Welcome to New Zealand, where kids get slop and politicians get oysters

Thursday, 13 February 2025

Virginia Fallon is a staff writer and columnist based in Wellington.

OPINION: There was something deeply distasteful about last week’s scenes from Shane Jones’ Waitangi party.

For more than a decade, Jones – now the fisheries minister and senior MP with New Zealand First – has been hosting the party at his house. It’s described as the place to be, the sort of event where politics are put aside and the folks who can just have a jolly good time.

This time, the party’s theme was “Gatsby”: think 1920s glamour and decadence.

Speaker Gerry Brownlee wore a blue Hawaiian shirt, Winston Peters a newspaper-print one. I’ve no idea what was worn by National MPs Paul Goldsmith and Mark Mitchell; same with Labour’s Greg O’Connor and ACT’s Karen Chhour.

But while even politicians shouldn't be begrudged a bit of a do, the optics of this one were undeniably unpalatable.

Last week, when some of New Zealand’s school children were either served slop or left waiting for meals that arrived well past lunchtime – if at all – the country’s elite dined on 220 crayfish; 65 dozen oysters; 200kg of lamb, beef and pork, and 60kg of fresh fish.

Although I’ve never been good with numbers, eaten a crayfish, nor personally seen 200kg of meat that wasn’t walking around a paddock, even for 500 guests that works out to a hell of a lot of food.

No wonder Chef Rick Codlin told The Post that planning for the party began a year ago.

“I come up here and work for seven days… We turn the back of a garage into a commercial kitchen, basically.”

Yet this year, during the seven days Codlin worked to feed some of Aotearoa’s most influential people, the country’s teachers fed some of its littlest ones.

In Rotorua, Kaitao Intermediate principal Phil Palfrey spent $530 on apples and muesli bars, before the government’s new cut-price lunches arrived at 1.55pm.

Principal Renee Gillies also ordered food for hungry children at Te Rangihakahaka Centre for Science and Technology when their lunches were three hours late.

Gillies, who was told she’d be reimbursed, had fought to keep having school lunches made in-house.

”Their logistics are stuffed… Our kids eat lunch early at 11.30am because our babies need their lunch early.”

At Henderson Intermediate, principal Viv Carr spent $1000 on pizza for 750 children after the food arrived an hour and a half late.

Meanwhile, McAuley High School deputy principal Miles Sengers said staff had to go to a fruit shop because they weren’t confident that food would arrive.

At Rotorua Intermediate School the food arrived about 2.30pm, only 15 minutes before home time. At Rotorua Primary School, students had to be taken out of class to eat when their meals finally turned up at 2pm.

At least they turned up. Mount View School messaged parents saying the Ministry of Education “had failed to deliver lunches to schools to Taupō as promised”.

“Although the staff have given extra snacks to students throughout the day, this, unfortunately, means you may have hungry children arrive home that will need more kai.”

And on the same day that Jones’ guests worked their way through at least 260kg of meat and fish, 220 crayfish and 65 dozen oysters, two North Island schools warned parents to pack extra food for their kids.

That week, some lucky kids were served meals described by parents as “an unidentifiable pasta ball with lentils”; macaroni cheese mistaken for mashed potatoes, and butter chicken without chicken.

To be both clear and fair, it wasn’t taxpayer money that paid for the food at Jones’ place – just quite a few of the salaries.