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Mike's Minute: So many questions around the Govt's cement bailout · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from Newstalks be follow this
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• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Nikola Will has told us she did not take the
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  Speaker 2: decision lightly and well she might have said that, and
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: she is lucky. It's only cost us sixty million. We
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: still don't know what the terms are, but we need to.
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  Speaker 2: This is golden cement. Of course, the government has come
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: to the rescue. Without this help, allegedly they would have closed.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: There's only one supplier in the country. Allegedly, this in
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: and of itself seems to be a bit of an issue,
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  Speaker 2: and I don't even know that that's true. They produce
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  Speaker 2: sixty percent of what we use. Is the other forty
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  Speaker 2: percent cheap?
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  Speaker 1: Well?
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  Speaker 2: Yes? And what of the climate mitigation issues that fletchers
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  Speaker 2: speak of. Why do we worry about the sixty percent
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  Speaker 2: not the other forty percent? And why is climate so
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: important in the cement business? And is climate worth worrying
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: about if it means the closure of business and the
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: loss of jobs. And that is one of the questions,
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: of course, of the age, especially given the Europeans over
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: the weekend signaled their intentions to pull back on climate
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: expectation for their businesses for exactly the same reasons. Climate
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: v jobs. HM, quite like the jobs, Thanks Fletcher. Bill
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  Speaker 2: is the owner a company with no shortage of drama
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: around their reputation and activities, but not a business desperate
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  Speaker 2: You wouldn't have thought for sixty million bucks. But and
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  Speaker 2: here's the crunchy bit, one that in straitened times is
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  Speaker 2: perfectly entitled to pull the pen if they want to
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  Speaker 2: on things that aren't working. So what do we have here?
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  Speaker 2: Do we have a good business decision or we have blackmail?
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  Speaker 2: Is the business run as they claim, in other words,
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  Speaker 2: it's not workable? Or are they a bit useless? Britain
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: having the same conversation currently over a nationalized steel works
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: involving the Chinese in a water company that's on its knees.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: The trouble is the specifics and the precedent. See every
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  Speaker 2: story is unique. Can a government write a check for
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: one offs maybe? Does it set a potential precedent? Yes?
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  Speaker 2: It does. Should the government be in cement No? Should
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  Speaker 2: we be more resilient in the basics of things like
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  Speaker 2: building materials? Yes, We've just had that debate by cleaning
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: out an old tank at Marsden resilience is important, so
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  Speaker 2: I think I don't mind this as a one off.
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  Speaker 2: But is it a bad business or is it a
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  Speaker 2: business hampered by dumb rules around climate? And if it's
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  Speaker 2: the latter, would a change of those rules fix the
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: problem better then a check for a bailout.
• 2:20
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