KEY POINTS:
Don Brash doesn't want to spook the horses by predicting even harsher falls in house prices. Let's just say that the former National Party leader and Reserve Bank Governor is very "happy renting" his swanky Auckland waterfront apartment for now.
The trouble is that in a fragile market,
the elder statesman knows his words have more power now than perhaps ever before.
"I don't want to antagonise your readers," he says. "I don't want to be a property Jeremiah. But people like the Reserve Bank are projecting a further fall in residential house prices and I think it's entirely plausible."
Brash dismisses suggestions that he is opposed to home ownership.
"I have always owned my own homes till my marriage split up a year ago." But he seems relieved to be out of the plummeting market at present.
Brash, 67, has dispensed with his customary navy business suit, and is instead dapper in sports jacket and tie.
He adjusts the tie, carefully, then throws caution to the wind.
House prices are well above "what would be regarded as affordable, relative to our incomes", he warns.
The present international financial situation "is more serious than anything the world has faced in the last 70 years".
This is strong stuff. When British Chancellor Alistair Darling said something similar, the UK markets went into freefall.
New Zealand exporters will be hit "fairly immediately", he says.
But he reiterates that our banks are in far better shape than those in Europe and North America.
"Technically, we are already in a recession; we started about six months ago. Most commentators are saying the recession will continue into the third quarter and will continue through the balance of this year. How quickly do we get out of that? I don't know. How will it affect employment? I don't know. Will it go up? Almost certainly."
But he's reluctant to comment on Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard's motives for not moving to cut the official bank cash rate. "He may well have decided, given the stimulus in the falling exchange rate, that he doesn't need to cut interest rates."
Brash also speculates that because most New Zealand mortgage rates are fixed - unlike Australia, where most are floating - cutting the cash rate would not provide nearly the same impact as across the Tasman.
Also, he says, the New Zealand sharemarket has not suffered the same drops as foreign markets, and moving on interest rates might have undermined business confidence.
Brash also won't second-guess his other successor, National Party leader John Key, except to say he obviously wants him to be prime minister and, yes, he misses politics dearly.
Life is different now. No house, no marriage, back to the corned beef and peas.
He has been romantically linked once again to Rich List businesswoman Diane Foreman - but he won't comment on that, or other aspects of his personal life. He lives alone in a Princes Wharf apartment and still enjoys corned beef - and, rather surprisingly, fast food.
"I love junk food - I enjoy KFC, Burger King, McDonald's. I enjoy Subway, not that that's junk food."
KFC is good for hangovers, he laughs, before hastily adding: "I'm not a heavy drinker. I drink wine when I'm out but I don't drink it at home."
Drink or no drink, he gets a little maudlin, a little teary describing the "extraordinary sensation" of speaking in Parliament.
"I think in retrospect what I failed to do - and I blame myself for this - was I didn't understand the power that the leader of a party has, particularly when he or she is first appointed. When I was appointed in 2003, I gave what was regarded as the first Orewa speech about the Treaty which shot the National Party well ahead of Labour in the polls.
"I didn't understand the extent to which that gave me authority within my own caucus. I could have done some things differently then and pushed policy more vigorously than in fact I did."
He maintains that it is "patronising and demeaning" to Maori to suggest that they need a lower threshold to get to medical school or law school.
Brash says he does not have "any embarrassment at all" about meeting the Exclusive Brethren before the 2005 election. That became a major election issue later, when an agitated Greens co-leader Rod Donald questioned Brash about an anonymous pamphlet drop, and the National leader said he had no idea who was behind it.
It only emerged later that the Exclusive Brethren had spoken to him at the earlier meeting about their own plans to organise some "anti-government" leaflets - Brash failed to connect the dots.
As for Winston Peters, another sparring partner, Brash hopes that the New Zealand First leader's career is over. He regards him as the "worst kind of politician".
His own career takes a new path this Wednesday, when he starts lecturing in economics at AUT.
