. Tonight ` Thank you very much. Enjoy your day. cracking down on killer cakes. You see a marketplace, but our food-safety bureaucracy sees a battleground. This is unbelievable, really. Are cakes and scones really a deadly menace? You've got that potentially lethal cream-cheese icing. (LAUGHS) Or is this bureaucracy gone mad? They're robbing people ` not just us, but the community. Plus ` I love working with NZ jade. creating masterpieces takes patience. But this guy's is wearing thin with NZ Post. 30 bucks 30 bucks. 4g. That is crazy. And ` BOTH: Ugh! Oh my` Oh my God. Oh, it's terrible. (CHUCKLES) Why is this dishwashing liquid leaving a bad taste in so many mouths? There is a... Oh, that's not too good. Copyright Able 2016 Welcome to the show. Now, cigarettes kill, and so does alcohol. But lemonade, sausage sizzles and cakes? Hmm. Now, my mum used to make a killer chocolate cake. But we can't find any record of mass deaths due to food and drinks consumed at sausage sizzles or cake stalls. (CHUCKLES) No. So why are the bureaucrats cracking down on the sale of home-made cakes and scones? Here's Garth. WHIMSICAL MUSIC For 37 years, this has been a recipe for success ` home-baked cakes, loaves and slices ` fresh and tasty. Thank you very much. Gone by lunchtime Saturday at Silverdale Village Market. Whole orange and sultana, and crunchy lemon. This is Sheryl. She spends Thursday and Friday every other week in the kitchen at home. Mum was a really good baker, and my grandmother was a good baker, and I really like baking, and this satisfies my desire to bake, and I don't have to eat it all. (LAUGHS) Problem is ` her word that it's safe is no longer good enough. The government and the council want to register and check her kitchen and what she does here. It's just intrusive, I think. This is her kitchen table, groaning not with cakes and slices but forms and emails. The paperwork runs close to 200 pages. This is unbelievable, really. Um, it's quite onerous. And expensive. $930 for the council for this year. Goes down to 600 next year. Plus I've got to get a water test done, which could be` which will bring me up to about $1000, but when you've been doing it for eight years and you've not had an issue, it just seems overkill. At the market they're perplexed. We're a small operation. It seems a bit overkill to me. These lady bakers have all been turning up for a decade. They say the council seemed happy with what they were doing. Have they been out to your house before? Have they looked at the kitchen? No. Have they ever asked to? No, they haven't, no. Nicky says Council told her to register, pay the $930 and submit to a kitchen inspection if she wants to keep selling a dozen fruit loaves each weekend. It's untenable. Can't do it. It's silly. Of course, food safety isn't silly, but what is going on here? Now, you see a marketplace, but our food-safety bureaucracy sees a battleground, where NZ's reputation as an exporter has to be vigorously defended, with regulations that apply to everyone, including the home bakers. Yes, if we have safe food here, that does give our overseas consumers of exported food also confidence that the NZ rules are appropriate and give them confidence that they're getting safe food too. Microbes don't care whether your business is big or small, and customers don't always know what's made them sick. I think using, 'No one's come to me with a problem,' as your evidence for safety isn't really good enough. NZers, often when they're feeling unwell, they don't even go to the doctor, let alone actually tell somebody that maybe their food made them sick, so, really, at the end of the day, if they can say, 'Hey, you didn't get sick from my cakes, 'because I followed these food safety rules,' that's going to have a lot more evidence. 'She reckons the rules give customers what they want, 'taking into account the appropriate level of risk. Lower-risk food businesses have fewer rules, and higher-risk food businesses have more rules, so maybe instead of making cakes, they might want to make jam or chutneys, which are a lower risk. We're not stupid. We don't need people dictating word for word how we live, when we live, when we do this, when we do that. We have intelligence and common sense God-given that we can all` should be free to use. For Paula, she might be able to sell scones under National Programme Number 2. That runs to a $155 to register, plus inspections every other year. But if she puts cream on the scones and sells them, that's high risk. She needs a food-control plan. That's close to 1000 bucks, plus annual inspections, just like Sheryl. You've got that potentially lethal cream-cheese icing, haven't you? (LAUGHS) It's murder in a bowl, surely (!) (LAUGHS) Some might think so. BOTH CHUCKLE Murder on the waistline, anyway. (LAUGHS) Yes, exactly. Thank you. See ya. The rules have been coming for a decade, though most of us had no idea ` certainly not the ladies who bake. They didn't make submissions to Parliament, but now they face regulations that even the customers are questioning. It's just all this PC crap coming up all the time, I think. And most of the ladies that do this, they do it for their family, so if they're gonna look after you` their family, they're looking after you, really, aren't they? Before we hit peak outrage, there are exceptions. Charity