Shearer David: Education (Food in Schools) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShearer David: Education (Food in Schools) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 18 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2411. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): First of all could I just thank the parties that have agreed to support this bill—the Green Party the New Zealand First Party the Māori Party and United Future. Unfortunately the National Party and the ACT Party are not supporting the bill which I find rather extraordinary because this bill as I explained in my introductory comments is about self-reliance it is about sustainability and it is about teaching lifelong skills. It is not necessarily just about growing vegetables. We have problems in New Zealand. The first problem is that kids are coming to school hungry and the second problem is that we have an obesity issue in New Zealand which is the third-worst in the world and which will cost us billions and billions of dollars if we do not do something about it.I started off as I began in my earlier comments when I introduced this bill believing that the solution to this was to provide food for kids in schools. I looked at other schools and at what they were doing and believed that this was not the best way to address something that is not a band-aid on a problem but is about ensuring we have a mechanism and a solution to create an opportunity for schools to be able to teach long-term lifelong skills. I want to make sure that people on the other side understand what in fact they are giving up because I have been criticised with this bill. One is for changing my opinion and my mind on it and that is something that a politician does not generally do. We normally dig ourselves into a huge hole and bury ourselves in it and in this particular case I said: “This is not the right way forward. I disagree and we need to be going in a different direction and that is why I have outlined this direction.” The second thing I have been criticised for is asking why National and ACT are not supporting this. This is about being independent being self-reliant and teaching lifelong skills. I for the life of me cannot understand it. I think it is a real shame.What I do know now is that there are schools out there right now across New Zealand that are doing remarkable things for their kids. I want to come back to a school that I mentioned in my opening which is Yendarra School a decile 1a school in Ōtara. In the schools around it kids are coming to school hungry. They have more cavities. They have more health problems but somehow Yendarra School is remarkable in the sense that it does not have the same scale of problems that the schools around it have. The reason for that is that it has brought the community into the school and with the community is teaching good nutrition. The kids are not being fed by an outside feeding programme; they are being fed by the parents themselves as they should be. I am not saying that in every case parents are able to do that and in emergency cases I absolutely see the necessity for feeding kids. But that should not be the solution to hungry kids in schools. It is not the solution. It is absolutely not the solution. It is simply addressing the symptoms of a problem and not addressing the problem itself.That is the underlying tenet of this bill. It was about getting this idea to a select committee where we could actually hear from those experts and the schools that are able to achieve what other schools across New Zealand cannot despite the fact that as the member beforehand said they have every opportunity. Actually they do not have every opportunity because they are not doing it. If they were doing it we would not have a problem. But they are not and what we on this side of the House want to be able to do is to provide schools across New Zealand with the ability to have their kids come to school well fed and able to have lunches in their schools but also to teach the basic tenets of nutrition which will go home with the kids and make a real difference in the homes that they come from. Instead we have squandered—absolutely squandered—an opportunity to be able to do that in this House. I think that is a real shame. I think it is a real shame for those schools out there that are able to do what they need to do. I want to leave by thanking those parties that have been supporting it but I believe that those parties that did not will have in effect missed an opportunity. Thank you very much.