Hudson Brett: Education (Food in Schools) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHudson Brett: Education (Food in Schools) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 18 March 2015. Volume:704;Page:2410. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]BRETT HUDSON (National): It is an absolute pleasure to speak on this bill. It is an absolute pleasure because the National Party is already doing this through our KickStart Breakfast programme—a $9.5 million investment over 5 years an investment that has seen an additional 3.4 million breakfasts provided in the schools that want them. This is a service that is reaching over 26000 children and is providing the assistance that those children need. I think every one of us acknowledges that our children will be in a better position to learn and in a better position to absorb the teaching of their teachers if they are well fed and starting the day on the right foot. But the reality is that we are already doing it.I would just like to take issue with a comment that one of the previous speakers made about this being a bill to teach children how to grow their own food. That is an absolute nonsense. The bill is very clear about what it is and I will just read from the bill if I may—if my computer would come to life. The bill says it is all about helping to provide the supply of food to schools that need it. There is no provision—no provision at all—in this bill to do with any form of gardening or any form of growing any form of fruit or vegetables. It is not about teaching children to be farmers or orchardists or even to grow a home garden. It is simply about supplying food which as I have pointed out we already do.The other point I would make on that is that even if there were an intent even if we allowed that there were an intent behind this to teach children how to grow fruit and vegetables the simple reality is you do not need this amendment bill for schools to teach that. There is nothing in the amendment bill that takes away a prohibition or reduces a barrier or actually creates a scenario where it is about teaching children how to grow fruit and vegetables. But the simple reality is this: there is no barrier. To date there is no legislative barrier to schools doing that. If as the previous speaker said this is actually about a pathway to teaching children to grow their own food quite frankly there is no impediment to that to date. There is no legislative impediment that this amendment bill would address or that an amendment bill needs to address.I return to the very clear and simple message here. This amendment bill introduced by the member the honourable David Shearer is actually about something that this Government is already doing. It is about providing food to children in those schools that perceive a need for that service and want to take it up. Through our KickStart Breakfast programme in association with Sanitarium and Fonterra this Government is already delivering that to the schools that want it. It is a highly effective service. It has been proven to be delivering to the schools that need it. Quite frankly it is also interesting that not all schools see they have a need for this programme and not all schools take it up although it is available to all of them.I will just end with a very simple message for members opposite and that is that they are trying to introduce legislation that this Government is already delivering on. Their bill is completely redundant. We will continue doing what we do. I oppose this bill. I will not be supporting it.