Show me a victim and I’ll show you an opposition politician preaching concern, a union leader criticising those who caused it, and a media scrum scrambling to tell the story.
Our television news teams have become quite expert at starting a story about any topic with the victims perspective. It could be crime, the economy or a shortage of fish in the sea. Rather than explain the issue or it’s cause, let’s start with the victim’s perspective.
As beat ups go, the latest one is a doozy. At it’s centre are our children. In this case, they represent our victims. On the fringes are the critics; our left leaning politicians, media, teachers unions and others.
The issue is the provision of school lunches. In the government’s attempts to save a little over $100 million on the cost of the school lunch programme, there have been some teething troubles.
Those teething troubles include meals arriving late, being too cold or too hot, or lacking variety.
Of course, as the usual handwringers have stated their case, the blame for this debacle was placed fairly and squarely on the government, and it’s responsible Minister, David Seymour. A government that, incidentally is seeking to right-size the inherited spending across our bloated and unaffordable bureaucracy.
One such critic, a school lunch co-ordinator, complained that a delivery of spaghetti and meatballs had arrived late and that she was worried that “the children could get sick”. She went on to say that the children “were happy with the meals, but had said that they were tired of rice and chicken”.
I can’t help but think that we are losing a bit of perspective here.
Those of us in our forties, fifties and sixties will well remember our school lunches. The options were pretty simple. White bread sandwiches with jam, marmite or peanut butter. Sometimes we had luncheon sausage or even, lettuce AND marmite. Or Jam AND cheese. Usually there were a couple of biscuits in our lunch boxes as well. And a piece of fruit.
If you’re tired of rice and chicken, try five consecutive days of marmite sandwiches.
We didn’t walk around with Coke or Powerade or oversized drink bottles either. We drank water from the tap when we were thirsty. And yet, for the most part we turned out ok. We went to school for ten or twelve years and, came away as resilient and active participants in society.
Elsewhere, a school principal announced last week that “Seymour” cut the $7 per lunch to $3. No wonder our maths teaching is so poor. Based on my own analysis of the government budget reducing from $342 million to $235 million, across 235,000 students attending 190 days of school per year the variance is more like $2.50 rather than $4.00.
But there is a risk that excessive analysis overlooks the source of the issue.
Now, I wouldn’t for one moment, belittle the importance of a child being well fed. But equally I wouldn’t underestimate the importance of the role that a parent has in ensuring that their child is well fed. It would appear that, in this petty argument over school lunches, this simple fact is being overlooked.
Furthermore, we should acknowledge that there are children who suffer from enormous family disfunction, and who, if not fed at school, may not be fed at all.
And it should be logical to all of us that well fed children will participate better, learn better and remain more attentive throughout their school day.
But whose job is that?
Of the 470,000 students who attend primary and intermediate school, do we really believe that half, that is 235,000, suffer such inequity?
Another school Principal shouted from the pages of a rival newspaper that “our students deserve better”. She is right. They do. And first and foremost that better solution should be delivered by parents.
The same Principal complained that there were insufficient halal, vegan or meals fitting other dietary requirements. Really?
If the government is to be the ambulance at the bottom of the school lunch cliff, then so be it. But where ever functionally or financially possible, the top of that cliff should be manned by parents. And if we’re buying lunch for half the kids, we’re letting a lot of parents, who could otherwise provide lunches for their children, off the hook.
Let’s be clear, at any level of welfare, the government should be the provider of last resort. This column has previously stated that an important factor in any society is its willingness and ability to look after those who cannot look after themselves. The importance of doing so should be non-negotiable.
But beyond that, beyond those who cannot help themselves, are school lunches really the job of government? No it isn’t. It is not the job of our teachers to feed students. It’s not the school’s job either. A school principal engaged on lunches is not focused on education.
Someone once said that if you don’t have plans for your life, chances are that you will fit into someone else’s plans! If you have the means, and want to make sure your kids get a nutritious lunch, make it for them. If not, don’t complain about what the state does or doesn’t do for them.
We need to acknowledge that it is our parents who are letting their kids down, and not the government. This school lunch programme is a response to some parents neglecting their responsibilities, and a government who believed it was their job to fill the void.
It all goes back to 2019 when the then Labour led government decided to introduce school lunch programmes into the neediest of areas. Initially targeted at 120 schools and 21,000 children who “need our support the most”, the programme, like much of what that government touched, ballooned into an unnecessarily overstretched and unaffordable regime.
Somehow that regime continued to grow to a point that we now have almost half of our primary and intermediate school children receiving government sponsored welfare in the form of a school lunch.
But it’s gone too far and it needs to be reigned in. Note that I didn’t say stopped. We need to maintain a programme where it is needed. But beyond that, let’s take the politics out of it and pull it back.
The reasons are simple. Firstly, we cannot afford to spend a single dollar that we don’t have to. Supplementing the responsibilities of those who are financially able is a luxury beyond our current means. Secondly, the more that government gives, the more that is expected. Initially they wanted lunch. Now it seems, chicken and rice and $7 a pop is not good enough.
