Wednesday, 06 November 2024 12:55

Leaky waka

Written by The Hound

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OPINION: Was the ASB Economic Weekly throwing shade on Reserve Bank governor Adrian Orr when reporting on his speech in Washington recently?

Certainly, the speech warranted some lampooning, with Orr waxing lyrical about the great voyages of NZ's Polynesian ancestors being similar to the journey of central bankers during uncertain times.

Carrying on Orr's waka analogy, the Economic Weekly notes, "he didn't seem worried bout spending three months in a leaky boat between the November and February OCR decisions".

As the Weekly report says, Orr warned that people tended to put too much stock in the RBNZ's "central projection" and not enough in "the storytelling around uncertainties and risks detailed in the full statements".

This waffle is reminiscent of when Orr compared the Reserve Bank to a Kauri tree, and is a hallmark of the widely criticised governor.

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Anyone in the primary sector will know about the clowns covering the countryside in the red tape we all have to wade through.

Spare a thought then for media outfit Stuff who were threatened with fines up to $200,000 by a snivelling civil servant from the MoH for illustrating a quiz question with a photo of part of the cover of a 45-year-old copy Playboy.

As Stuff notes, “It wasn’t the Playboy cover which caused offence. No, it was the back page which… featured an advert for a cigarette brand”.

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