She's seen by some around Parliament as the Imelda Marcos of New Zealand politics with her flashy, designer jackets and gleaming shoes. In fact a better comparison in our political environment would be the similarities between her and the sartorial Winston Peters given his ability to collar an issue and convince the great unwashed that he's doing it in their best interests.

Judith Collins has the ability to turn any portfolio into her cause celebre. Think of her campaign as Police Minister to crush boy racers' cars, only she didn't get to push the crush button, her successor Anne Tolley did the honours.

And then as Corrections Minister she came up with the idea of double bunking prisoners in shipping containers to solve the overcrowding woes. Now with the prison muster approaching the population of Gore, containers are no longer an option.

So now the menacing minister has turned her attention to the energy portfolio, nothing controversial in that you would have thought. Not so, it seems. She's summoned the well heeled bosses of the four oil companies into her office and has demanded their cooperation with an inquiry into petrol pricing, saying she'd like to see the prices lowered which, given the lower price of crude oil, would seem to be a fair expectation.

Certainly it won't lose her any brownie points with drivers who are used to paying more at the pump as oil prices increase, but inexplicably still paying the same when they drop. Being competitors, the oil companies will get as much as they can for petrol with only two constraints, how much the punter's prepared to pay and the price their competitors' charge.

Collusion, well not officially? Competition, certainly, simply based on price for the same product, regardless of the banner it's sold under.

If Judith Collins' inquiry finds evidence of price gouging she's got the Fair Trading and Commerce Acts to clobber the companies with but don't hold your breath. It's not the first time a Government's gone there to no avail.

Transparency, is what Ms Collins says she's after. Yeah well, if you lift the lid on petrol pricing, as the taxpayers' Union has done, you'll find petrol companies make five cents a litre profit on fuel while the taxman takes 97 cents a litre.

Collins is also the Revenue Minister, so don't expect that to be tampered with!