“Adrian was the governor of the Reserve Bank for seven years and led the bank through some of its most significant challenges, including the Covid-19 pandemic,” the spokesman said.
“It was important for our staff to have the opportunity to say farewell to Adrian in person.”
While Orr’s resignation as governor took immediate effect, he remained employed by the bank until the end of March. It’s understood he didn’t come into the office after he stepped down from the top job.
Documents released under the Official Information Act suggest Orr’s departure was due to be announced on March 10, after the Reserve Bank hosted an international conference on March 6 and 7.
But staff at the Reserve Bank, Treasury and Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ office ended up scrambling during the morning of March 5 to have the announcement ready by lunchtime.
Orr, who was less than halfway through his second term in the role, never fronted media. Rather, Reserve Bank board chairman Neil Quigley briefly answered journalists’ questions in a press conference, organised at the last minute, late in the day on March 5.
The reason for Orr’s resignation remains unknown.
It came as Willis sought advice on compelling the Reserve Bank to ease its regulation of banks by enabling them to hold less capital. Orr was a fierce proponent of making banks hold more capital to reduce the risk of them failing in a crisis.
After Orr’s departure, the Reserve Bank board said the bank would review the capital rules, worth billions to the banks and even more to the economy.
Orr’s resignation also came as Willis decided to give the Reserve Bank much less funding than it wanted.
The bank made a bid for more than $1 billion for 2025-30, but only got $776 million – 8% more than the funding it received for 2020-25.
While a staffing restructure is under way at the bank, information about the number of roles that would need to be cut for the bank to operate within its budget was redacted from the publicly available copy of its funding pitch to Willis.
The 44-page-long document suggests the Reserve Bank would have to delay the implementation of some of its work to cut costs.
Orr has declined the Herald‘s requests for comment.
Jenée Tibshraeny is the Herald’s Wellington Business Editor, based in the parliamentary press gallery. She specialises in government and Reserve Bank policymaking, economics and banking.
