Reddell: former Reserve Bank economist on the new reports revealing why Adrian Orr left the RBNZ · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from news Talk zed Be
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• 0:16
  Speaker 2: So we've finally being told the real reason why Adrian
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  Speaker 2: all quit his Reserve Bank governor job, and it's surprisingly benign.
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  Speaker 2: He quit because the Finance Minister wouldn't give the Reserve
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  Speaker 2: Bank as much money as he wanted. Now, Michael Riddell
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  Speaker 2: is a former Reserve Bank Economisty he's been working his
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  Speaker 2: way through the document dump from the bank today him Michael, Heila.
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  Speaker 2: It hardly seems it seems something worth keeping a secret
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  Speaker 2: for what three months? Does it?
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  Speaker 3: No, it's just extraordinary. I mean, you know, maybe they
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  Speaker 3: couldn't tell off the full story on the day that
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  Speaker 3: the new Reserve Bank funding agreement was published on sixteenth
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  Speaker 3: of April. There's absolutely no excuse for lack of clarity
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  Speaker 3: at that point. I mean, who knows quite why. I
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  Speaker 3: probably try to protect Adrian because I mean, while you
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  Speaker 3: make the point that the issues about the budget, I
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  Speaker 3: think it's also about Adrian's personality. You know, every government
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  Speaker 3: department chief executive in Wellington's had to cope with cuts
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  Speaker 3: in the last eighteen months. A lot of them probably
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  Speaker 3: thought they should grow their own agencies. But they acted
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  Speaker 3: like adults. They got on, they didn't toss their toys
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  Speaker 3: walk out without notice. You know, Adrian's behaved more like
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  Speaker 3: a moody teenager over inevitable fiscal restraint.
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  Speaker 2: Do you think that it was kind of sparked by
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  Speaker 2: the fact that Neil quickly appears to have undermined him.
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  Speaker 3: No, I reached out that. I mean, Neil has spent
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  Speaker 3: all the time he's been chair basically providing cover for
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  Speaker 3: the governor. I mean, I think where you'd rephrase that
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  Speaker 3: is that the board seems to have eventually faced reality
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  Speaker 3: in a way that the governor wouldn't. So, you know,
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  Speaker 3: the board signed on to this massive bed for a
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  Speaker 3: billion dollars last sort of July or August, sent up
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  Speaker 3: to the minister, and eventually it became the year that
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  Speaker 3: the Minister and Treasury unsurprisingly not going to agree with that.
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  Speaker 3: You know, any sensible person on that board would have gone,
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  Speaker 3: you know, will ultimately ministers make these decisions, not us,
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  Speaker 3: We have to bow to reality. A s chief executive
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  Speaker 3: would also have reached much the same view that I
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  Speaker 3: seem like, I don't like it, but in the end
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  Speaker 3: she's the Minister of Finance. It's her call.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think he.
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  Speaker 3: Is the fight that the governor couldn't win and shouldn't
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  Speaker 3: have got this this emotionally involved in it. There were
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  Speaker 3: disgraced described in the statement as the governor became distressed. Well,
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  Speaker 3: you know, it's like a toddler.
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  Speaker 2: Do you think he really thought that he would be
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  Speaker 2: opening the conference the day after he quit?
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  Speaker 3: Well, it's sort of weird, isn't it. I mean that
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  Speaker 3: email is literally an hour before the press statement went out,
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  Speaker 3: and that's fun. It beyond comprehension. I mean maybe he
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  Speaker 3: must have I mean it's there, but how you know,
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  Speaker 3: there just seems to have a bit of detachment from reality.
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  Speaker 3: Presumably someone either quickly or hawks he took on the
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  Speaker 3: side and said, look, Adrian, go away, it's not your day.
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  Speaker 2: Is there any explanation in the documentary as to why
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  Speaker 2: they referred to his resignation as Project Baroda.
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  Speaker 3: I think that's just what corporates will do, government agencies
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  Speaker 3: will do. You want to have some innocuous name so
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  Speaker 3: that if people are searching around your document managements, they
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  Speaker 3: don't find document resignation of governor.
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  Speaker 2: But why Baroda what's the song.
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  Speaker 3: Of I mean BRODA was them as a bank that
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  Speaker 3: was operating in New Zealand, one of the Indian ones.
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  Speaker 3: But they might just have some alphabetical list that you know,
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  Speaker 3: ABU down to Z and this may have just been
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  Speaker 3: the random being name that came up.
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  Speaker 2: Brilliant, Michael, Thank you very much. Appreciated as always. Michael Riddell,
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  Speaker 2: former Reserve Bank Governor. Look, I don't know what this
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  Speaker 2: tells you about working in the public service. But they
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  Speaker 2: have the meeting, right so they're having this meeting. It's
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  Speaker 2: Christian hawksby John McDermott, Naomi Mitchell, Nick McBride and helenkincaid,
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  Speaker 2: and they're having this meeting with on the Monday. He's
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  Speaker 2: packed the tanty over the weekend and he's quitting, and
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  Speaker 2: he finally quits on the Wednesday. But on the Monday
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  Speaker 2: they have this meeting. They get together and they're going
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  Speaker 2: to talk about it. Number one item on the agenda. Well,
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  Speaker 2: be chick in dot everybody is doing okay. We all
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  Speaker 2: need to work there, just to make sure we're all okay.
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