What does David Seymour have against kids?
The government's child poverty targets are failing while Seymour proposes to expand a failing Compass School Lunch programme.
Newsroom’s Fox Meyer wrote a good piece yesterday on the Compass school lunches contract, unveiling its terms, and revealing the government stumped up an extra $8.9m “bonus” to meet requirements.
This means the per school lunch cost is now a minimum of just under $4 - excluding the large number of new, added costs the government is ignoring.1
One could suggest the “bonus” appears to be cover for the government knowing $3 per meal was never going to cut it2, but structuring the contract so Seymour could claim it was.
If not, perhaps someone can explain why a $9m “bonus” is being paid to a supplier to meet size requirements at the beginning stages of a contract.
The contract also states Compass will provide a “full solution delivery model”3 and:
“consistently high quality, palatable and nutritious…food…considering the safety, ethnic and cultural needs”.
On the other hand, we see Ministry of Education staff lamenting “out of control waste”, serious quality & menu issues, and Halal safety simply being ignored and misrepresented.
Ham is not Halal “friendly”.
Neither is mince meat, vegan.
It boggles the mind that Erica Stanford and her Ministry of Education have not demanded urgent remediation if her Associate Minister won’t do it.
Everyone needs to ask her why.
Click to launch: Erica.Stanford@parliament.govt.nz
Separately, Chris Hipkins today called on PM Luxon to compel Seymour to address the issues.
Note: in the Compass meal above, there’s plenty of E211 - listed 3 times on the ingredient list i.e. Sodium Benzoate - a preservative with known risks includings ADHD, inflammation, asthma, and carcinogens (cancer risk).
While low levels are considered acceptable for most, long-term studies assessing regular consumption of low quantities and cancer risk are still lacking.
Is that what the “cost savings” have bought the kids too?4
To put Seymour’s $100m “savings” into context:
One of his first actions in government was pushing for “retroactive” tax cuts for landlords at a cost of ~$3b.
That’s $800m more than they told us before the election.
The Council of Trade Unions (CTU) warned Kiwis about that.
But the government didn’t bat an eye-lid paying it.
If only we had listened.
Among other warnings:
Seymour also supported $216m of taxpayers’ money for tobacco industry excise cuts5
He endorsed NZ First’s repeal of the popular smokefree generation law despite 9000 doctors pleading for the government not to do it.
From a taxpayers perspective, smoke free generation could have contributed $46 billion of cumulative income gains by 2050.
That law would have reduced nicotine content to 95% in cigarettes and banned the sale of tobacco to anyone born after 1 January 2009.
i.e. kids who are 16 years and younger would have been protected from the horrible impacts of smoking and nicotine addiction in New Zealand.6
Can someone think of the children?
Seymour is also carving out ~$76mn of taxpayers money over the next few years for himself - so he can call himself the “Minister of Regulation”
Is that value for money and “savings” for taxpayers too?
156,000 children in New Zealand live in material hardship - up from 144,000 the year before.
That's almost 14 percent of our children - or 1 in 7 kids.
Measures of material hardship include having to go without fruit and veges because of the cost, putting off doctors visits and being unable to afford heating.
208,000 children were considered to be in poverty after housing costs had been paid - that's also up from the previous year.
364,000 children in total.
I’d wager most Kiwis would rather kids have healthy, nutritious food and be shown that we as a country care about them, than fund Seymour’s vanity project.
Seymour goes further.
He criticised his own newly established and well paid Regulation Ministry7 staff as entrenched “bureaucrats” after they found fault with his proposals e.g. on the Treaty Principles Bill and its partner the very ‘dangerous’ Regulatory Standards Bill.
If that’s not a farcical waste of $76 million, I don’t know what is.
But it really isn’t about cost savings, is it?
It’s more about his libertarian goals and agenda that appear to be served with a sprinkle of authoritarianism and corporate self interest:
An ideology that’s reportedly followed by the likes of Alan Gibbs, Peter Thiel, and now, Jeff Bezos.
Nicola Willis is also supportive of libertarian goals - hinting at corporate tax decreases, while simultaneously tap dancing around the subject.
This is the same strategy she used last year before reducing the tax burden for trusts - hint, suggest, stall, deny.
She also vehemently denied she was borrowing for tax cuts last year too - right up until she took on that additional $12bn in debt.
Look - who wouldn’t want to push the interests of the richest in the world - if you had a certain moral code, I suppose.
If you climb high enough, you too can get a sponsored flight to space in the true elite club.
Not like frequently hard working judges, scientists, doctors, academic experts, climate advisors etc. that some intentionally co-opt the word “elite” for - as a means to discredit their expertise and warnings.
