Neil Quigley, Chairman of Reserve Bank's board of directors, says Governor Adrian Orr’s sudden resignation was simply due to him feeling finished with the job.
Interest.co.nz spoke to Quigley outside the Reserve Bank Wednesday afternoon. After initially refusing to answer questions, the Chairman said he was not surprised by the resignation.
“Well, being Governor of the Reserve Bank is a difficult job, and he feels he's achieved the things he wanted to achieve,” he said.
“He'd let me know a few days ago that he was on this path, and today he’s resigned”.
Quigley said he did not know whether Orr would still host the central bank’s monetary policy conference, which begins Thursday and features former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, as the Governor had taken annual leave.
When asked about the shock nature of the resignation, Quiqley said it wasn’t a surprise to him as “I see him more often than you do”.
Quigley wouldn’t take any more questions and neither would Reserve Bank spokespeople.
Earlier in the day, Finance Minister Nicola Willis said the Reserve Bank Governor had “chosen to resign” and that she wouldn’t make any further comments on the situation.
“That is his decision, and individuals in any public office are able to make their own decisions about the time and resignations,” she said.
“What I would say is that it is important that there is stability in our financial institutions, and I have complete confidence that there is stability and continuity”.
Infometrics chief executive Brad Olsen said he was stunned by the sudden resignation announcement one day before the central bank was due to host a two day policy conference.
“Let's be very blunt. The Board of the Reserve Bank needs to front, they need to front urgently, and they need to be open and transparent. Anything less is just not acceptable,” he said.
Interest.co.nz spoke with other market participants who also found the shock resignation, on the eve of a Reserve Bank event, to be bizarre and surprising.
19 Comments
Turbulence ahead.
Let's be very clear - Orr is not the reason times are getting tighter.
No more than Trump is.
Blame needs to be sheeted-home to where it really belongs.
Agreed.
He is responsible for a massive policy overreaction during covid, and holding it to long. All the house buyers that have watched their entire deposit evaporate can draw a line straight to him.
Bullshit. The houses were never worth what they paid for them. You can't blame him for people getting suckered into buying overpriced assets, nobody had a gun held to their head.
Agreed - that was a below-average comment...
its a $19k albatross hanging around median peak buyers necks for another 27 years.
You can put the entire blame on the the RBNZ for removing LVR restrictions which were always in place to save people from themselves.
Here we go with the "No OnE HeLd A GuN"...if these suckers who brought over priced houses have to own their actions...then surely its fair to say that the RBNZ should also...and the actions of our RBNZ created a fair chunk of the carnage we've seen over these last five years 🤦🏻♂️
Unless of course this is your account Adrian? The hearty defence shown in that comment made me wonder, then enjoy your retirement mate 🍻
😂
FHBers perhaps. Specuvestors...he could have enforced dti or some other financial restriction.
He. Did. Nothing.
And here we are.
You mean implement DTI when the bank didn't yet have powers to implement DTI?
https://www.interest.co.nz/news/110868/finance-minister-gives-rbnz-debt…
The RBNZ mandate was financial stability, there are strong arguments even now that DTI are not directly related to financial stability. There are other more effective tools that government can implement. But the people don't want a government that tries to stop the NZ housing Ponzi so we get a Ponzi. Blaming one man is a lazy intellectual cop-out.
Blaming one man is a lazy intellectual cop-out.
We the public have no ability to access the minutes for the MPC meetings as they wont be released under the OIA (media would be all over it otherwise) therefore without being able to understand how the MPC came to it’s decisions, we have only the governor to be able to appoint blame. If we are able to access further information we could better decipher where the fault in the process lies, but until then, logic dictates it is Orr by necessity that cops the blame.
Interest.co.nz spoke to Quigley outside the Reserve Bank Wednesday afternoon.
Woah! You guys are certainly working for our subscription dollars now, especially given the bad weather locally today.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/the-funding-fight-behind-adrian-…
why he probably went
If Orr’s replacement is a hawk like Powell, don’t expect any cuts. Maybe that’s why Orr resigned, the bond market won’t allow further cuts.
Canada’s finance minister quit when tariffs were announced, maybe this new environment just isn’t conducive for doves.
Willis gets to appointment the replacement…Nats not doing great in the polls…🕊️🕊️🕊️
In the meantime, deputy governor Hawkesby will be interim governor. Is Hawkesby a hawk?
Convenient time to step down after two quarters of inflation at 2.2%. If the next print shows inflation ticking up…
Haha surely can’t be a dovish Hawkesby!
Yep, it’s hard to think he’s leaving Dodge for no reason alright 😬
I just wonder if the Nats will try to buy votes with a “rockstar” economy on the back of some mug who toes the line 🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️
National taking credit for falling interest rates but blame him for higher interests rates .. with the economic vandalism the coalition clowns are carrying out I'd probably be saying f*** you to them too.
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