Finance Minister asked Reserve Bank chair Neil Quigley to ‘reflect’, before his resignation
Monday, 1 September 2025
Finance Minister Nicola Willis told Reserve Bank chairperson Neil Quigley she faced challenges answering journalists’ questions about the bank’s conduct and asked him to reflect on that, shortly before he resigned on Friday afternoon, her office says.
The information makes clear that Willis left Quigley with little option but to tender his resignation as chairperson and a director of the bank.
The Post had sought comment from Willis on Friday morning on whether she had confidence in Quigley in his role as the central bank chairperson and whether she believed he had misled the public on March 5 when explaining the reasons for the resignation of former Reserve Bank governor Adrian Orr.
It is understood at least one other media outlet had asked similar questions of the minister.
The Reserve Bank on Thursday released a timeline of events leading up to Orr’s departure in March, after being pushed to do so by Chief Ombudsman John Allen.
That made clear there had been a breakdown in relations between Orr and the bank’s board, sparked in part by their different stances on how to respond to a Government proposal to slash the bank’s budget, and that the board had written to Orr setting out concerns, including about his conduct at meetings.
The information in the timeline appeared to contradict a statement Quigley made at a press conference in the immediate aftermath of Orr’s departure that there were no “policy, conduct or performance issues” behind Orr’s resignation, and to be at odds with the general tenor of his comments on the resignation.
But up until at least 2pm on Friday, the Reserve Bank had been vigorously defending Quigley’s statements on the matter.
“Apart from being late with our OIA responses, the approach we took in responding to OIA requests was a reasonable one to the requests and met the overall public interest by balancing transparency with privacy and other legitimate concerns,” he said then.
Willis’ office said on Monday that had she called Quigley twice on Friday, once at about 3pm and once about 4.30pm.
“She expressed her ongoing concern about the damage the Reserve Bank’s mishandling of information requests about the former governor’s departure was doing to the bank’s reputation. She also highlighted the challenges she faced answering journalists’ questions about the way the bank had dealt with the matter.”
Willis asked Quigley to “reflect on those matters”, her office said. “Mr Quigley offered his resignation and she accepted.”
Former deputy governor Christian Hawkesby, who stepped in as a governor following Orr’s abrupt departure, and who it emerged on Thursday had been acting governor since February 27, is one candidate to replace Orr.
Westpac chief economist Kelly Eckhold agreed it was conceivable that the further turmoil at the Reserve Bank could add to a case for the Government to seek an external candidate — perhaps from overseas — to govern the bank and provide it with a fresh start.
But he noted comment from Willis that the process to appoint a new governor was already “well-advanced”, suggesting a decision on who that would be might have already been made.
Eckhold said that as far as financial markets were concerned, the resignations were “largely a drama just taking place in the background”.
“I don't think it's something that's really moving the exchange rate or interest rates very much.”
But information contained in the timeline released by the Reserve Bank on Thursday raised a few questions about the bank’s governance, Eckhold said.
It was interesting that Orr had “obviously effectively vacated the position some time earlier than the markets ever really knew”, on February 27, he said.
“I'm surprised that we only find out about that now, because you might have thought that there could have been a press conference, press release or something like that, to say who was actually in charge at that stage.
“It’s the ‘cover up’ or the lack of transparency that makes these things worse,” Eckhold said. “My sense is that if it had all just been explained at the start, interest would have moved on quite quickly.”
BNZ research head Stephen Toplis said last week’s developments probably wouldn’t shift the appropriateness of any candidate to replace Orr in any particular direction, but might delay and complicate the process of making an appointment.
“The agreement is that the board, as represented by the chair of the board, recommends a candidate to the Minister of Finance. I don't know whether that makes it a little bit more difficult, given the chair of the board is no longer the chair of the board.
“If any prospective incoming candidate had talked to the head of the board and said ‘lovely, great to come and work with you’, perhaps now they’ve got to go and talk to Roger Finlay as the acting chair and just feel it out again.”