Still - why can’t they think of the children?
This government is missing all its major targests on child well being and poverty.
Separately, the Ministry of Regulation called out Seymour’s early childhood education (ECE) changes last year as “[placing] children at an unacceptable risk of harm, particularly as they are often unable to advocate for themselves or communicate issues effectively”
An unacceptable risk - and yet New Zealand and the government is silent.
What has Seymour got against the most vulnerable?
Is his competency that weak, or is he perhaps sleep deprived like PM Luxon, or could he be pandering to wealth like the Wright Family?
I don’t know - but I feel that a clear pattern is emerging:
From the paedophile ACT Party President Tim Jago case, to snapchatting minors without parental awareness and then sending them condom pictures, to allegedly not protecting Young ACT members who warned him sexual abuse was rampant, to propagandizing primary school children*, to implementing ECE laws that have been found to put kids at unacceptable levels of risk, to repealing 7AA - a law section that all credible experts testified strongly protected tamariki, to criticising school students who want a say on their future, to playing politics with the school lunch fiasco and blaming Labour — what does David Seymour have against young people?
Yesterday, a school in Hamilton received their school lunch delivery.
This is how it looked - some packages were opened, many without seals, unlabelled.
Food safety matters.
Labelling matters.
Anaphylactic shock from allergies can cause death in kids and schools are so anxious, some have called MPI to investigate.
More costs. More risk.
Fox Meyer reports Compass has until Term 2 to fix the problems or the contract can be cancelled, but Seymour may be on a different wave length.
After Labour called for Seymour to resign over the fiasco, he doubled down - suggesting he will actually extend the flailing program and reward Compass with more business.
Ministry of Education advisors may also be combing non-Compass affiliated schools for negative input on their independent lunch providers if social media reports bear out.
Is Seymour seeking “evidence” to justify his plans to expand the Compass Group contract?
Time will tell.
Meanwhile, schools such as Bay of Islands College and Glen Eden Primary School are providing a stark contrast to Seymour’s work - delivering school lunches efficiently, healthily and competently.
The old programme worked just fine overall -
Seymour’s promise didn’t hold true while Luxon skirts the issue.
They and this Coalition government are failing our kids and our future in more ways than one.
Violent crime steady, not dropping
Violent crime victimisation rates steady, not dropping, data shows
3 days ago, Mark Mitchell and Paul Goldsmith claimed it was - but had based their data on a random Twitter account - which contradicts how the Ministry of Justice calculates progress.
When asked about that the Ministers doubled down - like Seymour.
I look forward to a serious government one day.
It was touted as $3 and now costed at $3.84. However the real cost will be significantly higher due to schools reporting hours of increased administration, problem management by the Ministry and principals, high rates of waste (estimated at 50% on average, full plate consumption averaging 15%), excessive landfill & increased emissions as food is defrosted in Hamilton etc
Additional costs also include the 2000 or so staff made redundant across NZ - and increased beneficiary costs. Intangible costs include poor nutrition and role modelling for children, as well as stress for teachers and principals.
“[We, schools and school lunch providers thought it would be] virtually impossible to provide the same quality and quantity lunches for $3 each. These fears are turning out to be well-grounded..
“Even with the top-up of snacks… it’s not at all clear they are getting the same nutritional standard they had before.”
Excerpt from Compass contract -
Last year, Seymour assured Kiwis he would save ~$100m, and for lunch, children would receive: “nutritious food that they want to eat….like sandwiches and fruit” The truth has been far from it.
The tobacco industry contributes to 5000 Kiwis dying every year from smoking. That’s almost 15 times the number of Kiwis killed in road accidents.
Desperate pleas from more than 9000 doctors for the government to keep smokefree generation laws fell on deaf ears.
As always, thank you Tui for keeping us informed. Those meals (and I use that term loosely) look absolutely revolting and dont even get me started on the list of ingredients, Grrrr. It's unbelievable that anyone could claim they are ok. It really is disgraceful that noone is holding him to account over this absolute fiasco. I saw a clip with Mike Hosking calling out Luxon on his inability to say that what Bayley did was a sackable offence and that he would have fired him for it..... Mike Hosking who is usually his greatest sycophant..... enough said aye. Such incompetence and hands off 'management'. Remind me again what he's paid for?
Another well researched and thoughtful article thanks Tui. But I keep going back to the "ingredient" list for the vegan meal you published. This is not food, but an industrial product - and we're giving it to our kids and telling them to be grateful. What I need to know is how to take action to stop this happening. We can't ruin our kids' futures in this way without taking action.