Latest / The SME Stream / Reserve Bank interview: Rates, recession & resilience [VIDEO]
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: The information provided in this program is of a general
- 0:02Speaker 1: nature and is not intended to be personalized financial advice.
- 0:05Speaker 1: We encourage you to seek appropriate advice from a qualified
- 0:07Speaker 1: professional to suit your individual circumstances. Rates are on the
- 0:10Speaker 1: way down alongside measured inflation, while unemployments and business insolvencies
- 0:16Speaker 1: are tacking up. This is the situation the Reserve Bank
- 0:19Speaker 1: engineered through monetary policy, So what has it learned about
- 0:22Speaker 1: the impact it can have.
- 0:24Speaker 2: We've been confident through that period that monetary policy is working,
- 0:28Speaker 2: it's doing its job, it's panning out. The uncertainties have
- 0:32Speaker 2: been around the speed and intensity of that.
- 0:54Speaker 1: The Reserve Bank has officially started to loosen its grip
- 0:56Speaker 1: on the economy.
- 0:58Speaker 3: Reducing the official cash rate to five point twenty five percent.
- 1:02Speaker 1: It was the first cut since twenty twenty. Rates have
- 1:05Speaker 1: been on a roller coaster arrived since then as the
- 1:07Speaker 1: Reserve Bank tried to get inflation under control, with the
- 1:11Speaker 1: ocr going from a record low in twenty twenty up
- 1:14Speaker 1: to the highest level since two thousand and eight and
- 1:17Speaker 1: the space of two years. As a result, we're in
- 1:20Speaker 1: a recession according to the Central Bank's own updated projections.
- 1:25Speaker 1: Unemployment is ticking up and hundreds of businesses have gone
- 1:28Speaker 1: and solvent in the past few months. The market saw
- 1:32Speaker 1: all this coming. It was heavily pricing in interest rate
- 1:35Speaker 1: cuts ahead of the Reserve Bank's move. It's now expected
- 1:39Speaker 1: to keep going. The Central Bank's forecast suggests the ocr
- 1:42Speaker 1: will fall to three percent by twenty twenty seven. Such
- 1:46Speaker 1: decisions are made in this room in Wellington, where the
- 1:49Speaker 1: Governor spoke to me earlier this year, including about Howard's
- 1:52Speaker 1: own decisions contributed to what our economy has endured.
- 1:56Speaker 3: Central banks globally, including US, as well as fiscal authority porities,
- 2:01Speaker 3: humped money in to keep jobs and livelihoods going as
- 2:07Speaker 3: we work through that period of extreme uncertainty.
- 2:11Speaker 1: While the Reserve Bank is easing off the gas in
- 2:13Speaker 1: regards to rates, it's adding tougher restrictions on mortgage lending.
- 2:18Speaker 1: Could that mean it's concerned about the stability of our
- 2:20Speaker 1: financial system given how hard it's been tested, I asked
- 2:24Speaker 1: the Deputy Governor, Christian Hawksby. At the Financial Services Council
- 2:28Speaker 1: and your conference and Lawlands, you sit on the Manager
- 2:33Speaker 1: Policy Committee. You've been with the Reserve Bank for a
- 2:37Speaker 1: while now. You've been at the forefront of some of
- 2:39Speaker 1: the biggest momentous decisions. And Christian has also told me
- 2:43Speaker 1: that nothing is off limits today, so I'm very excited
- 2:46Speaker 1: for this.
- 2:47Speaker 4: Can I just get a show of hands?
- 2:48Speaker 3: First?
- 2:49Speaker 1: Who he has a mortgage? And it's a bit of
- 2:50Speaker 1: a personal question, but you're all in financial services, so
- 2:53Speaker 1: it's a.
- 2:54Speaker 4: Crime if you don't have one.
- 2:55Speaker 1: Wow, looks like about ninety percent of the room on
- 2:58Speaker 1: behalf of all of those hands. Christian, thank you for
- 3:00Speaker 1: cutting the official cash rates. We have the data, so
- 3:03Speaker 1: everyone who put their hand up is very grateful. We're
- 3:05Speaker 1: going to discuss that decision in more detail, but also
- 3:09Speaker 1: I want to talk about what everything that the Reserve
- 3:11Speaker 1: Bank has been through over the sort of rollercoaster ride
- 3:13Speaker 1: with rates and prudential tools, and ultimately what the banks
- 3:18Speaker 1: learn from it. But first of I can sort of
- 3:20Speaker 1: paint the picture of the system and where it's at
- 3:23Speaker 1: right now. We had record mortgages in twenty twenty one,
- 3:27Speaker 1: A number of those, a significant amount of those were
- 3:29Speaker 1: also at six times people's income. We've had a tripling
- 3:34Speaker 1: in retail interest rates since then. Now we have the
- 3:38Speaker 1: tick up and unemployment slight tick up and defaults and
- 3:41Speaker 1: increased business dissolvencies. How stable is the financial system given
- 3:46Speaker 1: all of that, Christian.
- 3:48Speaker 2: Well, you've just given me a plunt for our Financial
- 3:50Speaker 2: Stability Report which is out in November, which covers all
- 3:54Speaker 2: of that ground. We think the financial systems in a
- 3:58Speaker 2: good position it is are resilient, and we've done a
- 4:02Speaker 2: lot of work through time to build up that resilience.
- 4:04Speaker 4: You know, if I was at this conference a few
- 4:06Speaker 4: years ago.
- 4:07Speaker 2: I've been talking about the Capital Review and the way
- 4:09Speaker 2: that we were building up capital requirements and liquidity requirements
- 4:14Speaker 2: for the banking system, Implementing macro prudential tools like the
- 4:19Speaker 2: loan to value restriction and now the debt to income
- 4:21Speaker 2: restriction as well. All of those things have been about
- 4:25Speaker 2: building up resilience in the financial system so it can
- 4:28Speaker 2: weather these ups and downs, because we will go through
- 4:32Speaker 2: economic cycles along the way. What we've been really pleased
- 4:37Speaker 2: about is the way that financial institutions have used that
- 4:43Speaker 2: resilience to stick with their customers through those ups and
- 4:47Speaker 2: downs and communicated very early about if you're having problems,
- 4:52Speaker 2: come and talk to us. We can work with you.
- 4:54Speaker 2: There are things that we can do. We think that
- 4:57Speaker 2: that's one of the benefits that comes from from building
- 5:00Speaker 2: that resilience through time.
- 5:03Speaker 1: What you're very focus died at the Central Bank as well,
- 5:05Speaker 1: is this balance between resilience and competition. I think it's
- 5:09Speaker 1: fair to say we're pretty lucky to have quite a
- 5:11Speaker 1: resilient financial system through everything that we've been through. But
- 5:14Speaker 1: this government now is pretty help beent on increasing competition
- 5:16Speaker 1: in the banking sector, especially after the Commerce Commission's most
- 5:19Speaker 1: recent reports. How will that shift the balance between resilience
- 5:23Speaker 1: and competition and everything else you have to keep in focus.
- 5:26Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's a great question, and we've been
- 5:28Speaker 2: very engaged in the Communce Commission's market study, both at
- 5:32Speaker 2: a draft level ander and the final report that's come
- 5:36Speaker 2: out as well. I think, just in terms of the
- 5:39Speaker 2: structure of the banking system and the financial system that
- 5:42Speaker 2: we're at it, there are a lot of returns to scale.
- 5:47Speaker 2: So being big as a financial institution does give you
- 5:51Speaker 2: a competitive advantage because you can spread those costs of
- 5:55Speaker 2: operating over a much wider customer base. So just inherently,
- 6:00Speaker 2: I think the system is one where there is an
- 6:03Speaker 2: advantage to being big, and it is an advantage from
- 6:06Speaker 2: scale as opposed to anything else.
- 6:10Speaker 4: What we're looking at is as.
- 6:13Speaker 2: It chatted about, you know, where is it that we
- 6:15Speaker 2: can on the margin promote our competition as well? Where
- 6:19Speaker 2: can we push ourselves to think do the rules need
- 6:23Speaker 2: to be the same for different types of institutions.
- 6:27Speaker 4: So just to bring.
- 6:28Speaker 2: This to life at the moment, we're consulting on the
- 6:31Speaker 2: Deposit Taker Act. One of the things is the minimum
- 6:35Speaker 2: amount of capital that you need to even be a
- 6:37Speaker 2: deposit taker at the moment, well, under previous rules as
- 6:42Speaker 2: to be a bank you needed at least thirty million
- 6:44Speaker 2: dollars capital then to get a license.
- 6:47Speaker 4: You know, it's a serious business being a bank.
- 6:49Speaker 2: You're taking risks, requires a lot of trust and confidence.
- 6:54Speaker 2: We're looking at that now across both banks and non
- 6:58Speaker 2: bank deposit takers in consultant with the industry and say
- 7:02Speaker 2: what do you think right number is We've put out
- 7:06Speaker 2: five to ten million dollars as a starting point for
- 7:10Speaker 2: that conversation, and that might be a more achievable level
- 7:15Speaker 2: for a startup company that maybe isn't going to provide
- 7:18Speaker 2: all banking services, but might provide some banking services. And
- 7:24Speaker 2: that's I think that's the way of the future, that
- 7:28Speaker 2: there will be different types of financial institutions providing different
- 7:32Speaker 2: pieces of what banks do at the moment.
- 7:35Speaker 1: Interesting on resilience than big guys. Nothing's too big to
- 7:38Speaker 1: fail though.
- 7:39Speaker 2: As a Christian first and foremost, we want to build
- 7:42Speaker 2: resilience such that we don't have failures. But we don't
- 7:46Speaker 2: have a zero failure regime. We can't guarantee that's not
- 7:49Speaker 2: going to happen. So in New Zealand we have a
- 7:52Speaker 2: thing called Open Bank Resolution, and we have for the
- 7:55Speaker 2: big banks we have outsourcing requirements which mean, hey, make
- 8:00Speaker 2: sure that you don't have to rely on your big
- 8:03Speaker 2: Aussie parent for everything that you do.
- 8:05Speaker 4: Make sure that you can be able to stand alone
- 8:07Speaker 4: if you need to.
- 8:09Speaker 2: And Open Bank Resolution gives us the tools to shut
- 8:13Speaker 2: down a bank and reopen it.
- 8:16Speaker 1: As a going concern, there must be at least some
- 8:19Speaker 1: level of concern about resilience of the system given what
- 8:22Speaker 1: it's been through. Because you are making some regulatory changes
- 8:26Speaker 1: of the margin lvrs have been loosened slightly in favor
- 8:29Speaker 1: of bringing in new.
- 8:30Speaker 4: Debt to income restrictions.
- 8:32Speaker 1: Why are you adding new tools into the mix and
- 8:34Speaker 1: what impact do you expect them to have?
