Latest / Best of Business / Jenee Tibshraeny: NZ Herald Wellington business editor on Adrian Orr threatening a former Reserve Bank economist with legal action

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Jenee Tibshraeny: NZ Herald Wellington business editor on Adrian Orr threatening a former Reserve Bank economist with legal action · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks'd be follow
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  Speaker 2: Jene tib Terraney, the Herald's Wellington business editors with us. Hello, Jenna, Hi, Heather. Okay, So,
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  Speaker 2: now that Michael Riddell has taken the blog down and
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  Speaker 2: got it unpublished from the London based outfit, is that
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  Speaker 2: the end of the legal action from Adrian All.
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  Speaker 3: It would appear so so Adrianall wasn't very happy with
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  Speaker 3: Michael Riddell. He's a former Reserve Bank staffer. He's had
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  Speaker 3: a long history work for the Treasury of the IMF.
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  Speaker 3: Michael has been a long standing critic of the Reserve
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  Speaker 3: Bank and he has this blog which all the nerdy
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  Speaker 3: insiders read and he has been meticulously doing official information
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  Speaker 3: at requests and documenting the saga around Adrian or also
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  Speaker 3: criticizing the Reserve Bank's policymaking. So it would appear that
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  Speaker 3: Adrian had enough. But he definitely didn't like an article
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  Speaker 3: that Michael wrote for a central banking London based magazine.
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  Speaker 3: I mean got Michael here and KC on the case
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  Speaker 3: came in with a big threat and the article was
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  Speaker 3: taken down. So interestingly, the Reserve Bank also complained to
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  Speaker 3: the London based publication. It's lawyer came down super hard.
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  Speaker 3: It's just actually released just this afternoon a letter under
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  Speaker 3: the Official Information Act, you know, showing exactly what the
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  Speaker 3: Reserve Bank lawyer said. He came down very strongly. So
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  Speaker 3: between the KC and the Reserve Bank, the Central Banking
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  Speaker 3: magazine took the thing down.
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  Speaker 2: Have you read the article?
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  Speaker 3: I have because Michael Riddell had it on his blog
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  Speaker 3: for a time and I did catch.
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  Speaker 2: It, so spot the old mistakes.
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  Speaker 3: Basically, Michael documented he basically wrote about a lot of
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  Speaker 3: what he had previously written about in his blog. So
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  Speaker 3: there was nothing that people haven't sort of heard before.
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  Speaker 3: Nothing hasn't been discussed in circles before. But you know,
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  Speaker 3: you have to be very careful when you do make
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  Speaker 3: allegations and and you know, so I suppose I won't
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  Speaker 3: pass judgment on whether it was defamatory. But there weren't
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  Speaker 3: any sort of anything in there that hasn't been discussed
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  Speaker 3: in Michael's blogs in the past.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, now the Reserve Bank released its financial Stability report.
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  Speaker 2: What are they worried about?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so for once they're not that worried about the
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  Speaker 3: property market, so they note that house prices are at
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  Speaker 3: the upper end of of sustainable. Of course, they've come
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  Speaker 3: down a lot since they peaked in twenty twenty one.
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  Speaker 3: The Reserve Bank thinks new lending isn't too risky, but
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  Speaker 3: what it is worried about is the equity market. So
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  Speaker 3: it says that there could be vulnerabilities below the recovery
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  Speaker 3: that we've seen since Donald Trump announced as his tariffs.
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  Speaker 3: It particularly notes, you know, things could turn if investors
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  Speaker 3: start to get worried about those highly valid you'd tech
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  Speaker 3: and AI stocks. You know, those are arguably overvalue. There's
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  Speaker 3: a lot of talk about those being a bubble. The
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  Speaker 3: bank is also worried about health insurance. So people have
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  Speaker 3: noticed that their health insurance premiums have gone up by
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  Speaker 3: nineteen percent over the past year, which is huge. The bank,
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  Speaker 3: you know, notes that health insurance are dealing with cost
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  Speaker 3: increases in the health sector and is sort of keeping
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  Speaker 3: a close eye on their books. So that's a bit
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  Speaker 3: unfortunate because just as those home insurance premiums stopped rising
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  Speaker 3: super rapidly, now we have health insurance going up.
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  Speaker 2: Now, how does health insurance affect financial stability.
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  Speaker 3: Well, the Reserve Bank regulates insurers, so it keeps an
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  Speaker 3: eye on their financials and that's why insurance is part
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  Speaker 3: of their okay, you know, is part.
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  Speaker 2: Of what they look at.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, it does fall into their previous so
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  Speaker 3: we never really talk about health insurance. You know, it's
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  Speaker 3: all about the housing market. So for once the health
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  Speaker 3: insurance a little bit in their report was quite interesting.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is fascinating here, thanks very much, appreciate it.
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  Speaker 2: Jane Tibcherani, The Herald's Wellington Business edited.
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