RBNZ's McDermott says the bank should not be judged on inflation outcomes

Comments from John McDermott. Assistant Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and head of economics

• "Monetary policy is a powerful tool and it is important that central banks are held accountable for their conduct of monetary policy
• "The Reserve Bank's performance should be benchmarked to the Reserve Bank Act and the Policy Targets Agreement.
• "These instruct the Bank to operate monetary policy so as to achieve price stability over the medium term. Actual inflation can temporarily deviate from this medium-term target, meaning that it is not sufficient to look at inflation outcomes alone when assessing the conduct of monetary policy."

McDermott on the release of the RBNZ's Reserve Bank Bulletin - Evaluating monetary policy