gets a pass. Cakes for the annual school fair are OK. In fact, you can make and sell food for charitable, philanthropic or cultural reasons 20 times a year. Why 20? It might seem a little bit arbitrary, but it's us balancing the competing needs of the NZ public ` the want to have a safe and suitable food supply that's regulated versus the want to keep certain activities unregulated. Charity or not, you have to make safe food. But if it's for profit, you have to prove it's safe in advance. I've been told we've got to be registered` or we've got to have our application in by October. That's from the council, is it? Yes. Which we've learned is not quite accurate. Turns out our lady bakers might just have a couple of years to register their businesses before the full force of the new law comes down on their cake stalls. Everybody, every food business in NZ, needs to be following the new rules by the 28th of February 2019. In Auckland the council has so far carried out just two or three inspections at home kitchens under the new rules. Perhaps it's just early days, or perhaps bakers are planning to quit the markets. I can see that for a lot of the people that do this sort of thing that they just won't go there. Some are in despair that they're about to lose something vital and special. Well, I understand why they want to do it, because on a whole it does make some sense, but they're robbing people ` not just us, but the community. You seem quite saddened. I actually got quite depressed about it, because I thought, 'Well, that's the end.' You know? 'That's the end of an era.' Now, don't worry. I can feel your outrage at home. Poor old Sheryl. She's gotta bake, like, a hundred cakes just to make the $900 to pay the council. That is a lot of baking. Now, look, Auckland Council stresses those fees are merely cost-recovery and it doesn't profit from the new food rules. The council's also asking the Ministry for Primary Industries to give it the power to grant exceptions to the rules where it seems right. Yes, but right now market bakers will struggle to qualify, because they are there most weeks. The rules don't see that regular baking as a cultural activity, but a business. Hmm. All right, we're gonna change some pace now. It's time to test your consumer knowledge. Yes, and if you're thinking of taking out a loan, you really should know the answer to tonight's True-or-False Challenge. BRIGHT MUSIC Week five of our Fair Go True-False Challenge. Well, I've got six true-false questions here, and if you get them all right, you win $20. Yes, there's money on the line and still contestants in the running. If you take out a loan, suddenly lose your job and struggle to make repayments, you can cancel the contract due to hardship. Tr... True. K. Two falses. (INHALES DEEPLY) True. Probably say false too. True. Uh, oh... False. True or false? We'll let you know shortly. I'm going false on this, but... Are you? ...prepared to be wrong. Wait and see. Coming up ` we head to the West Coast for a weighty issue. They say patience is a virtue,... I love working with NZ jade. ...but this artist's patience is wearing thin with NZ Post. $29.58 to send that to Australia. And ` cups,... Plates. I'm not gonna lick plates. ...baking trays. Oh yeah. It's the dishwashing liquid leaving a bad taste in so many mouths. That's disgusting. Oh my` Oh my God. Oh, it's terrible. (CHUCKLES) . Welcome back. If your life is centred around a smartphone or a tablet, there's a good chance you haven't popped down to the post office recently. And, look, you really should, cos personally I think there's something quite nostalgic about opening the letter box and finding a handwritten letter ` maybe with some perfume on it, or not. Oh, that happen to you a bit, does it? (LAUGHS) Not really, sadly. Sadly old-school is becoming an increasing expensive school, according to a West Coast artist. Here's Brodie. HAUNTING SLIDE-GUITAR MUSIC The West Coast is a pretty special place. It's totes magical. She's quite rugged when she wants to be. GUITAR MUSIC CONTINUES And different in, like, a cool way. Tell you what, there's some gems to be found there too. Well, actually, pounamu ` greenstone, or NZ jade. It's part of the land. It's part of the people that have made the land. Steve Maitland's been a pounamu carver for over 40 years. I like making carving that describe things, tell stories. I invent a lot of designs. I don't repeat anything, so everything's always freehand. And designing jade around stories is what I'm about, really. You can see the time and effort that goes into these remarkable pieces. It has one, two, three... about 10 processes, um, that are time-consuming. And so what are we talking? Like, how long does it take to make one of those beautiful pieces in there? The longest one of those took, uh, was... 96 days. Which means that you must be a very patient man. I actually am. I'm impatient with myself, but I'm patient with everything else. But this man's patience is being sorely tested by a NZ company. You there ` you with the face. You've probably heard of them, cos they've been around for a while. Think quick. Do you wanna look the business? Do you want a business-looking suit? And their tag line is ` You can! Now, Steve would agree ` you can. You can. You just gotta pay through the nose. Steve, how much does that actually weigh? That itself is 4g. 4g. And so you have sent something like this in the past,... Yes. ...and it's cost you $29.58... Exactly. ...to send that... Yes. ...to Australia. Yes. That's quite expensive. Very expensive. It's quite light. 