If we want to get exercised about the welfare of our children, there are plenty of other topics that those same serial complainers, politicians, unions and lunch monitors alike, don’t seem so keen to engage on.
How about this week’s announcement that for the year ended June 2024, 9% of our children in state care were abused and neglected? This announcement immediately after the trials and apologies brought about by our very own Royal Commission of Inquiry into the same topic. Nine percent is 507 children. Lives affected and possibly ruined.
And then there’s the fact that every month, Starship Children’s Hospital sees an abused child with a head injury so serious as to cause brain damage, as a result of child abuse.
Or how about our collective capacity to murder our children. We’ve lost at least 75 children under the age of 14 in the last ten years. The current running rate is one death every five weeks as a result of family violence.
The list goes on. Our youth suicide rate is one of the worst in the OECD. Infant mortality is sixth. Mental health, teen pregnancy, obesity.
According to Unicef we’re at the wrong end of most statistics for our children and teenagers. As a country once at the top of the ratings it’s a disgrace that we now rank 35th out of 41 developed countries for child wellbeing outcomes.
And yet here we stand, complaining about chicken or rice. Late or early. Hot or cold. Chasing a headline because we can embarrass a minister. We’re embarrassing ourselves.
I just went down to the local supermarket to get some lunch. Shaved ham, coleslaw and a tomato. The 150 grams of ham was $3.30 while 150 grams of coleslaw was $1.39. At $4.39 a loaf the ploughman’s wholemeal bread cost .21cents a slice or .84 cents for four slices. The tomato was .50cents. A man sized lunch, two full sized sandwiches for $6.03.
It shouldn’t be that hard. We might be broke. But you don’t need money to care! Sometimes we have to take the crutches away, so that the people can walk free.
Bruce Cotterill, a five time CEO and current Company Chairman and Director with extensive experience across a range of industries including real estate, media, financial services, technology and retail. Bruce regularly blogs on brucecotterill.com - where this article was sourced
The issue is the provision of school lunches. In the government’s attempts to save a little over $100 million on the cost of the school lunch programme, there have been some teething troubles.
Those teething troubles include meals arriving late, being too cold or too hot, or lacking variety.
Of course, as the usual handwringers have stated their case, the blame for this debacle was placed fairly and squarely on the government, and it’s responsible Minister, David Seymour. A government that, incidentally is seeking to right-size the inherited spending across our bloated and unaffordable bureaucracy.
One such critic, a school lunch co-ordinator, complained that a delivery of spaghetti and meatballs had arrived late and that she was worried that “the children could get sick”. She went on to say that the children “were happy with the meals, but had said that they were tired of rice and chicken”.
I can’t help but think that we are losing a bit of perspective here.
Those of us in our forties, fifties and sixties will well remember our school lunches. The options were pretty simple. White bread sandwiches with jam, marmite or peanut butter. Sometimes we had luncheon sausage or even, lettuce AND marmite. Or Jam AND cheese. Usually there were a couple of biscuits in our lunch boxes as well. And a piece of fruit.
If you’re tired of rice and chicken, try five consecutive days of marmite sandwiches.
We didn’t walk around with Coke or Powerade or oversized drink bottles either. We drank water from the tap when we were thirsty. And yet, for the most part we turned out ok. We went to school for ten or twelve years and, came away as resilient and active participants in society.
Elsewhere, a school principal announced last week that “Seymour” cut the $7 per lunch to $3. No wonder our maths teaching is so poor. Based on my own analysis of the government budget reducing from $342 million to $235 million, across 235,000 students attending 190 days of school per year the variance is more like $2.50 rather than $4.00.
But there is a risk that excessive analysis overlooks the source of the issue.
Now, I wouldn’t for one moment, belittle the importance of a child being well fed. But equally I wouldn’t underestimate the importance of the role that a parent has in ensuring that their child is well fed. It would appear that, in this petty argument over school lunches, this simple fact is being overlooked.
Furthermore, we should acknowledge that there are children who suffer from enormous family disfunction, and who, if not fed at school, may not be fed at all.
And it should be logical to all of us that well fed children will participate better, learn better and remain more attentive throughout their school day.
But whose job is that?
Of the 470,000 students who attend primary and intermediate school, do we really believe that half, that is 235,000, suffer such inequity?
Another school Principal shouted from the pages of a rival newspaper that “our students deserve better”. She is right. They do. And first and foremost that better solution should be delivered by parents.
The same Principal complained that there were insufficient halal, vegan or meals fitting other dietary requirements. Really?
If the government is to be the ambulance at the bottom of the school lunch cliff, then so be it. But where ever functionally or financially possible, the top of that cliff should be manned by parents. And if we’re buying lunch for half the kids, we’re letting a lot of parents, who could otherwise provide lunches for their children, off the hook.
Let’s be clear, at any level of welfare, the government should be the provider of last resort. This column has previously stated that an important factor in any society is its willingness and ability to look after those who cannot look after themselves. The importance of doing so should be non-negotiable.
But beyond that, beyond those who cannot help themselves, are school lunches really the job of government? No it isn’t. It is not the job of our teachers to feed students. It’s not the school’s job either. A school principal engaged on lunches is not focused on education.
