Hipkins Chris: Education (Food in Schools) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHipkins Chris: Education (Food in Schools) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 18 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2402. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): It is a great pleasure to rise in support of the bill that David Shearer has put forward. I would like to acknowledge the contribution of the member who has just spoken before me Jian Yang who has demonstrated very clearly one of the perils of not listening to the contribution of the member speaking before him and simply relying on the notes provided by the party research unit rather than actually engaging properly in the debate. Had he listened to what David Shearer had contributed in his first reading speech he would have heard him acknowledge that the solution proposed in this bill might not be the right one but by putting the bill before a select committee there would be an opportunity to canvass the issues properly to get submissions from the public to look at what is happening now and what is working and to look at how things might be improved. I think that is an absolutely commendable approach to take.This bill of course had its genesis some years ago and I recall the speech that David Shearer made talking about children in schools going to school hungry and not being ready to learn. That is how this bill came about. Since then there has been a lot of debate about the best way to tackle that problem and I think that the contribution David Shearer made in the very beginning where he talked about the importance of some of the healthy eating and healthy action programmes that are already happening in schools was very very pertinent to the debate and very important. I know for example in my own electorate that there are some fantastic programmes happening in local primary schools early childhood centres and secondary schools as well.Just to give one example Fraser Crescent School in my electorate has a large council reserve at its back door the Clyma Park which was not particularly well used. They have now established a community garden within Clyma Park and the people working in that garden work very closely with the primary school. The kids are involved in the community garden. They have got an orchard planted they do their own compost they harvest rainwater and they grow vegetables. It is a fantastic learning experience for the kids and it involves members of the wider community as well. Those are the sorts of programmes that I think we should be looking at as examples of what can be achieved.I grew up in a family where we had one of the old quarter-acre sections in the Hutt Valley which are fast disappearing now as they are subdivided. My parents had a vegetable garden. I learned at a young age what growing vegetables is all about and how to do it. Many many kids today do not get that opportunity. Many come from families with two working parents and I was fortunate when I was a young kid to have one of my parents not working full-time—well working at home—but if you look at the nature of how we live now like I said those sections are disappearing. The room for vegetable gardens is disappearing as sections are subdivided and people are living in much higher density housing. Schools can do something about that. Schools often have the land and councils in partnership with local authorities have access to the land and can do some pretty amazing things. I think that this is an opportunity for us to really look at some of those issues and how we could better facilitate that happening all around the country.What I am not willing to do is come along to Parliament and say that I am going to turn a blind eye to the fact that kids are coming to school hungry because they are coming to school hungry and we should do something about that. Do I believe that Government intervention is the sole answer? No of course I do not. It is a very complex problem and it is going to require a number of things to address it but doing nothing is not an option. This bill that has been put forward by David Shearer provides us with an opportunity to do something. It provides us with an opportunity to talk about the various alternatives and the various options that are available to us.Meka Whaitiri: It does not have a predetermined outcome.CHRIS HIPKINS: It does not have a predetermined outcome as Meka Whaitiri has pointed out. This is an opportunity for us to look at a whole variety of options and potential outcomes. It is incredibly disappointing that the Government members are voting against the bill because it is an opportunity to develop a robust policy and a good policy that will gain cross-party support and community support which people can buy into to address what is a very real problem in our schools—kids coming to school with either the wrong food or with no food. Actually some of the kids coming to school with the wrong food are just as much of a problem. If you talk to the teachers who have got a classroom full of kids who have just been dosed up on fizzy drinks and sugar they will tell you that that is just as hard to manage as a classroom full of hungry kids. So we have got to get real about this problem. We have an obesity problem in New Zealand; we have got a hungry kids problem in New Zealand. We could do something about that. This bill if progressed to select committee provides an opportunity for us to have that debate and to have a constructive discussion. I have absolutely no hesitation in saying that the Labour Party will be fully supporting it.