Latest / Best of Business / Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Why did Nicola Willis hype the Fonterra meeting?

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Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Why did Nicola Willis hype the Fonterra meeting? · Best of Business

• 0:09
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  Speaker 2: So guess what's happening after Nichola Willis's butter meeting with
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Fonterra last night. Nothing After hyping the meeting, after Mikey
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: chasing Miles down the street, after the news going live
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  Speaker 2: with the banner across the TV that the Fonterra meeting
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  Speaker 2: is under way, after all of that, nothing is happening
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  Speaker 2: because nothing can happen because Fonterra is not ripping us off.
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  Speaker 2: We're simply paying the same international price as everyone for butter,
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  Speaker 2: which Nicola knows because she's an intelligent woman and woman
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  Speaker 2: and because she used to work for Fonterra as well.
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  Speaker 2: So nothing has come from the meeting. There is no
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  Speaker 2: announcement about what is being fixed. Miles Hurral is not
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  Speaker 2: resigning or apologizing, and the price of butter is not dropping.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: All that has happened is that Nicola Willis has fronted
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  Speaker 2: up for the media today and told them that Miles
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  Speaker 2: Hurral will talk to them at some time soon to
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  Speaker 2: explain how the price of butter works, which is enoughing outcome,
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  Speaker 2: in which case you have to ask yourself the question,
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  Speaker 2: what was the point of the meeting? If Nicola actually
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  Speaker 2: truly does understand the mechanics of butter pricing, and presumably
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  Speaker 2: then also understands that Fonterra isn't ripping us off, and
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  Speaker 2: also had no plans to announce anything after this meeting,
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  Speaker 2: why hype the meeting? I can answer that question for you.
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  Speaker 2: Because she wanted to pass the buck. She wanted to
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  Speaker 2: blame Fonterra, because National is feeling the pressure over the
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  Speaker 2: fact that Labour is now more trusted to deal with
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  Speaker 2: the cost of living crisis than National is, according to
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: the IPSOS survey, which is out this month. Because the
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: heat is being cracked up, cranked up on National, who
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: have talked a very big game about getting the economy
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: back on tracking, yet eighteen months in it's still very
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: much off track to the extent that people cannot afford butter.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Nicola tried to shift the blame from National to Fonterra
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  Speaker 2: and it didn't work. Now, the lesson here is that
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: performance politics doesn't work Blaming the supermarkets but doing nothing,
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Blaming Fonterra but doing nothing, Blaming the banks. But doing nothing.
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  Speaker 2: That kind of stuff doesn't work, and in fact it's risky.
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  Speaker 2: It runs the risk of backfiring, which is exactly what's happening.
• 2:11
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