- 8:36Speaker 2: Yeh, We're constantly thinking, do we have the right tools
- 8:39Speaker 2: for our mandate and the different aspects of our mandate,
- 8:43Speaker 2: the different responsibilities we have in regards to the macro
- 8:47Speaker 2: prudential tools that you mentioned. Ten years ago, we were
- 8:50Speaker 2: a pioneer in the world. We were the first country
- 8:53Speaker 2: to impose alone to value restriction and that followed the
- 8:58Speaker 2: experience from the GFC that was all about making sure
- 9:02Speaker 2: that borrowers had enough equity in their home such that
- 9:06Speaker 2: if house prices fell, they weren't a negative equity and
- 9:10Speaker 2: the banks had something as collateral there in that situation
- 9:15Speaker 2: roll the clock forward. That's just one aspect of risk
- 9:21Speaker 2: from lending through mortgages. The other, more significant one is
- 9:26Speaker 2: just the ability to service the mortgage through different states
- 9:30Speaker 2: of the world and the future different rules of interest rates,
- 9:33Speaker 2: and that's what our debt to income restrictions help us
- 9:36Speaker 2: hone in. More specifically, what we noticed looking at overseas
- 9:41Speaker 2: is that everyone had followed us in terms of everyone
- 9:44Speaker 2: else's doing macro potential tools as well, but they were
- 9:48Speaker 2: using more than one tool and being able to be
- 9:51Speaker 2: more focused, more targeted, more efficient, and enabling them to
- 9:55Speaker 2: have less restrictive settings if they get in that space.
- 9:58Speaker 4: So we're really pleased that we've got that to hand them.
- 10:00Speaker 2: Think that it's going to be somewhere down the track
- 10:03Speaker 2: and the next economic cycle that we face, they're going
- 10:06Speaker 2: to be a really important.
- 10:07Speaker 1: Part rap well on the economic cycle, and specifically the
- 10:10Speaker 1: forecast that you recently released and your monetary policy statement
- 10:13Speaker 1: for August, it showed that we are already in a
- 10:16Speaker 1: recession and we're going to be in one for the
- 10:18Speaker 1: rest of the year. Is that better worse about on
- 10:22Speaker 1: par with what you expected? And let's also be clear
- 10:24Speaker 1: that that's you know what the Reserve Bank engine, right, yea.
- 10:29Speaker 2: We spent a lot of time looking back at how
- 10:32Speaker 2: the economy has evolved, and you know, whether that's been
- 10:36Speaker 2: roughly what we expected or not.
- 10:38Speaker 4: We actually go back and look at.
- 10:40Speaker 2: Our projections back in November twenty twenty two, and actually
- 10:44Speaker 2: remember standing up in this conference. Around that time, inflation
- 10:49Speaker 2: was over seven percent and it was a real, really
- 10:53Speaker 2: uncomfortable time to be a central banker globally and here
- 10:58Speaker 2: in the New Zealand.
- 10:59Speaker 4: And we knew we needed to do at that point
- 11:02Speaker 4: was cool demand.
- 11:04Speaker 2: We were just in a position where, through that COVID experience,
- 11:08Speaker 2: that had all been trying to soften the blow of
- 11:11Speaker 2: COVID keep cash flowing, confidence going soften the blow That
- 11:16Speaker 2: response ended up being such that people just kept spending,
- 11:21Speaker 2: regardless of the fact that the productive capacity of the
- 11:25Speaker 2: global economy had been cut back, and so there was
- 11:29Speaker 2: all that demand.
- 11:29Speaker 4: We need new neck demand needed to slow that. Projections
- 11:34Speaker 4: in November twenty two show pretty much.
- 11:36Speaker 2: A profile like we've seen, which is going from an
- 11:39Speaker 2: overheating economy to one where things are better balanced and
- 11:43Speaker 2: potentially one where we've got a bit of spear capacity
- 11:46Speaker 2: for a little while as things continue to cool down
- 11:49Speaker 2: and inflation expectations really inchor back where they need to be.
- 11:54Speaker 2: So we've been confident through that period that monetary policies.
- 11:59Speaker 4: Working, it's doing its job, it's panning out.
- 12:03Speaker 2: The uncertainties have been around the speed and intensity of
- 12:07Speaker 2: that you know winds it kind of come through.
- 12:08Speaker 4: Have we seen enough yet? And so we're back in
- 12:12Speaker 4: our last.
- 12:14Speaker 2: Decision, and August was really getting to that level of
- 12:17Speaker 2: confidence that actually have seen enough now we can move
- 12:20Speaker 2: into a different zone in terms of where monetary policy is.
- 12:25Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you very specifically about that level
- 12:27Speaker 1: of confidence because but ahead of that, August Rate card decision,
- 12:32Speaker 1: the market was so heavily pricing that in they were
- 12:35Speaker 1: well ahead of what the Reserve banks on projections were
- 12:38Speaker 1: for the OCR track. Following that decision, the noise now
- 12:42Speaker 1: criticizing the Reserve Bank for not moving sooner or at
- 12:45Speaker 1: least even indicating that you were thinking about it has
- 12:48Speaker 1: been pretty overwhelm overwhelmingly loud. Why did you a not
- 12:53Speaker 1: move sooner? Was there perhaps not enough evidence that gave
- 12:55Speaker 1: you that confidence? But also why did you not indicate
- 12:59Speaker 1: that you were thinking even of moving at the stage.
- 13:03Speaker 2: Yeah, So, I'd say through this whole period, we've had
- 13:08Speaker 2: a lot of confidence that management policies working, and just
- 13:12Speaker 2: because you see it working through the different bits of
- 13:15Speaker 2: the transmission channel and it's kind of a sequence that
- 13:18Speaker 2: you would expect. So confidence that it was working, confidence
- 13:21Speaker 2: that we're on track.
- 13:23Speaker 4: But the big uncertainties.
- 13:24Speaker 2: Were really around whether it was going to be slower
- 13:29Speaker 2: than we expected in terms of work. Was price setting
- 13:32Speaker 2: behavior going to be sticky? Was it going to be slow?
- 13:34Speaker 2: Was that going to make our job harder? Were we
- 13:36Speaker 2: going to have to do more? And that was the
- 13:38Speaker 2: risk on the upside. The risk on the downside was
- 13:42Speaker 2: we've done enough but we just had we haven't seen
- 13:45Speaker 2: it come through yet, and it's going to come and
- 13:47Speaker 2: it's just ahead of us. So we're really for right
- 13:50Speaker 2: through that whole period, we're looking at those you know,
- 13:53Speaker 2: are those two risks balanced. As we went into May
- 13:57Speaker 2: earlier in the year, you think worse looking stubborn pricing
- 14:03Speaker 2: intentions were still high even though the economy was cooling,
- 14:09Speaker 2: That domestic price pressure was still high and was giving
- 14:13Speaker 2: us calls for concern. Through the course of June and July,
- 14:19Speaker 2: pretty much everything moved at once, So all of those
- 14:23Speaker 2: pricing intentions, inflation expectations, headline inflation, all these things came
- 14:28Speaker 2: down at the same time that all of the economic
- 14:32Speaker 2: activity indicators fell as well. So it gave us gave
- 14:37Speaker 2: us that confidence that would reached that level where not
- 14:40Speaker 2: only had headline inflation come down.
- 14:43Speaker 4: To a zone that were confident, but.
- 14:47Speaker 2: Capacity was really coming out of the economy, which meant
- 14:50Speaker 2: that in the future inflation would stay down in the
- 14:53Speaker 2: future as well. That happened pretty quickly through June and July.
- 14:58Speaker 2: In our July Monetary Policy review, we did change our
- 15:03Speaker 2: tone in terms of acknowledging what we were seeing, and
- 15:06Speaker 2: we started to talk about how well policy isn't going
- 15:09Speaker 2: to be restrictive forever. At some point we're going to
- 15:13Speaker 2: have to sort of start moving into a different zone.
- 15:16Speaker 2: By the time we got to August, markets were pricing
- 15:20Speaker 2: what we ended up doing. There will always be economists
- 15:23Speaker 2: on one side or other of the story, and we
- 15:26Speaker 2: hear all about that.
