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Labour's monetary policy proposals are mainstream and would bring the RBNZ in line with other central banks, Harbour Asset Management's Christian Hawkesby says

Labour's monetary policy proposals are mainstream and would bring the RBNZ in line with other central banks, Harbour Asset Management's Christian Hawkesby says

By Christian Hawkesby*

On Monday, Labour Party finance spokesperson Grant Robertson announced “Labour’s modern approach to monetary policy”, outlining their proposals to amend the objective and governance of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ). We would contend that “mainstream” should be added to this title.

If anything, these suggestions would bring the RBNZ into line with global practice. And Labour aren’t the only ones considering this issue; there are already signs that the National Party are considering governance changes that would challenge the RBNZ Governor’s sole decision making role.

While inflation targeting has been considered sacrosanct in New Zealand for the past 25 years, there is a history of opposition political parties proposing tweaks at the margins. Some have been implemented; like the change in the inflation target range. Others never saw the light of day; like David Parker’s radical 2014 Labour proposal to add targeting the current account deficit, and giving the RBNZ the ability to move KiwiSaver contribution rates to hit the target.

There are two elements of Grant Robertson’s current proposal:

1. Objective:

While keeping the 1-3% inflation target, the RBNZ would be given a dual mandate of also targeting full employment.

This would bring New Zealand into line with other regimes such as that in the United States. Indeed, it would represent a convergence between the US and New Zealand models from both directions. The US Federal Reserve has long had a dual mandate, but only in recent years quantified 2% as its inflation target. New Zealand has had a specific numerical inflation target for longer than any other central bank, and would add full employment without this concept being quantified.

In our view, the addition of full employment to the mandate would not materially change the way the RBNZ operates in practice. Employment is already a key consideration when thinking about capacity pressures, and therefore inflation pressure.

Robertson understands that putting full employment in the RBNZ’s mandate does not magically make it happen. However, in our view there could be political mileage in emphasising that the RBNZ’s objectives are aligned with Labour’s broader economic priorities.

2. Governance:

The second element of the proposal is moving away from the current decision making structure, where the Governor alone is accountable for Official Cash Rate (OCR) decisions.

The current structure is, to a large extent, a function of history. When inflation targeting was first introduced, the challenge was getting inflation down from the highs of the 1970s and 1980s. This required a highly independent, highly incentivised public servant to deliver on this new and difficult task. However, now that inflation expectations are more comfortably anchored around the RBNZ’s inflation target, the environment today is much different.

Graeme Wheeler has already acknowledged this point and introduced a more conventional decision making structure by forming an informal Governors Committee (made up of four internal Governors) that votes on OCR decisions.

Grant Robertson’s proposal would take this a step further by adding three external members and a Treasury observer, with minutes published. There are some details that remain open to debate: the balance of internals and externals; who makes the appointments; the independence of externals; their access to internal resources; the type of relevant expertise. These issues may bore the average person on the street, but nevertheless are important governance considerations.

The broader point is that removing the current sole decision-maker structure would bring the RBNZ into the global mainstream; there is no other central bank globally with such a singular concentration of power. In recent years, it appears to us that the main argument against changing the governance structure has been that it would require new legislation to be passed, opening up the government to debate on other aspects of the legislation.

It may transpire that changes to the RBNZ’s governance are on the way, whichever party is in power after the General Election this year. As Minister of Finance, Steven Joyce, appears much more open to exploring these issues than his predecessor, Bill English. It was reported on the weekend that Steven Joyce had commissioned former State Services Commissioner, Iain Rennie, to undertake preparatory work on the RBNZ’s governance and committee decision making structures.

Rather than radical changes, we see these types of governance changes as enhancements on the margins to a framework that will continue to be centred on price stability.

For investors and analysts, the only difference may be a little less focus on the Governor of the RBNZ, and a greater need to understand the other decision makers around the table.


* Christian Hawkesby is an Executive Director and Head of Fixed Interest at Harbour Asset Management

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6 Comments

The key benefit of having an independent RBNZ is that it can act rapidly in a crisis. This proved invaluable in the last crisis. The concentration of power in the hands of the Governor aids in this, whereas the currently fashionable idea of management by committee tends to mean that decisions are less likely to be made in a timely manner.

