Banks resisting the Reserve Bank’s Governor:

The Banks are continuing their campaign against Adrian Orr this week. In the Press during the week this article appeared https://www.pressreader.com/new-zealand/the-press/20191023/281543702703640.

The interesting thing here is that the guys formally complaining about Adrian Orr represent the past. They desire things to remain as they are right now. They represent the 1%. It’s really interesting to see that they are now targeting the Reserve Bank Governor personally. That is the oldest trick in the book. When you can’t beat an argument, you attack the person. You attempt to undermine them. You attempt to lower their mana in the eyes of the public. Fortunately, boards and the public can see through this sort of thing immediately.

Adrian Orr is the key person in this country advocating for a change to our financial institutions to make them more accountable. Just remember these facts:

1. The banks funded the house prices in Auckland to rise 91% while John Key was PM. Now he chairs the ANZ bank board;
2. In 2008 the population in NZ was 4.2m and in 2016 it was 4.8m
3. In 2008 the mortgage debt in NZ was $133b in 2016 it was $247.8b mostly owed to the Aussie banks when our population only went up by 600K. Multiply the $114.8b increase by a margin of , say, 1.5% margin and stand back and see what the banks earned by playing a key role in pushing up house prices;
4. In the financial year in 2018 the Aussie banks made $580,000 profit per hour after paying tax, that is $5128b, nearly double what they made in the 2007 year;
5. The IRD quite correctly pursued the banks for years for tax avoidance and they eventually paid back billions of taxes they had not paid;
6. The banks were assisted with their tax avoidance by the big four accounting firms. I wonder where ethics fit in the Big 4’s list of priorities.

That’s why the challenge in front of Adrian Orr is so important and why we should support him.

Here is a very good article analysing the banks which appeared during the week https://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/102127/gareth-vaughan-says-reserve-banks-efforts-combat-too-big-fail-problem-worthy-aspect

Another excellent article on the challenges in front of the Reserve Bank are highlighted in this article.

https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2019/10/21/866091/of-chocolate-biscuits-and-conflicted-bank-directors

I thought we should send this to Adrian Orr: