Tag: public radio

Former Police Commissioner Andrew Coster does not know if he’s “free to comment” on a scathing report by the police watchdog, a spokesperson for him says.

The Independent Police Conduct Authority’s report found serious misconduct at the highest levels of police, including Coster, in relation to police’s response to allegations of sexual offending by former Deputy Police Commissioner Jevon McSkimming.

Coster was placed on leave from his role as chief executive of the Social Investment Agency, following the report released on Tuesday.

RNZ called and texted Coster on Wednesday and received a text with an email to contact for comment.

RNZ asked for comment on Coster’s actions, whether he would stay in his role at the SIA, and whether he had a message for the woman who raised the allegations.

• Do you know more? Email sam.sherwood@rnz.co.nz

A spokesperson then replied: “As has been publicly noted by ministers, this is now an employment conversation between the Public Service Commissioner and Andrew Coster. He will not be responding to media ahead of that process.”

RNZ approached Coster’s spokesperson again on Friday asking for comment on the IPCA’s reports and his actions as the former Police Commissioner.

“Unfortunately, Andrew is not in a position to comment on any of these issues while there is a process underway with the Public Service Commissioner,” the spokesperson replied.

Asked why, and whether Coster was intending on returning to work, the spokesperson replied: “It is not presently clear whether Andrew is free to comment, given his role as a public servant and the process in which he is engaged. He will not be commenting further while this is underway.”

Coster took on the role as Secretary for Social Investment in November 2024, after stepping down as Police Commissioner.

Public Service Minister Judith Collins earlier said it was agreed between Coster and the Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian Roche that Coster would be on leave while Sir Brian undertook his own “investigation”.

She said the report showed a “massive” failure of leadership, and while it was now an employment matter, she said the report spoke for itself.

“If this was me being named in this report, I would be ashamed of myself. And I think that’s what I can say. I would be deeply ashamed.”

Collins said the findings that leadership attempted to influence the investigation into the woman’s complaint and persuade the IPCA that the matter could be resolved quickly were “very serious”.

“Let’s put it this way. If a minister tried to do that, I’m sure that the Prime Minister would have them out the door that way.”

Asked whether she thought it amounted to corruption, Collins said, “If it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it’s not looking good, is it?”

While acknowledging the IPCA report did not say it was corruption, Collins said it was “an extraordinary set of events, and extraordinary facts, and it must never happen again”.

She expressed thanks for the people who did stand up and send the matter to the IPCA as a complaint.

A spokesperson for the Public Service Commissioner earlier said it would be inappropriate to comment on any employment matters.

Social investment minister Nicola Willis said she was “shocked and appalled” by the IPCA report’s findings.

“I have conveyed my views to Public Service Commissioner Brian Roche. The matter now sits with him as Mr Coster’s employer,” she said.

Police Minister Mark Mitchell said Coster first briefed him on 6 November 2024 about McSkimming.

“The issues around Andrew Coster, we all now clearly see in that report that yes, without a doubt, he was the leader of the executive. He should be held to account for that, because of what we’re dealing with.”

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Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown told local media he had requested a meeting with New Zealand’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister regarding the funding pause, but was declined.

It comes as a second round of funding to the realm nation has been paused by Aotearoa, bringing the total funds held to nearly $30 million over two years.

Brown has declined an interview with RNZ Pacific.

In a written statement, a spokesperson for Brown said the government continues to engage in good faith with New Zealand and that discussions are ongoing, “so it would not be appropriate to comment further at this time”.

However, speaking to Cook Islands Television (CITV) in Cook Islands Māori, Brown said he had received criticism for not meeting with New Zealand’s prime minister or foreign minister.

“I want to confirm to you all that I did send a letter to the prime minister of New Zealand and [New Zealand foreign minister] Winston to arrange a meeting between leaders, New Zealand’s leader and myself,” Brown, addressing Cook Islanders direclty, told CITV.

“I wanted to elevate these discussions to the prime minister’s level. But they sent their response, they wanted the discussions to be done between our officials.”

He said the Cook Islands was doing what New Zealand requested by leaving the meeting for officials to come up with solutions.

Uncertainty over what the problem is

The disagreement between the two governments stem from partnership agreements that Cook Islands signed with China at the beginning of the year.

The New Zealand government believed it should have been consulted over the agreements, while Brown disagreed.

Brown told CITV the agreements signed with China are “all over and done with”, and New Zealand has had an in-depth look at them.

“There is a part of the document we signed that [New Zealand] say they have a problem with but they have not been able to confirm with us what exactly it is that they have a problem with.”

Kiwis ‘running’ to Oz, Cook Islands economy ‘all good’

Brown said his government is able to cover the amount that New Zealand has put on pause because of a strong economy, driven by the tourism sector.

He said the money New Zealand had paused would normally be disbursed to education and health.

“Looking to New Zealand, they are having issues with the state of their economy, it’s going backwards, the people are running away from New Zealand for Australia to find better opportunities.

“But our status however, it’s all good, hence we were able to afford to cover the amount of money that we did not receive from New Zealand.”

Relationship between to nations ‘not like it was back in the day’

Brown said the relationship with New Zealand had evolved.

“For our relationship today, it is not like it was back in the day where New Zealand was like a parent, and we were the child,” Brown said.

“We have reached 60 years of self-governance; we are our own people, we have our own land, we have our own ocean, our own being, our relationship now is the relationship between friends, not of a parent and child.”

Brown said he wanted the friendship to grow and not go backwards – where New Zealand spoke for the country on the world stage.

“The younger generations and their young ones, they are able to fulfill roles that were once held by westerners or New Zealand… they can fly our flag, be our voice, out there in the world.”

But Brown said he did not want to change the free-association relationship between the two countries, which he has always maintained. It comes after several calls from New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters for Brown to hold an independence referendum.

“When looking at the state of this relationship, what we are pushing firmly for is that this relationship continues, and is strengthened, continuing on into the future,” Brown said.

Peters’ response

A spokesperson for Peters said they had nothing further to add to a statement issued last week.

Part of it said there had been a series of constructive discussions between New Zealand and Cook Islands officials aimed at remediating the breach of trust.

“However, Prime Minister Mark Brown continues in his public statements and actions to promote a vision of the New Zealand-Cook Islands relationship which is inconsistent with the free association model,” the statement said.

“He appears to wish for the Cook Islands to reap all the benefits of the free association relationship while being subject to none of the mutual responsibilities.”

A spokesperson for Brown in a statement told RNZ the Cook Islands remain committed to the relationship of free association with New Zealand.

The Reserve Bank will update the official cash rate (OCR) on Wednesday.

But have you ever wondered how it goes about making the decision?

John McDermott is now executive director of Motu Economic and Public Policy Service but was previously assistant governor and head of economics at the Reserve Bank.

He spoke to RNZ this week about how the process works.

The OCR is now set by a monetary policy committee, made up of three members of the Reserve Bank’s staff – current governor Christian Hawkesby, assistant governor Karen Silk and chief economist Paul Conway.

They are joined by external members professor Bob Buckle, economist Carl Hansen and professor Prasanna Gai.

McDermott said the way the OCR was set had changed a little with the introduction of the formal committee.

It was introduced in 2018, the year before McDermott left the bank. Before that, the Reserve Bank governor was the sole decision maker.

Now, the committee aims for a consensus decision but sometimes goes to a vote.

But McDermott said the overall approach would be broadly the same.

He said there would be three key stages: Looking at what was happening overseas, assessing the situation in New Zealand and thinking about how the decision could be communicated with the right impact.

He said the process would usually take about a week.

“Staff will have been working on it for a lot longer than that. They’ll put together a whole bunch of information on it for the committee to digest.”

There would normally be two days of “information pooling” meetings, and two days of deliberation meetings, with decision meetings after the deliberation meeting, according to the committee handbook.

McDermott said attention would turn first to what was happening in the rest of the world.

“What are the key conditions with our trading partners? How’s that affecting New Zealand? Probably a lot of detail on the US, a lot of detail on China … probably an equal amount of detail on Australia.”

He said the committee would then look at financial markets. “Bond markets, equity markets, how does that flow over to New Zealand’s access to capital?

“It’s important to get that setting, once that’s established it’ll be looking at New Zealand in detail.”

He said the second day of deliberations would look at recent data. “The minutiae of the data. What’s going on with concrete sales or electronic car transactions … hopefully there will be some discussion of what’s going on with businesses.”

He said that would usually involve looking at the results of interviews with various businesses about what they were experiencing.

“When you look at the political elements, does that match with what businesses are telling you?”

He said the committee would also need to look at banks’ willingness to lend and the ability of firms to access capital.

“Once you’ve gone though that it’s all about what’s happened and what’s the environment when we’re in. What does that mean for the future? How do you project forward given this is what’s happening? What do we expect for inflation output and interest rates …. That will be the core element of the forecasts.”

He said different members of the committee would bring different experience and judgment, and opinions on what elements should be given more weight.

“After that process the committee is probably asking the staff, whom they’ve been leaning on heavily during the week, to not be there. The committee itself will ask what do we think about that, what are the risks? This is what the forecast looks like, this is the decision we think kind of makes sense.”

He said the committee would consider what the markets would do in response to a decision, and whether they would be shocked by anything that was decided.

“What will that do to the prices that matter? And in interest rates, are we going to get the kind of reaction we want?

“You should see the results of that in the press conference – this is what we did, this is why we did it … trying to shape expectations and manage how that is delivered to the country.”

He said markets had sometimes “got it wrong” and priced in things that the Reserve Bank did not expect to happen.

In that case, it would need to clarify the way it saw things. “But by the same token, if you think the financial markets have got it right and you want to validate those expectations you have to be careful not to say something stupid where the markets misunderstand you … you don’t want to shock the markets by accident.”

The handbook said the decision about the appropriate monetary policy settings would be made the morning of the release so that there was less risk of sensitive information being leaked.

McDermott said the committee would have to decide which data it needed to pay attention to and what it could set aside as not relevant.

If data was volatile, it could sometimes set it aside and decide to come back to it for the next update.

Something like a movement in the oil price would have an impact in the short term but then prove immaterial in the medium term.

The bank would need to communicate that price increases as a result of something like an oil spike were not going to persist, he said.

“With the increase in goods and services tax, prices will go up but they’ll go up one time – that’s not inflation – so we’re going to look through that. But every time the bank or the monetary committee looks through something, it is really important that it explains that it is looking through something.”

McDermott said the geopolitical environment made rate setting hard at the moment.

“There’s tariffs that are playing out. What are they doing? Who’s paying them? How are they affecting supply chains? Are they going to be the same next week as this week? There’s a lot of noise and so you’ve got to be very disciplined in how you work through that.”

He said it was also important to be upfront when a judgment was wrong. “It’s really important that central banks, when they’ve made a mistake, just front up and say ‘look we made this judgment. We were clear on the judgment we made and it hasn’t panned out that way so we’re changing how we view things’. I think there’s been a reluctance to do that in recent times … and I think that’s a shame because it really is important.”

The Reserve Bank said, when the economic outlook could be at a turning point, the committee might use a “hawks and doves” exercise.

“One MPC adviser would play the role of the ‘Hawk’, presenting all analysis that would support contractionary monetary policy, and then another would play the role of the ‘Dove’, presenting all analysis that would support expansionary monetary policy. This exercise aims to challenge the status quo and encourage wider deliberations.”

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