The RBNZ is fighting the battles of the last war. Consumer price inflation is under control. David Parker was right to consider targeting the current account balance, but as usual the left are better at identifying the problem than at solving it.

The current account deficit is caused by the capital surplus being force fed into the country from overseas. It is not because we need to export more. It comes in with immigrants bringing money with them to buy Auckland houses, and via the banks' overseas borrowing to fund our mortgages for Auckland houses. This is the structural reason we have uncontrolled housing inflation. It is an issue for the RBNZ to sort out, but they should be free to figure out how best to do so.

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Roger - do you have any examples of this?

'The key benefit of having an independent RBNZ is that it can act rapidly in a crisis. This proved invaluable in the last crisis.'

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A big component is investment income... which for NZ is a deficit of $2 billion /yr.
Basically...it is the repatriated income of foreign investment in NZ...
The biggest chunk of that are our banks, which are mostly Foreign owned .. ( the Banks made about $4 billion in profit last yr ).
Is this the big benefit of Foreign investment that politicians promised us..?? That large chunks of profit go offshore... NZ becomes like a tenant paying a landlord rent!

For me, the structural reason for asset price inflation is that Central Banks have become myopic in monitoring the effects of unfettered Money supply growth, solely thru changes in consumer prices..
Pre GFC the RBNZ was ok with money supply growth of up to 15% / yr.

Now they keep an eye on the credit aggregates and use things like LVRs' to influence rates of credit growth.

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If the RBNZ created it's own money (out of thin air like all the other PRIVATELY owned central banks) and lent the money to Kiwis, with ALL PROFITS going to the Government (and thus HOPEFULLY lowering our tax take requirement), I'd be all for an independent RBNZ.
But as it stands in the world today, UBER rich foreigners (typically American, but Chinese, British, Japanese etc) print money out of thin air, loan it to the world and charge an interest...........IF my parents were alive today, I could answer their frequent remark (when I was a demanding teenager) of 'money doesn't grow on trees you know'......
Thus we have a DEBT based currency that doesn't have enough 'money' to EVER pay off the debt, and thus needs more and more DEBT-money created out of thin air.
This makes the UBER wealthy wealthier indefinitely and the 99% of us 'normal' people poorer by the day.
p.s. the 0.999% that are left, make LOTS of money because they get FIRST USE of this 'currency' and buy stuff before the 99% do, and thus create inflation, which they're EASILY able to profit from hansomely.
So SIMPLE solution, NZ create it's own money, controlled by an independent RBNZ, that gives ALL it's profits back to NZ (one way or another), BUT follow the same rules as those that have been GIVEN the privilege by CROOKED politicians over the years to create money out of thin air AND charge interest.
Until this happens, we are just DEBT SLAVES, with a few of us making enough money to not struggle (too much). This being achieved by buying houses and ripping off those poorer/unluckier than 'us'.
Wake up sleep hobbits, your country is being sold out from under you and you WILL BE debt slaves in your own country to a few UBER wealthy, typically NOT KIWIS, (excluding Peter Thiele's fiddle to seem a Kiwi)

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I haven't read Governor Bollard's book, but there was talk of him being very worried on his return from a Jackson Hole meeting. As I understand it he did us proud by acting decively when the crunch came. However, I'm commenting more as a matter of general principle, it is why militaries are hiearchical in command structure, for instance.

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I read Bernankes book... Sure...they responded quickly to the Crisis and averted complete disaster... They saved the "system".

But I 'm left feeling really troubled... I'm very unsure whether they made the "right" decisions.., morally, ethically and philosophically.
I don't think that what they did was in the long term interests of the vast majority of Americans..???

But then again.... I don't really know..?? A broken financial system = chaos..

Maybe there should be some kind of "civil defense" system that kicks in place if it ever happens agains.... and the financial sector can be left to suffer the consequences of their actions... can rot in hell... so to speak.

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