Here is another article that mentions that Graeme Wheeler and Grant Spencer were critical. Maybe they might know who best to replace Adrian.
https://www.interest.co.nz/public-po...k-independence
Adrian is so up himself the RBNZ has lost any shred of independence, to quote Bernard Hickey.
By early 2020 when the prospect of near-zero percent interest rates beckoned and the Reserve Bank was looking at its options for alternative monetary policy tools, it was becoming clearer that monetary policy and prudential policy decisions were becoming much more political. Money printing exercises in the United States in particular were seen enriching those with assets and widening inequality, but those debates never took place here.
The assumption was that these alternative tools would be ‘distributionally neutral’, which is true between home-owners, but not between home-owners and renters. We knew that money printing worked as a monetary policy tool by making the wealthy wealthier and hoping they’d spend some of their ‘wealth effect’ to boost the economy.
The $55b of money printing, the removal of the LVRs and the creation of the FLP combined with existing housing shortages and existing tax advantages to thrust house prices 45% higher in 18 months and wipe out another generation of renters hopes for the home ownership they know they need to build healthy and secure futures for their kids.
The Reserve Bank wasn’t just doing monetary policy and prudential policy. It was doing redistributional and social policy, and not in a good way. The lack of self-awareness or contrition was the final straw The Reserve Bank’s decisions essentially added $1 trillion to the wealth of home-owning households and it was clear in public to everyone except the Reserve Bank, Treasury and the Finance Minister’s office.