And now ACT are here to steal free school lunches

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This hard right racist climate denying beneficiary bashing Government need a billion each year in spending cuts to pay for their tax cuts to their wealthy landlord mates.

This drive for wealthy landlord tax cuts means the Disabled will get $2300 less each year.

This drive for wealthy landlord tax cuts means 13 000 children will be pushed into poverty.

This drive for wealthy landlord tax cuts means $555million taken from the poorest families.

This drive for wealthy landlord tax cuts means 8000 more tobacco deaths.

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On top of all this, ACT now want to take free school lunches away…

School lunches: Health campaigners blast ‘extremely concerning’ David Seymour appointment

Act leader David Seymour has described free school lunches as ‘wasteful’ public spending and argued that the new Government should cut them. Alex Spencereports that health campaigners are alarmed he has been given responsibility for the initiative and have asked for an urgent meeting.

A coalition of health charities has slammed the Government’s decision to give ministerial responsibility for free school lunches to David Seymour after the Act leader campaigned for the programme to be abolished.

Representatives of the Health Coalition Aotearoa (HCA) wrote to Seymour, an Associate Education Minister, on Monday requesting an urgent meeting so they can plead the case for keeping the scheme, which provides free lunches to about 220,000 students across the country, according to a letter obtained by the Herald.

Ka Ora, Ka Ako, which was introduced by Labour in 2019 and has been allocated about $160 million a year to operate, has not been funded beyond this year. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told the Herald last month the programme would continue, but Professor Boyd Swinburn, the HCA’s co-chair, said the decision to put one of its most fervent critics in charge of the policy raises doubts about its future.

…one of the silver bullets to truancy is free lunches, to take out of the mouths of hungry children so the Right’s rich landlord scum class can get a billion each year in tax cuts is an obscenity.

More submachine guns, more big tobacco, more tax cuts for the rich and less food in hungry kids mouths.

Every single week under this hard right racist climate denying beneficiary bashing Government I hate this country just a little bit more.

Remember, according to The Democracy Project and the right wing political commentators, this is all ‘moderate’.

So ACT will slash free school lunches AND fine parents for truant children – it’s like stick, stick, stick, no carrot.

This is what we is now – this is the hateful spiteful maliciousness of who we have become.

 

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64 COMMENTS

    • ” lets just starve the kids to death that will decrease the number LIVING IN POVERTY ”

      They can’t do that.

      Neo liberalisim and NACT needs a desperate underclass and slave labour to return their supporters assive profits.

  1. Educationalists have made it clear for decades that hungry kids don’t learn well, or behave socially with others in school. Principals, teachers and teacher aides know that school meals are the best or only food some kids are going to get that day. This lot will want school meals to go back to volunteers and scrounging like they used to be, “breakfast clubs“ and so forth, with on use by products begged from Fonterra etc.

    This is another “war on the poor” by NZ neo libs–they just love putting the slipper into the underclass they created in the 80s & 90s, and continue in 2024 by refusing to cough up their share of taxes. So ironic that the day shiny bonce announced his “entitlement” to be entitled to a grand a week for living in his own house, Dave comes up with the brilliant idea of denying school children food…some spin doctor got to the PM within a couple of hours and he retracted.

    This is surely an issue to run a real campaign on–Atlas inspires this type of crap and it has to be resisted. Restaurant protests and disruption at the very least are required when Seymour, Baldrick and other richos are stuffing their faces. If the school meal programme is not refunded others will suffer too–the small businesses and workers that provide the service. Scandinavian countries in the main are far from poor but they offer universal free meals in schools.

  2. I guess it goes with their plan to take their housing from them as well
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/350196365/theyre-not-dog-boxes-non-profit-taking-kainga-ora
    While the article does not mention it I suspect that an alternative explanation is that the government knows that tough times are coming & wants to provide some sort of safety net for their kind of people so they can claim some sort of moral high ground. As soon as I read that they were prepared to evict people it suggested that only certain people were eligible for help. While I am not against the idea of evicting people I would need to see the conditions required before trusting them with that power.

  3. “The Prime Minister…. told the Herald last month the programme would continue ….”. Why is it up for review then? Once again the minor coalition partners are setting the agenda.

    • Because Luxon is a cowardly puppet PM. He has proved he has no moral fibre . His days are numbered

    • “The Prime Minister…. told the Herald last month the programme would continue ….”. Why is it up for review then? ”

      Luxon either lies or is convienent with the truth.

      John Key’s protege. This strategy worked for him.

      • Cluxon was skiting before the election about how much ‘better’ they would do school lunches than Labour had.
        It was pointed out that it was already being run quite well locally, quite efficiently and without HUGE amounts of waste but no, Nats. would definitely do it BETTER!!!

        Of course, Seymour knows all about children, having none himself.
        Knows all about how to run a school lunch programme which I suspect means, making it so dreadful everyone gives up in disgust.
        Problem solved.

        I think the expectation by the wealthy of tax cuts, is an egregious waste of taxpayer funds. Cut that terrible wasteful bit of expenditure and you pay for your school lunches and other things.
        Problem solved.

        Yes Justine, Cluxon doesn’t have a portfolio, he hands all the tricky things on to cut throats. He’s too scared to put his name to anything.
        But he knows HIS entitlements!

  4. 40 years of fucking neo-liberalism AKA fiscal barbarism dropped on us by a traitor two term finance minister roger douglas stealthily and parasitically dug in to Old Labour, has elevated douglas 2.0 in seymour to scavenge what he can of our country before he sells us to the corporate fucking americans for a few beans and a walking petri dish feed-lot cow.
    For those few idiots of you who think we have Old Labour to blame therefore today’s national’s better had better try to think again.
    The Guardian.
    Europe’s lurch to the right rolls on. Only unity on the left can stop it
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2023/jun/04/europes-lurch-to-the-right-rolls-on-only-unity-on-the-left-can-stop-it
    Only unity on the Left could have stopped it. Well, guess who fucked that idea up for here. Yep, you’re right. The dreaded Natzo’s and dodgy roger.
    roger douglas, a Natzo plant fucked Old Labour then the Natzo perps stepped in for the fatal blow. They knee capped the work force.
    Te Ara
    https://teara.govt.nz/en/unions-and-employee-organisations/page-7
    When the Labour Party won the general election of 1984, restructuring speeded up. For the first time in a century, many unions were suddenly on the defensive. They were described as old-fashioned relics from an earlier age of state-regulated institutions, ‘overtaken by nimbler forms of evolution, like Treasury analysts’.1
    @ Farmers. It’s at this point that you should be wondering, who’s treasures was Treasury they analysing? Tourists? Yeah, that’d be it. (eye roll)

  5. “The Prime Minister…. told the Herald last month the program would continue ….”. Why is it up for review then? ”

    Luxon either lies or is convienent with the truth.

    John Key’s protege. This strategy worked for him.

  6. School lunches are about more than food. They are about social solidarity. Everyone sits down at the same tables together, and has access to the same menu, regardless of colour, creed or social background.

      • Pay everyone a living wage and parents can povide the lunches. But Seymour doesn’t believe in a living, he prefers slavery.
        Or how about we return to an economy where a single income could feed a family.

    • I agree, it also helps socialize the kids if they sit them down at a table – like in France. But do they do that in NZ? Or just hand out sandwiches?

      • equanimouse I agree too. The sit-down school canteens in the the UK, apart from providing kids with the food which they need and enjoy, are a social bonding experience. Seymour mightn’t like this, divide-and-rulers don’t, but hitting on kids is gutter politics.

        It’s incredibly ironic that possibly the most iconic picture of the Jesus who Luxon professes to follow, is that of ‘The Last Supper’, and has been subject to interpretation and comment ever since. Christian church services model it every Sunday. Seymour is worse than Judas here, and Christopher Luxon is an even more disgraceful human being in allowing the issue to fester.

  7. So he is saying is it value for money. Fatal words, everyone duck for cover. What these arseholes usually forget is that while businesses can and possibly should strive to be efficient, charities and governments need to be effective. There is a difference.

  8. Seymour’s attack on school lunches is the latest example of him being person who has nothing but contempt for anyone who cannot stand on their own two feet unassisted. Anyone who has no capital is bad. Anyone who needs social welfare is bad. Anyone who thinks the checks and balances that have been under attack since Day 1 of this Government are good is bad.

    To Seymour and this Government, this #CoalitionOfChaos, anyone who fits one of those categories or sympathizes with anyone caught in one of those categories is bad.

    This is just the latest example of what I believe is this Government is trying to deliver: Neoliberalism Mk 2.0. I think that the Government are deliberately rushing as much crap as possible through as fast as possible because they know that the public will push back once they realize what is going on. The reforms in the 1980’s got off to a quick start because Richard Prebble and Roger Douglas knew that there would be pushback once the job cuts and the selling of assets started – better to push as much through now before the public wake up, was the reasoning.

    2024 and here we are again.

