Mike's Minute: The showdown at the big butter meeting

What do you reckon happened at the big butter meeting? 

Willis and Hurrell. Nicola and Miles. 

Is it a meeting that took on a hopeless amount of hype, or was it a sign that at times this Government, and Willis in particular, say stuff that makes them look like they are on to it when perhaps they're not? 

The reality is these two meet regularly. Fonterra plays an outsized roll in our economy and therefore it would be odd if they didn’t meet. 

But Nicola has this penchant for saying stuff that might lead you to believe she could produce an Uzi out of her handbag and blitz the room. 

She has the banks, who she keeps telling us are people we should not be locked in a dark room with. 

She has the supermarkets who, in her Clouseau-type way, suggests she has been ferreting about the isles and has found dastardly deeds. 

Jacinda had the same predilection when she told us the petrol companies were "fleecing us". 

It's all good stuff for headlines and attention. It's very good guy/bad guy, and if hot air were rocket fuel she could have flown to the moon and back six times. 

But is your butter any more affordable? 

Of course not, and in that is the problem – not with the price, but with Nicola. 

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if there was a scandal, or a rip-off, or some highway robbery? Wouldn’t it be awesome if she could tie a butter producer to a chair and waterboard them until they screamed out "yes, yes, yes it's true, the real price is only $3.76 not $8.50". 

Sadly, it isn't going to happen. 

Presumably, as if she needed it, Miles worked her through the calculations at last night's meeting. 

We pay the global price for butter, the irony being in this case that’s actually good news because dairy in general is booming and we need something to boom. 

What we would like to do versus what we have to do, for good reason, are two separate things. That's why butter is the price it is. 

The real question for Nicola is how many meetings, threats and finger waggles does she have to produce for no change before someone calls her out for being a lot of mouth and not a lot of trouser?

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