Yes extend free food in schools AND cut GST off food and why Max Rashbrooke’s incrementalism is part of the problem

Food inflation is 12.1%, it will be higher during the election.

People need solutions to the obscene price gouging inflation under regulated capitalism is creating in NZ alongside the rent gouging Landlords are quietly conducting against renters.

Expanding universal free food in schools and making that part of a new food security infrastructure is essential as a solution…

Growing calls for free school lunch programme to be extended

Nutrition researchers in New Zealand and overseas are calling for the country’s Ka Ora, Ka Ako Healthy School Lunches Programme to reach more children as food prices continue to rise.

“We think that expanding Ka Ora, Ka Ako is a fairly low-cost way of helping more families to be able to make sure that their kids are getting a healthy meal at least five times a week,” Health Coalition Aotearoa co-chair Associate Professor Lisa Te Morenga told 1News.

“They’re our future tax payers, you know we want them to grow up to lead long, healthy, productive lives.”

Last month’s Budget allocated $323.4 million to extend the initiative until the end of 2024.

Primary and secondary students in school communities that face the most barriers to receiving an education, around 25% of the total student population or around 220,000 students, are eligible.

“It’s a wonderful thing, especially at this time, and I just hope it doesn’t get taken away from us,” Ngāti Toa School principal Kathleen O’Hare said.

O’Hare said there’s multiple positive impacts from children receiving cooked, nutritious lunches before their afternoon lessons, including increasing student attendance.

She said families were really appreciative.

“It like fills you up and if you have like no food, you could get fed at school,” one boy told 1News.

“Some of us didn’t used to bring lunch but now we can still eat,” a girl said.

University of Auckland’s Growing Up in New Zealand study reports in the past year half of children living in moderately food insecure households, and a third of those living in severely food insecure households, didn’t access Ka Ora, Ka Ako.

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Adjunct Professor of Nutrition Juliana Cohen has researched school lunch programmes around the world, from educationally-renowned Finland where all students are fed through the country’s funded school lunch programme, to the United States where states have different rules around which students can access a free lunch.

She says research has consistently shown an access for all approach benefits students the most.

“Their diets are on average better than if a child brought food from home, their academic performance, including math and literacy scores, are on average higher for all students,” she said.

…but we need more than prepackaged lunches prepared by not for charity organisations like ‘Kidscan’.

We need parents involved in the preparation and serving of the food, we need new facilities to broaden the capacity to make meals on site, we need community gardens and we need it to be universal.

We need GST off food because those academics arguing that there are better cost effective ways are simply highlighting their own middle class work from home privilege that ignores ANY reduction in food prices will be gratefully taken by hungry and desperate Kiwis.

The level of poverty desperation is hidden by Dr Incremental, Max Rashbrooke, whose pitiful defence of Labour’s foot dragging over at the eternally compromised Spinoff is made nonsense by CPAGs criticism that the numbers he’s relying on are horrifically compromised and show none of the true magnitude of poverty.

We can not allow Labour Party apologists like Rashbrooke dominate the debate and let Labour off the hook.

Life is far more difficult for many post Covid, pretending it is not out of a misplaced belief that acknowledging how damaged society has become allows National to win the debate is denial of poverty in our communities.

We have much to do and small tweaks are no longer acceptable.

There is an unspoken promise between the neoliberal State and the untaxed capital gains private landlord class that the neoliberal State never builds enough State Houses to alleviate housing desperation so that the untaxed capital gains private landlord class can exploit that housing desperation ON TOP OF getting a $1.5Billion annual subsidy in the form of the Accommodation Allowance EVERY SINGLE YEAR!

So the neoliberal State work hand in glove with the interests of the untaxed capital gains private landlord class to constantly keep desperation in the Housing market by never building enough State Houses WHILE handing taxpayer funded subsidies to the untaxed capital gains private landlord class!

This rigged casino where Landlords can constantly use their own debt to buy more property and out leverage first time home buyers just adds insult to injury.

On top of this, ACT and National want to give that same untaxed capital gains private landlord class the power to evict you at will so they can kick out the smelly domestic renters and exploit the new 100000 migrant workers coming into the country, remove all the healthy home and environmental regulations and put back in place the tax loopholes that benefit the untaxed capital gains private landlord class.

On top of this, the Real Estate pimps are donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Right and are dangling the promise of house prices jumping 20% if National and ACT win.

The Housing Crisis is a political decision and you as renters should be incandescent with motherfucking rage at how this has been allowed to continue!

We have a class war this election but none of the political vocabulary on the Left to fight it  because Identity Politics has replaced Class.

Max Rashbrooke’s incrementalism is part of the problem!

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