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.