Harawira Hone: Education (Breakfast and Lunch Programmes in Schools) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHarawira Hone: Education (Breakfast and Lunch Programmes in Schools) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 28 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18457. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]HONE HARAWIRA (Leader—Mana): I moveThat the Education (Breakfast and Lunch Programmes in Schools) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Māori Affairs Committee to consider the bill.Nelson Mandela once said that there can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way it treats its children. If I could add a comment it would be that blaming those who are too vulnerable to care for themselves and their children speaks more about our selfishness than it does about the hopelessness of poverty.Back in April last year I was part of a big Mana party Feed the Kids gig where we fed more than 1500 kids up inŌtara. They had heaps of fun and when they left they all took away a lunch happily chanting “Feed the Kids.” I thought to myself these kids get it. Theirwhānau get it their teachers get it and I sincerely hope that enough of us get it too because Treasury itself has told us that there are now 285000 kids living in poverty in Aotearoa 100000 of whom go to school hungry every day.It is nice to know thatKidsCan feeds some 10000 of them on most days and that theKickStart Breakfast programme feeds about 12000 a day but the reality is that even with the Government’s announcement in last year’s Budget nearly 80000 children are still going to school hungry in Aotearoa every single day. Yes schools around the country have started their own breakfast clubs with support from teachers students parents local businesses and the wider community but they tell us that it takes a lot ofhard work and a lot of goodwill to keep them going and that having secure funding would be a godsend.The really embarrassing thing is that nearly every country in the OECD apart from us already runs programmes to feed kids at school. Some countries like Finland and Sweden provide fully State-funded meals to every school student as part of a wider framework of child well-being. It is a commitment that sees them regularly top the international surveys in child health and educational achievement. Some countries provide free meals to kids with parents on low incomes and others provide free meals to schools in areas of high deprivation. But although the approaches differ they all share the same view backed up by the same kind of research and information from teachers doctors nurses and policy analysts that is available to us here: kids need a good feed every day if they are to develop into healthy and well-educated adults. New Zealand really needs to join the rest of the enlightened world and make a commitment to feeding our kids starting with those in greatest need to help them to grow well and learn well.Groups like the Child Poverty Action Group have long advocated for Government-funded food in schools programmes as a simple and cheap step to reducing poverty. The report of the Children’s Commissioner’s Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty released a year and a half ago now did not recommend throwing in a few dollars only if the corporates gave some as this Government has proposed. No it recommended that the Government should develop and implement a Government-funded food in schools programme and that the Government has a responsibility to provide leadership and resources to assist schools through a national strategy for food in early childhood centres and in schools in low-decile neighbourhoods.I have been humbled by the positive responses toMana’s Feed the Kids bill from a whole host of child family health education and faith organisations all around the country that helped raise awareness about just how many of our kids are going to school hungry in Aotearoa and what we should be doing about it. They have worked hard to remind us all that the crisis of child hunger and its devastating effects on brain development health and learning mean that we need to urgently focus on feeding the kids rather than on blaming the parents; that poverty has doubled in the last 25 years and children are its greatest victims; and that poverty will not go away without big changes in employment wages housing and support for families in need.Things have changed a lot from when everyone was scoffing at Mana for even talking about feeding the kids—during the 2011 general election—right up to when a TV poll last year showed that 70 percent of Kiwis now support a Government-funded food in schools programme and food in schools was the only policy issue to make the top 10 news stories of 2013. Much of that awareness has come about as a result of the excellent work and commitment of the Community Coalition for Food in Schools which now has 30 members and in particular through the efforts of Deborah Morris-Travers former chief executive officer of Every Child Counts and now advocacy manager for Unicef New Zealand.The Children’s Commissioner’s Expert Advisory Group on Solutions to Child Poverty said that child poverty does not just impact on children and their families it costs all of us a lot. In fact it is estimated that child poverty costs New Zealanders $6 billion to $8 billion a year in health justice system costs and in lost productivity and a lower tax take. Yet we continue to be one of the worst performers in the OECD on child well-being. Our rates of preventable diseases like rheumatic fever are high we have lower educational achievement than in other developed countries yet we will happily spend nearly $1.5 billion a year on prisons to feed one of the highest incarceration rates in the world.Unemployment is the highest it has been for nearly 15 years. Nearly half of all young Māori and Pacific Islanders are without work and are not in education or training and the other half are getting ready to go to Ozzie. Feeding the kids will not solve all these problems but it is real. It is affordable it is something we can do right now and we know that it will help our kids to grow up to be better healthier contributors to society.We have costed the bill to allow for a coordinator in each school to oversee the provision of breakfast and lunch in all decile 1 and decile 2 schools in Aotearoa feeding more than 100000 kids in our poorest communities and using existing programmes likeKidsCan andKickStart Breakfast or working through other local initiatives. With very few exceptions schools have supported the Feed the Kids kaupapa because they know they will get more bang for their educational buck. Kids will turn up to school on time they will be settled and not disruptive and they will be ready to learn. While I am at it I would also like to thank all the secondary and tertiary students who back this bill because when young people say that hunger is their No. 1 priority and that food in schools is the best solution to it then that says it all.I know the bill is not perfect. I hear thekōrero about feeding the kids being a parent’s responsibility but the truth is that a lot of people have been so poor for so long that they struggle to make the right choices and often end up making the wrong ones and all the while our kids go hungry. I have heard a lot about increasing employment opportunities upgrading housing improving access to health care and developing better educational pathways. All of that is necessary and good but it takes a long time to happen and all the while our kids go hungry.Every other proposal that I have heard about from the Child Poverty Action Group the Children’s Commissioner the health promotion agencies and advisory groups all the way up to the World Health Organization’s report on child health makes a lot of sense to me but all I want to do with this bill is make sure that as we work through all of these other critical and important initiatives our kids are getting fed.I welcome the calls to extend the bill to include thekōhanga early childhood education sector and decile 3 and decile 4 schools and to allow those involved in school and community gardens to make a contribution to this discussion too because this is an exercise that will require the efforts of the whole community. I urge the House to vote this bill through at its first reading so that the Māori Affairs Committee can call for submissions from those who know best and those who care most in order that we can develop a robust food in schools programme that enhances the well-being of our children and enhances the future prospects of our society.Tēnā koutou katoa e te Whare.