KEY POINTS:
I like the Business Roundtable. Not just because of my admittedly pervy fascination with powerful people, but mainly because Roger Kerr and his cronies talk about big ideas.
I'll sound like a pompous git, but if you have ever worked as a shopgirl you will know what it is like to be around a bunch of Sheryls whose fist-chewingly banal topics of conversation revolve around diet tips, the relative dishiness of George Clooney vis-a-vis Brad Pitt and the merits of various engagement ring settings.
It's enough to make you long to discuss taxes or education vouchers or private healthcare or any policy question that doesn't relate to last night's episode of Grey's Anatomy.
These days, the Sheryls I meet tend to chirrup about property prices and school zones instead which, in its own way, is even more braindead.
Nevertheless, despite being a thinktank groupie, lately I have started to wonder whether the Roundtable needs to get a few such Sheryls on board.
I went to its annual Sir Ronald Trotter lecture last week - such a successful "crossover" event that even gossip columnist Bridget Saunders was there. (I bumped into her at the loo; it's great being a girl at these sorts of all-male things - no queue for the ladies and I can say with confidence I was the only person wearing purple stockings.)
Lord Lawson gave an elegant speech about climate change, constructed around point-by-point analysis of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. It sounded very convincing to me, as someone who is inherently suspicious of moral panics.
But what I really wanted to know was how would one summarise Lawson's analysis into one paragraph that would convince a Sheryl.
During question time Lord Lawson was thrown some approving promptings from people like Graeme Hunt (is carbon trading a big scam?) Rodney Hide and Richard Prebble (what will politicians do?) and some show-offy scientists.
It was a bit like an echo chamber.
Then a woman with hippy-ish long hair, clearly nervous, with a quivering voice, got up and said her name was Christine and she had four children and thinks we should all be a bit less greedy and share a bit more and she wants her grandchildren to run on the green grass and why does everything have to be about economics and money rather than, you know, about morals and being kind to each other.
(I'm paraphrasing here, but if you think along the lines of "I just want all the little fluffy animals to be happy" you will get the gist.)
Lord Lawson listened politely and replied that we would be doing our children a disservice if we don't look at the issue rationally and factually. Then they served filter coffee.
Afterwards I bumped into Christine (in the loo again - I'm pregnant).
Her name was Christine Cave, she was an accountant and she and her friend, a short stroppy Maori lawyer, had been given tickets to the event as they were both trustees of Trust Waikato. (The network of community trusts which were set up when Westpac bought Trustbank are filled with political appointees.)
We had a brief and unsatisfactory conversation. A sample quote from the lawyer friend: "You have your facts and I have my facts. There are no true facts. I am an indigenous woman and I have a different world view."
Good gravy. What do you say to that? It made me think it is rather pointless for the Business Roundtable to talk rationally about ideas if other people think "there are no facts".
They may as well be talking to themselves. Especially when all the Sheryls in the world think George Clooney has kind eyes.
