A couple of weeks ago the editor of Central Banking magazine (something of an house journal for central bankers, and for whom I’ve done book reviews for some years) invited me to write a fairly full article for a non-NZ audience on the extraordinary events of recent months. The request/invitation was for a piece along the following lines:

“The aim would be to provide readers with an insight into how a highly respected institution (internationally, too) ended up in a position where both its top two officials were forced to resign and (perhaps) what steps could to be taken to redress the matter and restore the RBNZ’s reputation for sound governance?”

Having been so caught up in the unfolding detail, writing something like that proved to be a useful discipline, trying to stand back just a little and tell a story.

I wrote the article in the couple of days before we left on holiday, answered the follow up questions, and then Central Banking published the final version on their website yesterday morning (there is a paywall but registration should provide access)

[Link deleted as no longer relevant – see below]

There are only trivial differences between draft below and the final version, mostly the addition [UPDATE: by Central Banking] of various references/footnotes to the published version.

[UPDATE: Both I and Central Banking magazine have received demands to retract and apologise for the article under threat of legal proceedings by Adrian Orr, who appears to have objected to aspects of how his time in office, as a senior public figure and Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, was characterised. Central Banking has for now removed the article (link above) for further review. I posted the article here initially mainly to help readers who had had difficulty getting free access to the original via registration on the Central Banking website. As I’m currently travelling and cannot easily modify the text to make clear and extensively document a few points I have chosen to delete the article here as well.]

[FURTHER UPDATE 1 Oct: I have now been advised that there has been a “confidential settlement” between Orr and Central Banking magazine’s owner, under which they have agreed to remove the article permanently. The following statement now appears on the Central Banking website.]

UPDATE 21 October

I have decided that I will not republish the text of the article I wrote for Central Banking here, even with amendments. The piece had been written for an overseas audience, and through the sort of lens the magazine had requested. There is copious material on my blog on the events of the last two years, pre and post Orr’s exit, and more snippets have emerged in recent weeks. I hope at some stage to produce a NZ-focused summary account and analysis of those events.

UPDATE: 24 November

Among Orr’s claims has been that in my opinion piece I had alleged that he had “bullied his staff”. I was surprised by this claim. Several weeks ago I asked my lawyers to communicate with his to make clear that I had not made any such claim (and had not intended to do so and did not intend to do so now) and expressed my regrets if Mr Orr had read the text in the way suggested.