Wellington, April 23 NZPA - The New Zealand dollar rose today against an Australian dollar that tumbled in reaction to comments from Reserve Bank of Australia governor Glenn Stevens.

Against the greenback, the NZ dollar was settled. By 5pm it was US71.10c, little changed from US71.14c at 8am and US71.06c at 5pm yesterday. On Thursday night it stayed within the US71.40c to US70.70c range where it has been almost all this week.

The Australian dollar fell to be US92.22c at 5pm from US92.70c at the same time yesterday. Traders focused on a comment that Australian interest rates were "pretty close" to average, said Imre Speizer, senior market strategist at Westpac.

He said the NZ dollar was relatively stable while the action was elsewhere.

But people were starting to think that Australia was moving to a more even keel in interest rate policy when the New Zealand was about to embark on a tightening cycle.

The NZ dollar was at A77.07c at 5pm from A76.60c at 8am and A76.59c at 5pm yesterday.

The NZ dollar reached new 26-month highs against the euro today after the European Union said Greece's budget deficit was worse than feared and Moody's cut its rating of Greek government debt.

Around 5pm it was 0.5371 euro, up from 0.5305 at the same time yesterday. It traded as high as 0.5380 today.

The NZ dollar was at 66.39 yen by 5pm from 65.97 yen yesterday.

The trade weighted index rose to 66.37 at 5pm from 65.96 yesterday.