Shearer David: Education (Breakfast and Lunch Programmes in Schools) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShearer David: Education (Breakfast and Lunch Programmes in Schools) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 28 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18461. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): Labour supports the Education (Breakfast and Lunch Programmes in Schools) Amendment Bill. It supports it simply because we do not believe that kids should go to school hungry. We do not believe that kids can learn when they are hungry. We do not believe that kids can concentrate when they are hungry. And we do not believe that it is in the long-term interests of either the child or obviously of our society as well. That is why Labour will be supporting this bill.We have a number of amendments that we would like to make to this bill. We are not saying that it is absolutely perfect but what we do believe is that this bill should have the opportunity to go to a select committee so that we can hear from people right across our community about what they want to see in this bill. Jonathan Young talked about—and it had obviously had an impact on him—the level to which we said that the National Government was uncompassionate. We are not talking necessarily about individuals but as Governments you have choices. You have choices about what you support and what you do not support and when you do not support something as plain and as simpleas this and you do not support it at least to a select committee where we could have a better opportunity to discuss the issue in front of us—one of the most important issues in front of us today—then collectively it shows a lack of compassion.This bill comes on top of the bill we were looking at previously to this one—the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill—where the National Government used a policy of trickery in order to be able to change the vote so that the paid parental leave bill would not be able to go through. It is hard to escape the fact that this is a Government that responds to opinion polls rather than to what is right—rather than to what is right. Let me quote this to you; it is on paid parental leave: “[Paid parental leave] is completely out of touch with the women of the 21st century and their diverse involvement in today’s labour force.” That was Anne Tolley. That was Anne Tolley talking about paid parental leave. Let me give you another quote: “It is another example of this Government using taxpayers’ money to win some votes.”—to win some votes. That was Judith Collins. So you can see where I am coming from. When the Government is pushed with its back to the wall by the community which says: “Do something about this issue.” it does something but it is certainly not with the compliance and the agreement of senior members of this Government.We support this bill because we believe that kids deserve the right not to go to school hungry and we know that they do. My colleague Hone Harawira—who is right behind me as well—has talked about the numbers involved and the numbers of children who are hungry. Mr Young talked about Fruit in Schools a Labour Party policy that this Government took away when it came into office. It took the programme away for a few months because it did not want it there and then reinstated it because of the shouts of horror from the schools which were saying: “Do you realise that this is actually doing some good?”. Milk in schools and healthy food in schools are Labour Party policies. That is why we support this bill.