Neil Quigley’s ‘regret’ on the handling of comms around Adrian Orr’s departure

Thursday, 12 June 2025

Neil Quigley has promised the RBNZ will be more timely in responding to OIA requests from now on.

The chairman of the Reserve Bank, Neil Quigley, has done an about-face on his view of the Bank’s handling of former governor Adrian Orr’s departure, after receiving a rebuke from Finance Minister Nicola Willis.

Willis told reporters at Fieldays that the actual story behind Orr’s departure, revealed in a document dump yesterday, should have been shared earlier.

“I have spoken to chairperson Neil Quigley and expressed my view that they did not manage that Official Information Act (OIA) request well and that I expect them to do better,” Willis said.

Quigley did a 180 after the Minister’s criticism, saying he now felt “regret” about the delay in releasing the official reason Orr suddenly quit as governor in March.

“RBNZ was late in producing a response to some of the OIAs we received on Adrian Orr’s resignation. I regret that this delay occurred,” Quigley said in a statement.

Former Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr has remained schtum on his reasons for leaving his role, but OIA documents revealed he rejected Government budget cuts planned for the Bank.

“The circumstances and the volume of information associated with the OIAs on Adrian Orr’s resignation were complex, and we needed to be sure that our consideration of relevant information was comprehensive,” he said.

“As well as our obligations under the Official Information Act, we needed to take into careful consideration the former governor’s exit agreement and privacy law. For this reason, we extended consultation on the information and our response, including review by senior external counsel.”

When he faced reporters after Orr resigned on March 5, Quigley said the reasons behind Orr’s departure were “personal” and not motivated by any policy disagreements. Reporters filed OIA requests to try and uncover more information, but twice the Reserve Bank blew past deadlines to release the information, saying more consultation was needed.

Documents finally received by media yesterday showed Orr left because he did not believe the central bank could adequately fulfil its functions in light of budget cuts agreed between the Reserve Bank’s board and Finance Minister Nicola Willis.

Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr resigns abruptly, with Professor Neil Quigley, Chair of the Reserve Bank Governance Board, confirming there's no misconduct involved. Orr opts not to address the media.

The fact this had not been revealed before this week saw criticism of Quigley’s and the RBNZ’s communication, including from The Post’s Luke Malpass, who said “whoever came up with [the comms] strategy and the language around [explaining Orr’s resignation] produced just the sort of political-corporate doublespeak that degrades faith in institutions”.

But Quigley told Interest.co.nz he was “not interested in having [the reporter] question me like a lawyer” when pushed on why he’d not released the OIA information quicker.

On Thursday, he took a different tack.

“On 5 March I was limited in what I could say about the former governor’s resignation, both by the terms of his exit agreement and the fact that we were still working through finalisation of the detail of the next Five-Year Funding Agreement (FYFA).

“We were conscious of the need to explain to staff of the RBNZ the potential implications for staffing levels of a lower level of funding and needed time to consider the details of that.”

Things would be different in the future, he suggested.

“We are taking into account the feedback that we have received on our management of these OIA requests and looking carefully at how we can improve our response times in the future.”