Someone once said that if you don’t have plans for your life, chances are that you will fit into someone else’s plans! If you have the means, and want to make sure your kids get a nutritious lunch, make it for them. If not, don’t complain about what the state does or doesn’t do for them.
We need to acknowledge that it is our parents who are letting their kids down, and not the government. This school lunch programme is a response to some parents neglecting their responsibilities, and a government who believed it was their job to fill the void.
It all goes back to 2019 when the then Labour led government decided to introduce school lunch programmes into the neediest of areas. Initially targeted at 120 schools and 21,000 children who “need our support the most”, the programme, like much of what that government touched, ballooned into an unnecessarily overstretched and unaffordable regime.
Somehow that regime continued to grow to a point that we now have almost half of our primary and intermediate school children receiving government sponsored welfare in the form of a school lunch.
But it’s gone too far and it needs to be reigned in. Note that I didn’t say stopped. We need to maintain a programme where it is needed. But beyond that, let’s take the politics out of it and pull it back.
The reasons are simple. Firstly, we cannot afford to spend a single dollar that we don’t have to. Supplementing the responsibilities of those who are financially able is a luxury beyond our current means. Secondly, the more that government gives, the more that is expected. Initially they wanted lunch. Now it seems, chicken and rice and $7 a pop is not good enough.
If we want to get exercised about the welfare of our children, there are plenty of other topics that those same serial complainers, politicians, unions and lunch monitors alike, don’t seem so keen to engage on.
How about this week’s announcement that for the year ended June 2024, 9% of our children in state care were abused and neglected? This announcement immediately after the trials and apologies brought about by our very own Royal Commission of Inquiry into the same topic. Nine percent is 507 children. Lives affected and possibly ruined.
And then there’s the fact that every month, Starship Children’s Hospital sees an abused child with a head injury so serious as to cause brain damage, as a result of child abuse.
Or how about our collective capacity to murder our children. We’ve lost at least 75 children under the age of 14 in the last ten years. The current running rate is one death every five weeks as a result of family violence.
The list goes on. Our youth suicide rate is one of the worst in the OECD. Infant mortality is sixth. Mental health, teen pregnancy, obesity.
According to Unicef we’re at the wrong end of most statistics for our children and teenagers. As a country once at the top of the ratings it’s a disgrace that we now rank 35th out of 41 developed countries for child wellbeing outcomes.
And yet here we stand, complaining about chicken or rice. Late or early. Hot or cold. Chasing a headline because we can embarrass a minister. We’re embarrassing ourselves.
I just went down to the local supermarket to get some lunch. Shaved ham, coleslaw and a tomato. The 150 grams of ham was $3.30 while 150 grams of coleslaw was $1.39. At $4.39 a loaf the ploughman’s wholemeal bread cost .21cents a slice or .84 cents for four slices. The tomato was .50cents. A man sized lunch, two full sized sandwiches for $6.03.
It shouldn’t be that hard. We might be broke. But you don’t need money to care! Sometimes we have to take the crutches away, so that the people can walk free.
Bruce Cotterill, a five time CEO and current Company Chairman and Director with extensive experience across a range of industries including real estate, media, financial services, technology and retail. Bruce regularly blogs on brucecotterill.com - where this article was sourced
8 comments:
Just give kids a marmite sandwich, a jam sandwuch and some fruit. They don't need 3 x huge main meals either. Next minute there will be some very overweight kids. Ironically, many parents overfeed their kids. They have eggs, waffles,
and fried stuff for breakfast also. None of the 2 x weetbix that we had.
How logical and sensible Bruce. Time parents were made accountable or better still don’t bring kids into the world if you have no intention of providing for them by your own efforts.
I am not sure who's fault it may be. That said I know who the victims are and that is the taxpayer.
School lunches solve not one problem, they are simply a symptom of the fact a lack of parental responsibility in New Zealand has been captured, enrobed and enboldened by the indolent.......
Enough, is enough. Kill the program, save the money and isolate those children who turn up without food and then send in the social agencies with real prejudice and teeth to sort out the issue.....the problem is not with the child it exists with the parents. Until that changes, NZ will decline further into the backwater of 3rd world satus and deservedly so.
Parents providing lunches for their child is an act of love. Sure, for those of us who had this privilege, the tomato sandwiches were sometimes a bit soggy and the banana ones a little brownish but we knew our parents cared enough to provide for us with nutritious food consisting of sandwiches, fruit, small cakes or biscuits and a drink bottle. Nobody complained, nobody came to school "lunchless" We didn't expect or receive a hot meal to be provided. We lived to "tell the tale".
Dietary requirements that are medically based should be allowed for. Those that are choices, religious or vegan for example, should be the responsibility of those making the choice.
If I neglect a dog by not feeding it, I may be prosecuted.
If I neglect my kid by not feeding it, the govt will pick up the tab.
Whoa.
Prosecute negligent parents and see how quickly and cost-effectively the situation changes.
I wonder where the family tax credit is going then?
Who’s at fault on school lunches?
Our Nanny state.
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