It would be more efficient if it fed more people. It would be more efficient if it didn't waste as much as 25% - which is the evidence that's come up in the past doesn't actually get eaten by. Kids. Or it could be more efficient if it was targeted at people with greater need. For example, you'd be people saying, well, it's got to be universal. I heard your guy on earlier saying the most efficient way is to give it to everyone. Well, it's illogical. It can't be more efficient if you're giving it to people that need it and don't need it at the same level. So, we're going through the process of taking papers to cabinet and getting cabinet to agree on it. One thing I can say is we will not be spending $350 million because we just can't afford it right now. We will do it in a way that will be more effective and efficient and is a good use of taxpayers money.
And there are efficient ways to deliver food to hungry kids. The government isn't the only organisation doing it. Others have been doing it for years and years and years, and you would have to argue you have been doing it effectively. Kick Start Breakfast collaboration between Anchor Milk and Sanitarium Weet-Bix - they have been delivering breakfast to kids who need or want it. You might come from a family that can afford to stock the pantry, but you forget, or you've been to swimming and you're racing to get to school, there's a breakfast there available if you want it. It's not, as Boyd Swinburn says, you have to put up your hand and say hi, I'm a poor kid whose parents either can't or won't feed me. It's there if you need it or want it. I think they have provided 180,000 breakfasts every school week. So at least that's milk and Weet-Bix in your tummy. I know some vegan lovies might like to have the spirulina shots and the spinach is the way to start the day, but you know something in your tummy, milk and Weet-bix is perfectly good for generations of children and perfectly good for somebody who's starving. You've got KidsCan - they provide free food, clothing and health products for children in years 1 to 13. They deliver offerings that can last on the shelf for months at a time, once a term. They deliver things like pasta, muesli bars, baked beans, and if you're hungry that's available. If you've left your lunch at home that's available. And nobody is criticising either KidsCan or Kick Start Breakfast for not making these offerings universal. Well to a certain extent they are universal in that everybody can have them if they want them. What they're not doing, is forcing every single child to sit down and devour what they put in front of them. The food and other items that are being delivered by charitable organisations are there for those who need it and there's no shame in accessing it. And there are ways that kids could access food paid for by the taxpayer without publicly shaming them. Boyd Swinburn, I think, was being provocative when he said, children shouldn't have to put up their hand and say I'm poor. That's ridiculous. There are other ways of doing it. Also, Seymour's right about wanting to see value for money because the previous government hadn't put school lunches in its long-term budget costings. They've dipped into the Covid-19 emergency money, which was all debt. The Covid response and recovery fund, that's where the funding came for school lunches. There was no long-term funding applied. As the excellent Kate McNamara writes, she wrote about it in the Herald some time ago. Grant Robertson was told by Treasury that the more than $527 million in operating funds he planned to charge to the Covid-19 emergency fund for the lunches, didn't really qualify as Covid resurgence costs. Funding through the ordinary budget process would be more suitable. That advice fell on deaf ears because he knew he couldn't find a place in his budget for it. So now it's been kicked down the road and National either has to become the New Zealand equivalent of Thatcher - Thatcher milk snatcher and take the lunches away - or find the money to pay for it that Labour didn't have. They just used the Covid fund, National doesn't have that to pay for those lunches.
Also, I was one who supported it because I thought it would get more kids into school. It's a safe place to be. If you come from a precarious home, school is a safe place to be and you'll be fed. But again, there's no real evidence that that is why children are coming to school. So, 12.5% of children, according to the New Zealand Health Survey, live in households where food runs out sometimes or often. That's fewer than 100,000 of our 815,000 school kids. Probably considerably fewer, Kate points out, since the health survey includes preschoolers. So, you could feed lunch to every single one of those kids who are deprived twice over for the money that we're currently spraying in an untargeted way to kids who don't want it or need it. So the kids, according to a Ministry of Education evaluation in 2021, said the children ate more vegetables and fewer processed foods at lunch and they felt modestly more full after lunch when compared to kids not in the programme. They didn't ask about attendance. That was one of the reasons I supported. It didn't bother asking about that. A more recent evaluation, October 22, looked at secondary school students and found that the programme had no statistically meaningful effect on attendance. Neither evaluation made any attempt to measure the program against academic achievement, school enrolment or completions. So, I'd like to see a bit of that before I commit half a billion dollars to more funding. I want to feed kids who through no fault of their own, are missing out on food. I want them to see school as a safe place to be, a place where somebody does care about them and does want them to succeed in life. Where they can see other people succeeding, where they can see that people care about them. But this hasn't worked. Just doing it in an unregulated, hoots wahey, let's feed them all, let's not have stigma, doesn't work. Other organisations can feed children relatively cost effectively, and they can get to the children who need the food. There's no stigma around them. Farm it out. Farm out a third of the money to those organisations and they will deliver a better result. And let's just see if we do see an improvement in school attendance. If it does actually work, if it doesn't, then let's put the money into another program that gets better results.
Kerre McIvor, is a journalist, radio presenter, author and columnist. Currently hosts the Kerre Woodham mornings show on Newstalk ZB - where this article was sourced.