  9. David Seymour indulges his fantasy of being the schoolyard bully who terrorises the other kids by stealing their lunches, not because he, and the other thugs in his gang are hungry, but because they can.

      • We have more rich people in NZ than ever before and much more poorer than before.
        With such a poor education I understand you struggle with the failed trickle down theory Bob. But you struggle in most things Bob.

        • To the person countryboy I say you are a dreadfully naive self appointed oracle.I must add though I enjoy the attention you afford me.
          My education I venture is far superior to yours.

      • lol – you haven’t sliced up a cake have you Bob becase you’re usually under the table licking the crumbs off your lord barons boots.

  10. I really wish people would stop using “free” when it comes to Government programs. Every time you see the word “free” replace it with “taxpayer funded that comes at the expense of something else”. I get it doesn’t have the same ring to it, but the taxpayer pot is finite.

    • Who care. Look at the USA where people have to fund their own healthcare? Are you really keen on having to pay >$5k for an emergency room visit?

    • ok nitrium how about increasing the tax take AT LITTLE/NO cosr to average kiwi with a cgt.
      …cue pearl clutching

  11. The only thing I haven’t seen yet is a quote from David Seymour, “There is no empirical evidence that eating lunch is good for kids.” I’m sure he can round that up.

      • He would say that because he’d reckon there would likely be some who’d believe spending money on school lunches is a waste and if he could generate enough enthusiasm for the notion he could be onto a winner.

  12. As a National supporter I believe people should try and organize their life to support themselves and any children they bring into the World .However the covid curve ball put many out of work or required extra money so for the next couple of years the state needs to help support the children in whatever way they can .

  13. We got milk and fruit at kindergarten in the 60s we also got 2 cents hot cocoas at primary school. We use to like helping others now there’s some real nasty cunts living in our country mean spirited.

    • Covid is pa. It was the Nats who abolished the free school milk which I got throughout primary school. In winter, it was made into hot cocoa. The reason they abolished it was nonsense. In WW2 and it’s aftermath, there were apples provided for school children. Now a significant amount of the apple crop is left to rot.

      You may remember that when a group of mums in Porirua started making sandwiches for hungry kids a while back, paid for from their own pockets, at least two females wrote to the Dom, complaining that the sandwiches contained luncheon sausage, which wasn’t nutritious – and doing absolutely nothing themselves. Idiots.

      • Yes, Gentle Annie but we can’t even afford to buy the fruit produced here or the meat, yet our farmers get taxpayers dollars every time there is disaster, or they have issue now is this fair I don’t think so.

  14. Newshub (the new darling of the left) reported in July 2023 that Treasury found about 10,000 lunches – costing about $25 million – were left over every day. A Ministry of Education survey found 61 percent of leftovers were given to students to take home and 21 percent were given to the community. It isn’t clear where the other 18% ended up. Perhaps that’s the origin of Seymour’s comment about lunches being fed to pigs.

    It does look as though there is significant room for improvement on how this is run. Comments about the connection between adequate food and learning ignore the wastage issue.

    • Ennius. There’ll always be a bit of wastage but it’s better than school children being hungry. One picture I saw of pasta school lunches looked totally revolting, but I’m not a pasta person, although generally like anything that I’ve not had to cook myself. Children can be quite conservative about food. The Wellington City Mission can’t keep up with the current demand for food, so there should be outlets for it, but if the surplus ends up as pigswill or manure, that doesn’t really matter. I gather that the Sallies put stuff out on tables in the street once or twice a week, and it all goes.

      • the ‘waste’ can become pig swill it did at my school in the uk or be composted it’s only ‘waste’ because in nz we lack joined up thinking

  15. Ten thousand lunches are probably the horrible poor-quality lunches made by the private businesses there are obviously logistical issues but really policy should be reviewed and refined annually. Luxon gave this to seemore as he does not want to deal with the hard issues. Poor quality lunches was identified as the reason they don’t eat them schools can do it themselves and will get better results.

    • easy pa cook em in central town kitchens or schools and I do mean actually cook them not bung em in a microwave

  16. If seemore gives our public school the 60 k per student, he wants to give charters schools they might be able to deliver food themselves he needs to be asked this

  17. A picture says a thousand words and the one above does it brilliantly. Take from the impoverished kids, while the policy making gluttons in Parliament continue to consume meals courtesy of Parliamentary caterer Bellamys and the NZ taxpayer! Some cuts there wouldn’t go amiss!

    I watched Parliament today and noticed plenty of politicians there who could do with some reduction in their food consumption!

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