30 bucks for 4g. Certainly not light on the pocket. NZ Post's explanation to Steve? They were very... (SIGHS) kind to me. They desperately didn't want to tell me that what I was sending was a prohibited item, and thus they couldn't insure it, they couldn't do this and they couldn't do that with it, and I had to send it by basically courier, and it was going to cost me $30. Now, you may have heard the word 'prohibited' in that sentence. You see, jewellery, precious stones or metals are classified by NZ Post in a very long list of prohibited items ` items you can't send by post. But NZ Post make Steve send his products via courier, as opposed to your good old snail mail, which would only set him back $2.20. 'Why?' you might say. Well, it's because his item is prohibited, and it cannot go through the regular post; it has to go via a tracked service, like International Courier. It was something that could be fitted into an ordinary postal envelope, still go through somebody's mailbox. My article would only cost $70. Here was somebody that wanted $30 and half, or nearly the whole of, the cost of my article to send to that country. So there are two issues here ` the price-per-weight ratio and the fact that Steve is being forced into a way more expensive product, which makes it almost not worth sending. Well, 4g, and` You can go to Aussie as a person, you know? I'm, what, 85 kilo. 4g for $30. What does it cost to send a person to Australia? If you had to send them in the post. 'Well, Steve, we did the math.' If you got charged $30 for 4g, and just say we broke that down to dollars per gram, and just say you were 85 kilos, like Steve, and we sent you via NZ Post in a courier, it would cost $637,500. So we think it's about time we hear from the postman. NZ Post didn't want to appear on camera, but they let us in here, and they did send us a statement, which I've got right here, in which they acknowledge that it can seem unfair to require some items to be sent via courier when the value of the items is not considered by the sender to be high enough to warrant it. But they say this service comes with a tracking service, delivery targets, and there is a compensation policy if items are lost. NZ Post also says that their pricing is very competitive when compared to other companies. But Steve just wants the option as the consumer to take the risk and send it in an envelope. We think he should be able to as well. Unfortunately NZ Post says if it's sent this way, there's a risk of it being stopped at the border due to a country's import restrictions. Anyway, Steve says he's gonna start exploring other options. Cost me 30 bucks to send across the sea there to Australia. Now, you can see Australia from here. (LAUGHS) I wonder whether I could swim over there and deliver it in person. I reckon I could give it a go and throw it. I reckon you could. Yeah. HAUNTING SLIDE-GUITAR MUSIC Now, just a public service announcement. Oh, yes? Brodie used the word 'totes'. Totes. Totes. For those of you at home who aren't quite familiar with 'totes', 'totes' is totally. Totally. Totes is. Totes is. After the break ` we tantalise the taste buds with some culinary delights. BOTH: Ugh. Oh my` Oh my God. It's the taste sensation turning stomachs. If you eat a meal with that on it, that's all your going to taste for a` a while afterwards. And ` If you take out a loan, suddenly lose your job and struggle to make repayments, you can cancel the contract due to hardship. True or false? We'll let you know shortly. . Welcome back. There are few things in life better than good food and fine wine. But even the world's best chef couldn't make me lick the plates at the Easons' house. No. It doesn't matter what you drink or what you eat, the taste sensation is more yuck than yum. LIGHT MUSIC Colleen Eason's issue was in her kitchen, so she moved the problem outside. You see, after weeks of complaints about her cooking, she'd had enough. A lick test. If I could taste it, it was out. Like any good tradesman, she blamed her tools, so she banished half her kitchen items to her garage. Cups, plates, the cheese slice ` even her best stuff has been garaged. I'm absolutely gutted about that. This has left the Eason family with just the basics. I think we've got two lunch boxes in the house. Inside they're drinking in whatever they can find. The whole family's affected. The kids are sitting down at the dinner table with a wine glass full of water. (CHUCKLES) Colleen was the first to notice something was up. Random cups of tea, cups of coffee ` like, 'Oh, disgusting. What is that?' Really, really, really bitter. Throw it out, wash the cup, you know, put it back in the dishwasher. The crux of it came when we did a big roast dinner ` two big roasting pans. All the food and the gravy ` everything ` completely tainted, disgusting. Colleen's husband was distraught. Dave's the gravy master, so he was very disappointed. (LAUGHS) Then she realised the taste came after she tried a new dishwasher liquid. I was like, 'Oh, I've started using these.' This is the only different thing I could think of. She'd been using Cussons Morning Fresh dishwasher capsules. I mean, day one, I went into the supermarket. 'You've got to take it off the shelf.' The supermarket and local rep couldn't help her, so she rang Cussons in Australia. So what Cussons told us to do ` you know, just keep washing them. But we did keep washing them. So the more she washed,... The dishwasher was on 24/7, just about. ...the worse her food tasted. She tried everything. Absolute bitter. Like, a sip of your coffee is just, like, yuck. So she studied the packet. Like, 'Oh, OK, so there's no ingredients.' She emailed Cussons. They told her there's denatonium, a bittering agent, in her dishwasher capsules. I googled it, and it says it's the most bitter thing in the universe. Bitrex is the trade name for denatonium benzoate. It tastes like this. BOTH: Ugh! That's disgusting. (LAUGHS) Yuck. Oh my` Oh my God. Oh, it's terrible. (CHUCKLES) It tastes gross. It's sour. If you eat a meal with that on it, that's all you're going to taste for a` a while afterwards. The reason it's in dishwasher cleaners is to stop children eating the capsules, but Colleen claims it's ruined her dishes, and she's not alone. Online the critics are raving about Morning Fresh. Cussons say their product is safe and confirmed what she's tasting is a bittering agent. Following our technical investigation, it was determined that the inclusion of this bittering agent is the likely cause of the bitter taste and that some consumers may be sensitive to the taste of any residual amount of this ingredient. Colleen wanted $980 for new crockery, but Cussons offered her just $50 compensation and told her the bitterness would wash out and there'd be no permanent damage. $50 to replace the product ` and a small amount of inconvenience. $50 doesn't even cover the food that we threw out. We have now got to replace pots, pans, cutlery, wooden spoons, can openers ` everything ` and, yeah, like I say, possibly about $2000 worth ` through no fault of our own; through us just trying a new product. They are not taking any kind of responsibility for it, and I just don't think it's cool. Colleen says she'll go back to her old dishwashing cleaner. Yeah, I'll be using this one from now on. She'll get new plates too. She's over serving banana cake on second-hand crockery. And she is definitely not happy. I don't trust them. Says 'money-back satisfaction guarantee'. Oh no. Not` No satisfaction here. (CHUCKLES) Not at all. LIGHT MUSIC So it was so bad, they have ditched those plates. Really? In the garage. In the garage. In the garage. Did you try it? Uh, well, Colleen may have offered me a, uh, slight lick of her crockery, and, um, I partook. LIGHT-HEARTED MUSIC Uh, muffins trays, drink bottle, cup of tea, stirrer. I used to get this over my bum as a child. (GARGLES) Another cup of tea. Even the cheese slicer. LIGHT-HEARTED MUSIC CONTINUES Ugh. (SNIFFS) Plates. I'm not gonna lick plates. Oh yeah. Hmm, that one's not so bad. Ugh. There is a... Oh, that's not too good. 'So, Hadyn, what did you do at work today?' 'Well, I went around licking other people's baking dishes.' Yeah, my journalism teacher's gonna be so proud (!) (LAUGHS) Shall we move on? Let's move along. Time for our trivia results now. So, if you've been following the True-or-False Challenge series, you will know... Landlords must have working smoke alarms in their rental properties. It's illegal to advertise a pint of beer in NZ. You can choose to take a faulty product back to the retailer or the manufacturer. And a landlord can't make a tenant leave a property while they show it to prospective purchasers or renters. All righty. Time to head back to Napier now, and we're gonna find out the answer to tonight's question. You take out a loan and suddenly lose your job and struggle to make repayments, you can cancel the contract due to hardship. True or false? He's sure. Oh, she's not so sure. And yes. And false is right. But there are options, including extending the term of the contract and/or postponing payments. Even then the creditor doesn't have to accept the changes, but you can apply to the Disputes Tribunal or court to vary the contract. And next week, our final question. So we'll find out if anyone has got all of our six questions right. Mm. That is` How much do you win? $20. Yowza. Wow. Don't blow it at the same dairy. All right. (CHUCKLES) So, that is the show, but we will be on Facebook for the next half hour to answer your questions. Our programme ` all about your problems, your thoughts. Please do get in touch. Now, we're on Facebook. Or you can email us ` You can write to us. We love letters. Now, coming up next week ` It's the freight fiasco. Hi. I'm Anna from Fair Go. Where's all the money gone from your shipping company, L & L? Where have all`? Where's all the money gone? We track down the woman responsible for a raft of freight complaints. It has been delivered. It has not been delivered to their house. You haven't paid the fees. Where's all the money gone? Nearly 50 families have been separated from their worldly possessions. You haven't answered the phone to me or to anybody else who wants their money or their parcel. No freight, no refund, no apology. Where are the boxes, Lita? You owe people thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars' worth of goods. Where is it? That's next week. Goodnight.