And there are efficient ways to deliver food to hungry kids. The government isn't the only organisation doing it. Others have been doing it for years and years and years, and you would have to argue you have been doing it effectively. Kick Start Breakfast collaboration between Anchor Milk and Sanitarium Weet-Bix - they have been delivering breakfast to kids who need or want it. You might come from a family that can afford to stock the pantry, but you forget, or you've been to swimming and you're racing to get to school, there's a breakfast there available if you want it. It's not, as Boyd Swinburn says, you have to put up your hand and say hi, I'm a poor kid whose parents either can't or won't feed me. It's there if you need it or want it. I think they have provided 180,000 breakfasts every school week. So at least that's milk and Weet-Bix in your tummy. I know some vegan lovies might like to have the spirulina shots and the spinach is the way to start the day, but you know something in your tummy, milk and Weet-bix is perfectly good for generations of children and perfectly good for somebody who's starving. You've got KidsCan - they provide free food, clothing and health products for children in years 1 to 13. They deliver offerings that can last on the shelf for months at a time, once a term. They deliver things like pasta, muesli bars, baked beans, and if you're hungry that's available. If you've left your lunch at home that's available. And nobody is criticising either KidsCan or Kick Start Breakfast for not making these offerings universal. Well to a certain extent they are universal in that everybody can have them if they want them. What they're not doing, is forcing every single child to sit down and devour what they put in front of them. The food and other items that are being delivered by charitable organisations are there for those who need it and there's no shame in accessing it. And there are ways that kids could access food paid for by the taxpayer without publicly shaming them. Boyd Swinburn, I think, was being provocative when he said, children shouldn't have to put up their hand and say I'm poor. That's ridiculous. There are other ways of doing it. Also, Seymour's right about wanting to see value for money because the previous government hadn't put school lunches in its long-term budget costings. They've dipped into the Covid-19 emergency money, which was all debt. The Covid response and recovery fund, that's where the funding came for school lunches. There was no long-term funding applied. As the excellent Kate McNamara writes, she wrote about it in the Herald some time ago. Grant Robertson was told by Treasury that the more than $527 million in operating funds he planned to charge to the Covid-19 emergency fund for the lunches, didn't really qualify as Covid resurgence costs. Funding through the ordinary budget process would be more suitable. That advice fell on deaf ears because he knew he couldn't find a place in his budget for it. So now it's been kicked down the road and National either has to become the New Zealand equivalent of Thatcher - Thatcher milk snatcher and take the lunches away - or find the money to pay for it that Labour didn't have. They just used the Covid fund, National doesn't have that to pay for those lunches.
Also, I was one who supported it because I thought it would get more kids into school. It's a safe place to be. If you come from a precarious home, school is a safe place to be and you'll be fed. But again, there's no real evidence that that is why children are coming to school. So, 12.5% of children, according to the New Zealand Health Survey, live in households where food runs out sometimes or often. That's fewer than 100,000 of our 815,000 school kids. Probably considerably fewer, Kate points out, since the health survey includes preschoolers. So, you could feed lunch to every single one of those kids who are deprived twice over for the money that we're currently spraying in an untargeted way to kids who don't want it or need it. So the kids, according to a Ministry of Education evaluation in 2021, said the children ate more vegetables and fewer processed foods at lunch and they felt modestly more full after lunch when compared to kids not in the programme. They didn't ask about attendance. That was one of the reasons I supported. It didn't bother asking about that. A more recent evaluation, October 22, looked at secondary school students and found that the programme had no statistically meaningful effect on attendance. Neither evaluation made any attempt to measure the program against academic achievement, school enrolment or completions. So, I'd like to see a bit of that before I commit half a billion dollars to more funding. I want to feed kids who through no fault of their own, are missing out on food. I want them to see school as a safe place to be, a place where somebody does care about them and does want them to succeed in life. Where they can see other people succeeding, where they can see that people care about them. But this hasn't worked. Just doing it in an unregulated, hoots wahey, let's feed them all, let's not have stigma, doesn't work. Other organisations can feed children relatively cost effectively, and they can get to the children who need the food. There's no stigma around them. Farm it out. Farm out a third of the money to those organisations and they will deliver a better result. And let's just see if we do see an improvement in school attendance. If it does actually work, if it doesn't, then let's put the money into another program that gets better results.
Kerre McIvor, is a journalist, radio presenter, author and columnist. Currently hosts the Kerre Woodham mornings show on Newstalk ZB - where this article was sourced.
5 comments:
How about eliminating GST on food so that people can afford to buy their own food and make their own meals. Help people take care of themselves.
My son in law is a teacher and a life long member of the Labour Party. [no surprises there] He teaches at a school where the lunches are provided. He cannot believe the wastage of food. Because the lunches have to be healthy many of the children refuse to eat what is provided and eat the lunches they get from home. He estimates over 50 % of the food isn't eaten. As he said it is providing him and his family with a great deal of free food as he is allowed to take home what has not been eaten.
re 5 Mar. The argument seems to be an all or nothing option so the needy (and gluttony and greedy) are not stigmatised. (Personally I reckon a BMI test should also be applied). One problem with the universal approach is that many parents are wary of handled food prepared by persons unknown with hygiene standards and illnesses unknown. Schools are a source of colds as is. Cautious/prudent families who exclude their children then make them the basis for stigma.
Haven't most of these parents received government support payments to help provide things like lunches for their children ?
Why are we supplying them with a second lunch ?
Do school kids not have lunch on non- school days ?
You need to start children getting used to healthy food from an early age like preschool age.I received left overs from a preschool for my pig but was shocked at the junk food provided like cake and biscuits and white bread. I didn't even want my pig eating much of the food and put it in the compost instead.
Having watched Jamie Oliver's attempts to have healthy school lunches I think we have a big problem with nutrition in this country too .Junk food is addictive.and so available. What child won't eat chippies instead of fruit?
Any responsible parent keen on quality food knows the battle to have children eat healthily.
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