The OCR move was  1/7  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  delayed from August due to the imposition of Level 4 COVID-19 restrictions across the country. As outlined in our recently released Review of monetary policy, in hindsight the Committee could have commenced its tightening cycle earlier in 2021 so as to better contain core inflation pressure.
Nonetheless, the subsequent rise in international food and energy prices would still have led to headline Consumer Price Index inflation exceeding 6% now. In an absolute sense, actual and expected inflation is too high and needs to be reduced. Subsequent Monetary Policy Committee decisions have seen the OCR rise from 0.25% in August 2021 to the current rate of 4.25%.