- 15:28Speaker 1: It's pretty crazy to think that only three years ago
- 15:30Speaker 1: the official cash rate had a zero in front of
- 15:32Speaker 1: it was at a record low. It feels like a
- 15:34Speaker 1: long time ago because look at us now, the average
- 15:37Speaker 1: one year mulgage interest rate has a seven in front
- 15:40Speaker 1: of it. Ultimately, throughout all of this, what is the
- 15:43Speaker 1: reserve band learned from the cycle? Because tools that were
- 15:47Speaker 1: kind of just being tested on paper have now actually
- 15:49Speaker 1: been tested in practice. So what have you learned about
- 15:52Speaker 1: the impact monetary policy can have and also specifically it's
- 15:55Speaker 1: correlation to certain parts of the market and economy, Like,
- 15:59Speaker 1: how's it?
- 16:00Speaker 2: Yeah, we've done a lot of reflection, as you can imagine,
- 16:04Speaker 2: we put out from a legislative point of view, every
- 16:07Speaker 2: five years we have to do a review part of
- 16:10Speaker 2: what we've learned over that period.
- 16:13Speaker 4: Have that externally reviewed.
- 16:16Speaker 2: You know, that's been pretty timely given what we've come
- 16:19Speaker 2: out of, so lots of lessons there. I think that,
- 16:24Speaker 2: you know, some of the lessons around the tools are
- 16:26Speaker 2: that actually we've got the tools that we need in
- 16:30Speaker 2: the sense of a lot of what we did. You know,
- 16:35Speaker 2: there were new tools, they had new acronyms, all of
- 16:37Speaker 2: that sort of stuff, but ultimately they were about different
- 16:41Speaker 2: ways that we can keep interest rates down. And that's
- 16:45Speaker 2: what muniture policy is about. It's when stillness is needed,
- 16:51Speaker 2: using different tools to keep interest rates as low as
- 16:53Speaker 2: you can, when you need to call things, you know,
- 16:56Speaker 2: lifting interest rates into a restrictive zone to some extent.
- 17:01Speaker 4: You know, we know we've got the tools.
- 17:03Speaker 2: A lot of the lessons were actually about where we
- 17:06Speaker 2: need to build capability, things that we need to understand
- 17:09Speaker 2: better into the future if we're in a similar situation again.
- 17:14Speaker 2: I think one of those areas is around you know,
- 17:19Speaker 2: we're very experienced on the economic cycle, the ups and
- 17:23Speaker 2: downs of consumption and investment and all that's our bread
- 17:26Speaker 2: and butter, but really having a better capability when it
- 17:30Speaker 2: comes to understanding the productive capacity of the economy. What
- 17:34Speaker 2: happens when you shut the border is what happens when
- 17:37Speaker 2: there are disruptions to supply chains, all of these things
- 17:40Speaker 2: which were very very prominent and will be more prominent
- 17:45Speaker 2: in the future of climate change and more more disruption
- 17:48Speaker 2: to the supply side of the economy. Also building capability
- 17:53Speaker 2: and understanding on the impacts of fiscal policy. You know,
- 17:59Speaker 2: there can sensus approach over the last twenty or thirty
- 18:02Speaker 2: years has been that monetary policy is in the lead
- 18:05Speaker 2: when it comes to cyclical management of the economy. Fiscal
- 18:09Speaker 2: policy just does its thing, the automatic stabilizers kick in,
- 18:12Speaker 2: you know, Texas for benefits go up, but you leave
- 18:17Speaker 2: the active management to monetary policy. What we learned through
- 18:23Speaker 2: the COVID experience is that when you get close to
- 18:25Speaker 2: the zero bound on interest rates, monetary policy needs friends
- 18:30Speaker 2: and some of your stimulus needs to be really targeted.
- 18:34Speaker 4: Then you're into the active fiscal stimulus mode.
- 18:39Speaker 2: And there's a lot of learning to do in terms
- 18:46Speaker 2: of how effective that is, the impact that has, and
- 18:49Speaker 2: I think that was probably the big the big lesson
- 18:53Speaker 2: through the COVID experience was how potent fiscal policy can
- 18:57Speaker 2: be when you have something like the wage subsidy that
- 19:02Speaker 2: creates that attachment between workers and their employers and gives
- 19:06Speaker 2: people confidence to keep spending.
- 19:09Speaker 1: Do you think out of that, then the Reserve Bank
- 19:11Speaker 1: perhaps needs to obviously you're independent, but perhaps be more
- 19:13Speaker 1: vocal on saying don't do that, it's going to be stimulatory.
- 19:18Speaker 2: What we're looking at more is a research program around
- 19:23Speaker 2: fiscal monetary coordination, So working together to understand what those
- 19:28Speaker 2: tools are, what their costs and benefits are, the different
- 19:34Speaker 2: times that they would be used, sort of building us
- 19:38Speaker 2: a type of playbook together of in these different situations.
- 19:42Speaker 2: This is what would happen first, this is what would
- 19:44Speaker 2: happen second. But through all of that you need to
- 19:48Speaker 2: respect the independence of the two organizations. We're independent for
- 19:53Speaker 2: a reason, and so that needs to be incorporated as well. Also,
- 20:01Speaker 2: you know, it's the Treasury's job to advise the Ministry
- 20:05Speaker 2: of the Finance of the day what the fiscal strategy
- 20:08Speaker 2: should be or the fiscal response should be. But ultimately
- 20:12Speaker 2: that needs to be left with the Ministry of the
- 20:15Speaker 2: Finance and the Day to make that.
- 20:16Speaker 4: Core.
- 20:17Speaker 1: On inflation and specifically inflation targeting, all central banks mostly
- 20:22Speaker 1: said that it was going to be transitory. I think
- 20:24Speaker 1: we can all kind of clearly agree now that it
- 20:27Speaker 1: wasn't and when Gangbusters stayed high for much longer than
- 20:30Speaker 1: anybody expected. Some parts certainly now proven quite sticky to
- 20:33Speaker 1: remove out of our economy effectively. What's the lesson on
- 20:37Speaker 1: the central bank's actual ability to a control, a understand
- 20:42Speaker 1: inflation and be controlled.
- 20:45Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we're all in the same boat in
- 20:48Speaker 2: the sense of, you know, we play the cards that
- 20:51Speaker 2: were dealt with and what we know at a time,
- 20:54Speaker 2: and so we go to the lengths of putting out
- 20:57Speaker 2: a projection to say, you know, this is.
- 21:00Speaker 4: What we know about the economy at the moment. These
- 21:03Speaker 4: are the.
- 21:03Speaker 2: Assumptions we're making going forward, and here's our you know,
- 21:07Speaker 2: here's our best foot forward in terms of what we
- 21:09Speaker 2: think the outlookers and what we need to do.
- 21:12Speaker 4: Because of that.
- 21:13Speaker 2: Outlook you know, then things change and we have shops come.
- 21:18Speaker 4: Along, events happen.
- 21:20Speaker 2: I think the big lesson over that post COVID experience
- 21:25Speaker 2: is just the size and the impact of supply side
- 21:30Speaker 2: shops on the economy and what they can do. And
- 21:35Speaker 2: we just hadn't experienced that before. The whole economy in
- 21:40Speaker 2: New Zealand and globally going into hibernation.
- 21:43Speaker 4: You know, people all getting sent home.
- 21:47Speaker 2: Just the way that that reduces the whole wealth of
- 21:52Speaker 2: the globe in terms of producing less things. The way
- 21:56Speaker 2: that the supply side disruptions through.
- 22:01Speaker 4: That period where you know, you go from a period where.
- 22:04Speaker 2: It's normal to have one ship docked outside Long Beach,
- 22:09Speaker 2: Los Angeles, and you went to a situation where there
- 22:12Speaker 2: are a hundred ships docked out, one outside one harbor
- 22:17Speaker 2: in the US. It's just an indication of how disrupted,
- 22:21Speaker 2: you know, getting goods and services around the world was
- 22:25Speaker 2: so throwing the Ukraine wore all of these things. I
- 22:28Speaker 2: think that's been one of the big lessons, is just
- 22:32Speaker 2: the impact that the supply side can have on that story.
- 22:36Speaker 4: And it's it's out of our control.
- 22:38Speaker 2: In the sense we've looked back and thought, well, if
- 22:41Speaker 2: we'd moved monetary policy quicker, you know, if we moved
- 22:44Speaker 2: a few quarters ahead and got on top of it already.
- 22:47Speaker 4: Having been the first central.
- 22:49Speaker 2: Bad to be tightening, we still would have had inflation
- 22:52Speaker 2: with a five or six on the front of it.
- 22:55Speaker 1: Well, one percent point is quite a big difference, the
- 22:57Speaker 1: difference between six and then seven percent quite keenly foult
- 23:01Speaker 1: on that to call it.
- 23:03Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and these are just bullpark figures and that's
- 23:07Speaker 2: assuming that we had perfect full sight, you know, that
- 23:09Speaker 2: we knew something that we didn't know at the time.
- 23:13Speaker 2: But it's to say that we focus on two percent,
- 23:17Speaker 2: we've got a one to three percent range. We focus
- 23:19Speaker 2: on two percent because that gives us the best chance
- 23:22Speaker 2: to stay in that range, simple as that. But that
- 23:25Speaker 2: doesn't mean that inflation is going to be never going
- 23:28Speaker 2: to be outside that range, because there is. You know,
- 23:30Speaker 2: that's just a volatility that we're dealing with.
- 23:33Speaker 4: Our job is to.
- 23:35Speaker 2: Get it back and give people confidence that it's going
- 23:38Speaker 2: to be anchored around there going forward. And that's what
- 23:41Speaker 2: we're seeing now in terms of how inflation expectations have
- 23:45Speaker 2: come down, pricing intentions have come down. You know, those
- 23:48Speaker 2: surveys are saying that over a five to ten year period,
- 23:51Speaker 2: people still have confidence that we will be anchored around
- 23:54Speaker 2: two percent.
- 23:55Speaker 1: So give us a figure, where is the OCRE going
- 23:57Speaker 1: to land this cycle free sign.
- 24:00Speaker 2: So our projections are that the OCR comes down to
- 24:04Speaker 2: somewhere around three percent, and that's because that's what we
- 24:07Speaker 2: think in neutral OCR setting is over that longer term horizon,
- 24:14Speaker 2: and that's predicated on everything working, everything coming.
- 24:18Speaker 4: Back to where it should over the long run.
- 24:21Speaker 2: There being no new shocks that come along, you know,
- 24:23Speaker 2: all of those assumptions that sit there. You know, when
- 24:26Speaker 2: you think about it, three percent is the neutral OCR,
- 24:31Speaker 2: and we've had the OCR up over five percent to
- 24:33Speaker 2: be in restrictive territory. You know, it means that you
- 24:36Speaker 2: can quite easily be in a world over the next
- 24:39Speaker 2: five or ten years where you know, the OCR is
- 24:42Speaker 2: back between zero to one percent, depending on what's in
- 24:47Speaker 2: front of us and what we're dealing with at the time.
- 24:49Speaker 4: So we need to prepare for those contingencies.
- 24:52Speaker 1: The only certainty at the moment is uncertainty. Run exactly
- 24:56Speaker 1: beast to be prepared for absolutely anything. Thank you sat
- 24:58Speaker 1: for your time for stall to speak.
- 25:00Speaker 4: Happy to have you here. Thank you so much.
- 25:03Speaker 2: Stands up
- 25:13Speaker 3: Hmm.