David Seymour hopes school lunch issues solved by next term, but won’t hand over responsibilities if they aren’t
Act leader David Seymour says he expects the ongoing issues with his school lunches to be sorted by the next school term, but has stopped short of saying he will hand over responsibility for the scheme if the issues continue.
Education Minister Erica Stanford said she would not be giving Seymour a deadline to fix the issues, but has called him to her office for a meeting to discuss the reports of late or mis-labelled lunches, and quality control issues.
There have been multiple complaints about the lunches, including the untimeliness of delivery; unsealed containers leaving food open to contamination; burnt food and lunches not turning up.
Students at a rural South Island school consumed melted plastic due to overheated lunches in an incident described as “unforgivable” by their principal.
“I think the practical issues we’re facing now, it’s a matter of weeks. I expect to start Term 2 in tip-top shape,” Seymour said.
“Can I just point out, there will always be who criticise them, even when we get it right?”
He said more than 143,000 meals a day were sent out. The Act leader said he “had no intention” of passing over responsibilities for the scheme if the issues were not resolved by the next school term.
Meanwhile, Labour leader Chris Hipkins says Prime Minister Christopher Luxon seems “blind to the effects of poverty” and has accused the Government of sabotaging its school lunches scheme
On Tuesday, Luxon faced further questions over ongoing issues with the school lunches programme. He said the lunches were not up to scratch, but had confidence the minister in charge of the scheme, Seymour, would fix them.
There have been multiple complaints about the lunches, including the untimeliness of delivery; unsealed containers leaving food open to contamination; burnt food and lunches not turning up.
Students at a rural South Island school consumed melted plastic due to overheated lunches in an incident described as “unforgivable” by their principal.
“There are a number of issues and the meals are not up to scratch and not being delivered for what was contracted. Those are issues David Seymour is working through and I’ve got every confidence he will fix them. And of course, if parents don’t like it, pack a lunch.”
Luxon made similar comments hours earlier while speaking with Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking. “If you really are unhappy with it, for God’s sake, go make a Marmite sandwich and put an apple in a bag just like you and I had.”
‘An unmitigated disaster’
Meanwhile, Hipkins said Luxon needed to take more decisive action to fix the situation, calling the situation an “unmitigated disaster”.
“His lack of leadership has been evident throughout this process and his response this morning, which was simply to say, well, the lunch programme probably shouldn’t exist and parents should just feed their own kids in the first place shows actually what the true agenda has been here, which is to run down the school lunches programme so they can justify cutting it.”
Hipkins said he was concerned the Government would scrap the programme altogether, meaning some children would attend school without lunch.
“The vast bulk of parents do the very best that they can. We have to recognise that Christopher Luxon seems completely blind to the effects of poverty in New Zealand, that there are a lot of working families whose kids live below the poverty line and that really is an indictment on all of us as a society, but simply ignoring that is ignoring reality.”
Hipkins said Luxon should take the school lunches programme off Seymour and give it to another MP.
“I think they’re completely out of touch with the day-to-day realities of low-income New Zealand families, who are absolutely struggling to make ends meet and sabotaging the free school lunches programme, which seems to be what they’re doing, is only adding financial pressure on to New Zealand families.
“I think it was obvious that this was set up to fail.”
Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism.