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Speaker 1: Now forget the detail of the power reforms we dealt

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Speaker 1: with them yesterday. Let's deal with the politics of this

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Speaker 1: and a habit the government has that is hurting them.

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Speaker 1: There's a pattern here. The patterns the government tell us

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Speaker 1: there's something wrong. Could be banks, could be supermarkets, could

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Speaker 1: be power companies, could be airlines. The last government had

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Speaker 1: the same problem they took on petrol stations. The concern

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Speaker 1: is partially real. It's real because one there might be,

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Speaker 1: you know, bits and pieces of the sector that could

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Speaker 1: do with some tightening or tidying, and to there's almost

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Speaker 1: always consumer concern. Now the consumer ancst is part of

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Speaker 1: the problem because the consumer will always see a problem,

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Speaker 1: whether there is one or not. That's why lazy journalists

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Speaker 1: do vox pops. Is but a too expensive? The answer

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Speaker 1: will always be yes. Doesn't mean that's a problem the

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Speaker 1: government can solve. So having stated the problem, you've then

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Speaker 1: created the expectation that you will do something about it.

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Speaker 1: Trouble with yesterday's power deal was the obligatory report suggested

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Speaker 1: more than actually eventuated by the time they got around

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Speaker 1: to making a final decision. Hence the reputation, and the

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Speaker 1: reputation is of a government that talks a lot does

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Speaker 1: a lot, but the a lot doesn't amount to much.

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Speaker 1: Yesterday was your classic exams. The EA gets clearer writing instructions,

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Speaker 1: big deal. The industry had a perception removed that the

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Speaker 1: government don't want to get into big projects. While a

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Speaker 1: phone call would have sorted that one, I would have thought,

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Speaker 1: we are to import in several years some LPG great.

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Speaker 1: Nothing wrong with any of that, and it would have

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Speaker 1: landed well if they hadn't given you the sense that

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Speaker 1: reform capital letters was on the way. Personally, I've never

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Speaker 1: thought the industry is that broken. I mean labor and

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Speaker 1: their oil and gas debarcle hobbled us for several years

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Speaker 1: while we wait for the windmills. But a cold bridge

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Speaker 1: is that gap. Like butter and indeed airlines, there is

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Speaker 1: generally logic as to why things are the way they are.

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Speaker 1: The report fell flat not because what was in it

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Speaker 1: made no sense or hurt an industry, but because it

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Speaker 1: had a is that it kind of feel about it,

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Speaker 1: and it had that feel about it because the government

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Speaker 1: hadn't worked out the balance between hype and reality of

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Speaker 1: their passion projects. Where trouble sits allegedly, Banks Airlines supermarkets

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Speaker 1: or power, namely the one that materially is different because

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Speaker 1: of what they did, not what they said politically, that's

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Speaker 1: their failure. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen

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Speaker 1: live to News Talks at B from six am weekdays,

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Speaker 1: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio