Poll result: Voters have lost faith in new, cheaper, school lunches

Wednesday, 12 March 2025

A strong majority of voters - including many National Party supporters - want the Government to bring back the old free school lunches, according to a new poll.

The polling, from Talbot Mills, shows that two thirds of voters have lost faith in the Government’s new school lunches programme. The Government cut funding for the Ka Ora, Ka Ako, free school lunches programme - saving an estimated $107 million per year.

David Seymour, the minister in charge of school lunches, said there have been “teething issues” but predicted things would be better by term two.

The Talbot Mills polling took place between March 3 and 12, during a week which saw food coated in burnt plastic delivered to Murchison children and the Gisborne burns incident.

Why it matters

School lunches have become one of the most incessant issues facing this Government.

Since the new, cheaper, school lunch programme came into effect at the start of this year, the Government has been hit by a rolling maul of concerns, complaints and bad headlines about it. Most recently, a child in Gisborne was hospitalised after a cottage pie exploded and gave them second-degree burns.

By the numbers

The poll showed 65% of voters said the new school lunches programme was not working.

And 60% of voters wanted the Government to reinstate the previous Ka Ora, Ka Ako system.

Broken down into party vote, even Government supporters didn’t think the new school lunch programme was working.

For National voters, 53% agreed with the statement “Overall the new school lunch programme isn’t working”.

Even ACT supporters appeared concerned. While there was a higher margin of error given the smaller sample size, around half of ACT voters agreed the programme wasn’t working. And a strong majority of NZ First voters did not support the new model.

Asked how strongly voters agreed that the new school lunches weren’t working: 37% of respondents strongly agreed, and 28% agreed. 13% supported the new lunch scheme, saying they disagreed. And 4% strongly disagreed. The remainder, 18%, were unsure.

Asked if the Government should bring back the previous school lunch model: 31% strongly agreed and 29% agreed the old system should come back. 19% of people were unsure. And 13% disagreed with the idea, while 8% strongly disagreed.

Who said what

Seymour said it was “difficult to poll on issues this specific”.

He said ACT had done some of its own focus groups on this issue.

“There are people who think that the whole policy shouldn't exist. There are people who think that we're doing it a good job, but acknowledge that there are problems, and then there are people who don't like the way we're doing it. There's a whole spectrum of views,” he said.

He didn’t believe the issues with school lunches would harm ACT’s support.

“The people that act appeals to can see that we're saving money, we're doing it better and smarter, and when there's a problem, we front up, we're honest, and then we solve it,” he said.

Questioned about the latest school lunch issues in Parliament on Tuesday, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said Seymour was “working incredibly hard” and would be able to fix it.

“There's some improvement happening, there's a lot more that needs to happen, and, as I said, the minister is wanting to make sure there are improvements in place for term two,” he said.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins said Luxon was failing to show leadership on this issue.

“They're now saying, ‘Oh, it could be term two before these issues are actually resolved.’ These are a daily concern for schools. When you've got kids getting physically injured by exploding lunches, it's really not something that you can say, ‘Oh, well, we're going to take a few more weeks to fix it’,” he said.

The history

The Labour Government started free school lunches scheme in 2020, spending about $323m per year to deliver food to low decile schools. It feeds about a quarter of New Zealand’s primary, intermediate and high school students.

With the change of Government, Seymour announced a cheaper school lunches programme. He budgeted $3 per meal - they used to cost up to $8.62 - which saved $107 million per year.

The details

Polling company Talbot Mills asked 818 voters, between March 3 and March 12, if they agreed or disagreed with the following statements:

• Overall the new school lunch programme isn’t working.

• The Government should return to the previous school lunch model.

The main figures were reported with a margin of error of 3%.