We here at TDB like to be first at pointing shit out, but in this never ending 24-7 news clusterfuck of a media environment we all live in, even we can slip up and miss something that should get more focus, so from time to time we’ll run Under the Radar News, things of note that escaped attention.
This week, Oranga Tamariki Report, Marama Davidson missing in action, US Police kill white people too & lies about free food in schools.
Oranga Tamariki Report:
Scathing Treasury review of Oranga Tamariki’s $1.1b budget spend-up
One Treasury paper said the per child cost of putting a child into Oranga Tamariki was increasing without any appreciable improvement in outcomes.
Treasury gave the Government a scathing review of its $1.1 billion investment in Oranga Tamariki in the 2019 Budget, calling the spend a “disparate collection of ideas” that was “not governed by clear organisational thinking.”
OT and the Government must be so happy the Queen died just as the most damning report to date over the nonsense OT spouts as policy gets released. There is no clear plan to materially make the lives of those taken by the State better other than woke washing the justification of early State intervention. This should lead every news bulletin, it can’t because the Queen died. If National were smart they’d release the Uffindell decision now.
Marama Davidson missing in action:
Despite being the Minister for Homelessness, despite criticism that she hasn’t announced one new housing policy and only released 8 Press releases since becoming Minister, despite the appalling allegations made at the Rotorua Golden Mile, the Minister is missing in action to explain why her social housing policies as the Minister for Homelessness and as the Associate Minister for Housing are failing so appallingly!
Green apologists will claim Marama is simply an add on Minister with nothing more than the vacant baubles of power so can’t really do much, BUT THAT’S THE FUCKING PROBLEM ISN’T IT?
This Blog was very vocal in pointing out why the Greens shouldn’t have cut the deal they did, as was Sue Bradford and a dozen other true Green critics so now Marama is the fall guy for failed Labour policies, the Greens can’t pretend they weren’t aware of the strategic dangers they were inviting by giving Labour political cmamaflague on Housing and the Climate Crisis, two areas Labour had no intentions of doing anything about thanks to Professional Managerial Class Corporate Cheerleader Neil Jones.
Marama is missing in action to explain why Rotorua’s Golden Mile is such a disaster.
US Police kill white people too:
US man shot dead by police while acting as pallbearer at dad’s funeral
As mourners gathered outside a northern West Virginia funeral home on August 24, two plainclothes officers with a fugitive warrant swooped in from separate vehicles, called Owens’ name and shot him dead, spattering his 18-year-old son’s shirt with blood as horrified loved ones looked on.
Numerically American Police shoot far more white people than black people, when you focus on identity as the only metric, it creates the false impression Policy violence is purely a ‘black’ issue so ‘whites’ don’t see themselves as impacted. Thankfully the cops here blew a white guy away at his Dad’s funeral and reminded American’s Police violence is an American problem, not a black problem.
Lies about free food in schools:
‘Large amounts of food waste’ thanks to lunches in schools programme
It’s important for the right to denounce the free breakfast and lunches at schools programmes because they hate the idea of the State allowing parents off the hook for their children food. We get lots of stoppers of kids not eating shitty food as evidence it’s not needed, that’s bullshit!
When MANA launched ‘Feed the Kids’ Bill, it was focused at making the food making part of the community, rather than some Kids Can corporate charity, and when the food is made with love and not Kids Can Corporate charity, the food is well received…
Peria School is one of the Far North schools that cooks all meals on site.
Its 63 students receive everything from bento bowls to quiche, sandwiches, sushi, wraps and soup.
Principal Ariana Williams said her school had been part of the programme since 2021, with funding covering the cost of chefs, kai (food) and other additional expenses.
Williams explained when the school first started, it had no commercial kitchen, so had used the school’s 5YA money to build one in an unused building.
“We now have a fully operational commercial kitchen on site and three chefs, who are parents of students at our school,” Williams said.
“They all work on different days to make the lunches, with one supervisor chef who creates the menus each week.
“Each term we ask the students what they like and if we notice an increase in food waste we know to amend our menu.”
Williams admitted many parents were sceptical about their children eating the school lunches.
After the first term, however, they had 100 per cent uptake of students and teachers noticed an improvement in their ability to focus and learn.
She said changing meal times had helped minimise food waste, as had the use of stainless steel bento boxes.
“Our students are more mindful of waste because they see the effort our chefs put into making the food,” she said.
“Any food waste goes to the local pigs and chickens, or into the school’s composting and worm farms.
“I would recommend having a kitchen on site because it’s meant our carbon footprint has lessened as we don’t get our food brought in.”
Ārāma Gardens & Nursery is a ‘pleasure garden’ located in Peria, promoting sustainability of the local environment through the creation and education of sustainable land practices.
The volunteer-led organisation worked with around 20 local Far North schools last year to collect and process single-use compostable packages received from local lunch providers.
Founder Aaron Fahey said the group was already in the process of setting up a community composting hub when approached by a local provider to get involved.
Fahey said it seemed like a good way to collect the carbon element required for composting and to divert waste from going into a landfill.
Around 10 tonnes of waste was received, but was far more time-consuming than Fahey anticipated.
“The packaging was resistant to breaking down because of the aqueous layer preventing them from being able to take up water quickly,” he said.
“Contamination of other forms of non-compostable waste in the bags of packaging was also an issue.
“We decided to stop collecting them, (mainly because) we felt we were essentially propping up a system that was not, in our opinion, the best solution.”
Fahey said the sustainability of the whole life cycle needed to be considered and suggested to providers the idea of using reusable metal dishes.
Te Taitokerau Principals Association chair Pat Newman said he’d heard mainly positive feedback from schools regarding the programme.
He said it was important to ensure kids were getting fed and hoped the standard of some suppliers was not ruining it for all.
…when feed the kids is done well, it can provide great food and be a silver bullety to truancy, when it’s done in the half arsed corporate charity way of Kidscan, it becomes a vested interest of the corporate charity, not the kids.
We need universally funded sustainable food for our kids at school to fight truancy, inequality, poverty and lift education standards because highly children don’t learn.
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“hungry children don’t learn”?
good on that northland school but it should be a state funded programme not a question of patchy charity provision and companies like sanatarium looking for a ‘good news story’
Local activity over centralised everday! Enlist local people to do local stuff, it deepens relationships and roots within the commuity and the money is earnt and largely spent in the community.
Local is pragmatic, responsive and should also be inclusive. Centralised is exclusive, one size fits all and political rather than practical. Yet Labour wants to centralise not only 3 Waters but local govt too. It’s a shit show of ideology over what really works.
Agreed. Local is pragmatic. Local people ensuring they have a water supply, local people ensuring all their kids have lunch. Not waiting for Wellington to sort out everything.
At my primary school in the sixties the school committee arranged fo volunteer mums to provide lunches. Some kids brought cut lunches some kids bought lunch and some kids were provided lunch. The parent volunteers worked out who needed the free lunchs. I assume the food cost was covered by the sold lunches and some additional money from the school committee. Not rocket science.
you’re right in an ideal world fantail but we have a nasty habit in NZ of coming up with half arsed ‘solutions’