Former Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr quit his role in February after a dispute with the board of directors over its five-year funding plan negotiated with the Government.
This contradicts comments made by Chairman Neil Quigley who previously told the media the Governor had resigned due to a personal decision and was not motivated by any policy disagreements.
Interest.co.nz reached Quigley by phone Wednesday morning and he confirmed it was the funding disagreement which resulted in Orr’s resignation.
When asked why that wasn’t disclosed at the time, he answered: “there's a question.”
He went on to say he did not feel the public needed to know that the disagreement over funding had caused the resignation, and his comments were accurate.
“The things that I said at the time were true, it was a personal decision for him to resign”.
When asked whether withholding the motivation met the RBNZ’s commitment to transparency, he said: “I’m not interested in having you question me like you’re a lawyer.”
“It is never great when someone resigns … it’s just one of those things you have to handle.”
A summary of events, released under the Official Information Act, said Orr formed a view on the Five-year Funding Agreement which was being negotiated by RBNZ staff and Board members with the Treasury.
It became clear, at a meeting on February 27, that the rest of the board was willing to agree to a “considerably lesser amount” than Orr thought was “the minimum necessary”.
“This caused distress to Mr Orr and the impasse risked damaging necessary working relationships, and led to Mr Orr’s personal decision that he had achieved all he could as Governor of the Reserve Bank and could not continue in that role with sufficiently less funding than he thought was viable for the organisation,” the RBNZ’s summary said.
Quigley and Orr then engaged senior counsel to negotiate an exit agreement which resulted in his immediate departure and a month of special leave.
24 Comments
The poor fellow might have had to take another pay cut heaven forbid (sarc)
The poor fellow might have had to take another pay cut heaven forbid (sarc)
His remuneration was 80% greater than Jerome Powell's salary. About 15% more than Kazuo Ueda.
Anyway, I don't think Lord Orr-some was bent out of shape about his remuneration. He wanted more boffins.
More evidence that Luxon and Willis are on a cash in vs cash out rampage.
Its my money, I want it spent on real economic needs and investments into growth.
If we’re taking an idealism approach, are you a net tax contributor?
SKF
Investments into growth?
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
An oxymoron.
No, it's not your money - it's debt - a presumption that the future will have energy and resources available. Spent? You mean, you want some energy and resources applied to something. Real economic growth? Means more energy and resources required. Exponentially increasing. So that isn't permanent.
Growth - indefinite - was always impossible on a finite planet. We're at the Limits now - sorry you weren't told.
No. The Board & Orr were out of control since Labour cut loose the purse strings, compromised the mandate & stacked the Board with economically untrained & inexperienced people
RB spending: the Board and the Minister | croaking cassandra
Public sector bloat: Reserve Bank edition | croaking cassandra
Flawed RBNZ board appointment process symptom of wider malaise | The New Zealand Initiative
"...staff numbers at the Reserve Bank nearly tripled under his watch, and continued rising even when other public agencies were forced to reduce staff numbers last year. The number of staff on six-figure salaries rose from 140 to 436."
Hiding in plane sight? The mystery of why the Governor cashed in his chips - Newsroom
Great points
The whole country is still digging ourselves out of the hole the Reserve Bank and Labour created
No, it isn't.
Labour only tried to keep economic growth going. Don't blame them that it ran into Limits; they chose to ignore too.
Both Keynes and the Libertarians are wrong - although Keynes actually realised there would be Limits.
Recent data from the RBNZ’s 2024 annual report indicate that the Reserve Bank of New Zealand had just over 601 full-time staff.
For comparative purposes, the RBA has 1,540 full-time employees as of June 30, 2023.
Yes, but the RBNZ does the work that both the RBA and APRA do (and some ASIC stuff, and some AUSTRAC stuff). (In 2023 APRA had 871 employees, probably more since.)
Agreed, plus weren't there some addition tasks the RB picked up under Orr?
...integrating Tane Mahuta into the RBNZ & financial system
https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/about-us/how-we-work/te-ao-maori/tane-mahuta-a…
...& while population size has little to do with it (certainly not a direct RB workload link) RBA also has the added complexities of Federation State economic activities.
I’m not interested in having you question me like you’re a lawyer."
This kind of language is troubling. Stinks of high priest syndrome.
Yes, and it sounded more like he was being questioned by reporter, not a lawyer, and he was. I wonder why he's going public now. Perhaps Orr has a book on the way.
The OIA release contradicts what Quigley said at the time, so now he is firefighting
He can’t hide from the truth, nor accountability. That ship sailed after the last election.
I think there must be 2 ships then.
"Don't you know who I am!?"
Based on their performance and Orrs salary, the RBNZ is a bloated whale of incompetency. Bye...
The way this reads is that he quit becasue he wasn't allowed to keep building a kingdom. It feels all a bit petulant and entitled.
We all knew that changing behaviour would take time after the last election, and there would always be reluctance after the abundance of funding that got sloshed around by the last government, along with the lack of accountability held. I feel more for the workers, they will be disheartened, consider leaving NZ as they were able to command very reasonable salaries, only to be told they are excessive to the organisation and thrown to the scrapheap.
Astonishing discussion with Mr Quigley as reported above. Honesty?
Not the sort of character we want in that job.
The RBNZ has clearly not been transparent, what else is being treated in a similar fashion?
Do we need an inquiry? I remind the witness that they are under oath...
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