By: Mike Hosking | Tuesday, July 17, 2012 10:11 AM

There was a brief period there last year when Peter Dunne, more accurately Peter Dunne’s office, got a bit snitchy with this programme. It was mainly at my comments on his lack of action over party pills and illegal dope and every other man made manufactured high you could freely buy at your dairy. The complaint seemed to be that I was asking far too many basic questions and they were getting irritated by it.

When this issue started to get raised, I preferred the suggestion that it seemed almost inconceivable to me that you were allowed in this country to simply make anything you wanted and stick it in a shop. It was only if the authorities got a bit of a sniff of the fact that something might be dodgy that they actually have a look at it. So my suggestion was relatively simple - why not put the onus on the producer to prove safety or else it’s illegal? No product would ever get to the shops and into the hands of the kids without the producer paying for and proving that what they were putting out there wasn’t going to kill the customer.

After I put that out there, and to be fair I am sure I wasn’t the only one given it didn't seem to be rocket science, but after I put it out there, and there weren’t many answers coming back from Mr Dunne’s office that made all that much sense, I kept saying it until they started ringing up and complaining. Eventually a partial law was passed until something more detailed could be conjured up.

Guess what! Mr Dunne has announced yesterday that Cabinet has signed off on the idea that they’re going to make the producer prove that the product they manufacture is safe before it can go to market. This is good and about time, or if you’re a little more critical well overdue and not a moment too soon.

Mr Dunne always argued complexity. Too much detail, too many products, you make a law and they find loop holes, etc. This might well be true but a loop hole or a toe rag looking to exploit one is never a reason not to do anything especially when the result of not doing anything is a lot of kids ending up in hospital or overdosing or having bizarre psychotic experiences they weren’t anticipating. All of which came out of a dairy.

As I also pointed out at the time, and you can call me nostalgic, but dairies should be places for milk, trumpets and $2 mixtures. Not things to get you off your face. The greatest criticism of a dairy should be that the prices are too high and if they weren’t just round the corner you would use the supermarket more. Not the observation that you have to battle your way past the Kronic to get to the cream.

So Mr Dunne has acted. Good on him. The answer was always there, always obvious. But it’s better to get to the finish line slowly than not at all.

Photo: NZ Herald