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Watching that video Seymour comes across as a petulant school boy explaining exactly how it is completely believable that his dog ate his homework.
In an interview with Q+A’s Jack Tame on Sunday, Associate Education Minister David Seymour has accused critics of the government’s revamped school lunch programme of “nitpicking”.
It is no secret that the school lunch programme has been plagued by problems – with Seymour himself describing them as teething issues – after he announced it would be pared back in October last year. The new menu was expected to save more than $130 million per year.
Earlier this week the School Lunch Collective’s main food manufacturer Libelle, which was supposed to have provided about 125,000 meals a day, went into liquidation.
Prior to that, RNZ had reported concerns about the lunches which had been failed to be delivered, or had turned up late – as well as having been inedible, unappetising, repetitive, or failing to meet dietary restrictions. One meal was so hot it gave a child second-degree burns.
A survey of more than 200 principals and area school teachers by the New Zealand Educational Institute found 80 percent of the respondents were not satisfied with the meals provided by the School Lunch Collective. Of those supplied by the Compass lead collective, just 7.5 percent were satisfied.
Seymour told Q+A the revamped school lunch programme had “shown two sides of New Zealand”.
“One is to point out at every opportunity: ‘This is terrible,’ ‘This is wrong,’ ‘It’s a conspiracy,’ ‘He’s trying to deliberately sabotage it.’ The other is, ‘Yep, you know what? It’s not what happens to you in life; it’s how you deal with it.’
“And each time there’s been a problem, we’ve been upfront, we’ve solved it, and it’s kept getting better.”
Compass Group New Zealand managing director Paul Harvey said 97.3 percent of the over 500,000 meals had been delivered on time this week, which meant at least 13,500 had not been.
“Again, there’s two New Zealands, right?” Seymour told Q+A in response.
“There’s people who will want to nitpick and say, ‘Oh, but you know, I‘ve done the maths. It’s 13,500. That’s what three percent is, whatever.’ You’re welcome to do that. But I tend to take the other view of life – that it’s not what happens; it’s how you deal with it. And actually, we’ve overcome all those problems to get to very high standards of performance.”
RNZ
Look, on many of those points David Seymour might have an argument, but politically he stepped into a minefield laid by the Labour Party and the teacher unions, as well as the Media Party.
There is literally nothing he can say or do to make any of them happy. It was always a trap and David Seymour, merrily when prancing and dancing his way into the middle of the minefield, set up a hopscotch court.
A good mate of mine would offer him this sage advice: ‘When you find yourself riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.’ Unfortunately David Seymour decided to remount, dig his spurs in and employ gratuitous whipping, only to find that that ‘Dog Tucker’ isn’t really a racehorse. Mind you some munter from Palmerston North would probably put $10 each way on it, in the third at Awapuni.
The best thing the government could do now is cancel the whole stinking mess: arrange for 50 loaves of bread, some butter, Marmite and a box of apples to be sent to the schools and have the kids make their own lunches.
Who feeds these kids in the school holidays? How many emaciated kids turned up on the first day of the new school year after six weeks of holidays?
The whole situation is bullshit, but there’s David Seymour arguing it out on Q+A, insulting people who don’t agree with him. I guess he didn’t go so far as to threaten to sue them, so there is that.
Stop explaining and cancel it. There: saved you millions.
Cam Slater is a New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. Cam blogs regularly on the GoodOil - where this article was sourced.
9 comments:
Seymours school lunch trials are testament to the difficulty of running large public projects, with hostile press ready to blow up any mistakes.
I'm looking forward to Cam's article on the many successful large government projects, initiated and overseen by Luxon and his team, devoid of opportuniy for the despicable nz media and equally despicable pens for hire to crow..
Can I go back as an adult student, for a free lunch?
Then I can learn the new history of the former New Zealand......
Just sounds like jack tame is a nitpicky nana who is on the side of free school lunches for half a million kids (note: not all kids just kids at select schools..... Meanwhile David Seymour's audience is still on his side. Get rid of school lunches for most they're a grotesque and expensive form of uneccesary middle class welfare. Provide school lunches to those few kids with genuine need - and the teachers know exactly who those kids are. (Note there are a few kids in need - not a majority as MSM would have you believe.)
And to double down on comments made by someone else on the issue of school lunches - if your kid has special dietary requirement parents need to be responsible for that. (My own kid, and other kids we know with allergies, religious aversions, and dietary preferences, manage their own dietary requirements in every situation - birthday parties, lunches, takeaways...so surely a few parents can manage.)
I agree, free school lunches should cancelled and parents take responsibility for their kids meals.
The other choice is to charge the parents for meals that can be made in the area as is done in the UK.
Two " things ".
1: - the contract was issued to one enterprise, who then subcontracted. So with the first, what process was devised that could be handed to the second entity as to direction ' of travel'.
That would be sound Business Practice - which ' on the surface appears not to have occurred '.
Me thinks, that an investigation into the Prime Contractor should be done - BUT not by the NZ Civil Service or a ' person from The Justice domain ' - no 3/4 people with business nous.
2: - Cam, never bet on a horse about to run in a race, at any NZ Racing Track, unless you ' know the form ' (many moons ago, considered study of racing form > Best Bets or the Racing News, in a newspaper of the day [not that, that happens any more] ) -was considered essential - and thinking you have a surety running at Awapuni. me thinks you are a mug.
On this subject, many New Zealander's have concurred that the onus for a Midday Meal at school is on the Parent's - not the Taxpayer - and until that can be corrected it is the Taxpayer who has and will continue to bear the burden of -
= gross business stupidity
= and parental failure to manage their own.
To the many, go research - The Platform and the interview by Sean Plunket with the Principal of a school in Northland - and hear how they manage their school lunch system - a salutary lesson for all other schools across New Zealand.
A kid in the 50's early 60' in the UK we had school dinners. No big fuss, we took a few shillings in on a Monday to pay for them and I'm now guessing that where any child that was in the unfortunate position that their parents could not pay that it would have been "taken care of" and the rest of us would have known nothing about it! The point is, for most it was not free. I do not recall any form of discrimination, we all got fed, took part in setting out tables, dishing it out, clearing up and learnt a few pointers on organisation. Older ones were the "dinner monitors" keeping good order. What the heck is all this current fuss about, eh?
The $161,000,000 owed to taxpayers by small businesses would help buy a few lunches. No such thing as a free lunch? Looks like there is if you a small to medium business owner and had a Covid loan from the taxpayers.
A letter on this issue published by the NZ Herald from a social justice warrior was gob-smacking:
All schools should get free lunches. Why? So those ( few or many) who do need these meals do not feel " stigmatized" by their status.
The bill footed by the NZ taxpayers is a bottomless pit!
Prisoners get fed three meals a day. The least the taxpayer can do is feed children as a prison of the mind is being built in the state controlled indoctrination centres.
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