Davidson ReubenREUBEN DAVIDSON (Labour—Christchurch East): Thank you Mr Speaker. I stand to speak in strong opposition because there is nothing in this Budget for the people of Christchurch East. In fact there's less than nothing because this Budget actually takes things away. That's what we see in this bill and in this Budget and I'm going to give you a local example of that.If you come to Acheson Ave in the heart of Shirley—beautiful street and a set of shops that were built post-war after the Second World War and they were given to veterans to help them settle back into the community. They could start small independent businesses. They could build up a precinct and area for the people of Shirley to enjoy. Now in recent years things being what they are with moves to malls and supermarkets those shops were mostly empty. But when Ka Ora Ka Ako was established this community saw an opportunity to invest. It was an opportunity to invest in their kids and it was an opportunity to invest in themselves. I can't think of anything better to invest in.So they established Nourish Ōraka a small local social enterprise. What does that look like?" I hear you ask. I'll tell you it looks like. It looks like 10 jobs for locals. It looks like making 525 lunches a day for the students who go to Shirley Primary School and Te Oraka Shirley Intermediate School. It looks like after-school jobs for some of those school kids—finish school pop in do a couple of hours of dishes be paid properly for it and learn some skills. It looks like no kids staying home because their family can't provide them lunch. It looks like no single-use packaging being used at all. It looks like 100 percent of the food scraps being recycled at a nearby chicken-rescue organisation. There's something else that it achieves; something that isn't a number: pride. This bill and this Budget cuts pride.Now I've been there on a typical day through the week when it's busy. You walk in through the door you have no idea what's going on inside but it's a bustling busy kitchen. The radio's on. Those 10 staff are making perfect lunches—perfect uniform lunches; exactly what they know the local kids want to eat. The garage door is rolled up out the back. There's a view out to the park. It makes it absolutely safe for people to spend time there. The van gets loaded up. The healthy food gets delivered for those kids to have for lunch. That's community. This Budget cuts community to its very core.So when our community heard that this National-led Government was wanting to make a choice to cut spending on Ka Ora Ka Ako on school lunches that was one of the places that they wanted to cut. That was one of the choices this Government was making.Now cutting school lunches doesn't sound like a good way to me to address cost of living school attendance or educational outcomes. But that is the choice—Carl Bates: Fiscal cliff left by Labour; we funded it. REUBEN DAVIDSON: —that this Government is making. I'll remind that member that the point of a heckle is to try and make me look silly not them.So the community called on me to have a public meeting to hear from them about what taking this away would mean. So our education spokesperson Jan Tinetti came down and joined me at the MacFarlane Park Centre in Acheson Ave and we had a public meeting for the community of Christchurch East.Hon Member: Well attended.REUBEN DAVIDSON: It was busy. It was well attended. We had to put out extra chairs—three times we had to put out extra chairs—and there was still standing room only. That front row of chairs was full of people that the members on the other side of this House should engage with more often. It was full of principals from local primary and intermediate and high schools. They told us that since they'd had the healthy school lunch programme there were no queues for the sick bay after lunch kids now eat together. For lots of kids this is the only meal they may have that day. We heard about the very real difference that providers like Nourish Ōraka who work with the local kids who work with the community to design those menus to provide those lunches how much of a difference that makes. Some of them stood up and spoke to the strength of the school lunch programme and the fact that they were concerned about the Budget cutting that out of their school. They'd taken a petition around their school and had every student sign it.One of the local schools is a school that has seen a 600 percent increase in NCEA achievement—600 percent. That's been down to the work of Peggy Burrows the principal and the teaching staff at Haeata. Some of those students had heard that this Government wanted to cut their school lunch programme and 68 of them wrote letters. I'm going to read three of them.Hon Member: Oh please don't.REUBEN DAVIDSON: The first letter: "If you take away the school lunches we will be hungry and won't be able to learn properly. Our school needs school lunches so we can get our energy for the rest of the day. The lunches help me to concentrate." The fact that you don't want hear the letter is a point that I will get to Shirley.The second of 68 letters: "My name is Tavita and I go to a Haeata community campus. I'm Samoan-born and I live in New Zealand. I don't want you to remove the lunches because parents have to pay for school clothes power bills Wi-Fi and books. Please do not remove the lunches because parents might not afford to buy lunches and if children starve they can get tired and fail school."A third letter finishes by saying—Carl Bates: Give me the letters. I'll send them a correct reply.REUBEN DAVIDSON: —"Our school lunches"—I'll get to that Mr Bates—"give us the strength and courage to do our learning properly. Foods digest in our body which brings us happiness. We have food that makes us full of how good these foods are and happiness makes us want to be a better person. Being a better person allows us to learn better and be smarter which means we'll get good grades. Our school may be the smartest school; you will never know."Now those students when I visited knew that I worked in this building and knew that the very same people—some of whom are sitting opposite me tonight—who are making the decisions in this Budget worked in this building too. They asked whether I would hand deliver those letters to the Prime Minister. I said "I'll do what I can." So I took 68 letters and I stood in the hallway outside the House one day before question time—Hon Louise Upston: With a video camera.REUBEN DAVIDSON: —to catch the Prime Minister on his way into the House—Hon Louise Upston: And film him.REUBEN DAVIDSON: —to be able to give him the letters. For the record I did not have a video camera. Although—Hon Louise Upston: You had someone filming.REUBEN DAVIDSON: —with a background in television I could have been. For the record I did not have someone filming. Disappointingly whilst 68 children and many others in that community had taken the time to write letters to the Prime Minister with their concerns about the content of the Budget and the risk to their school lunches the Prime Minister refused to take the letters from me. I offered more than once. For the record he did have two available hands that he could have taken them in.More disappointingly after I mailed them to his office and they were received the letter received in reply said "The Prime Minister appreciates people taking the time to write to him but due to the high volume of correspondence he receives he is not able to reply to every message personally so he has asked me to respond on his behalf. Your letters are important to the Prime Minister. It tells him how passionate you are about the issue of trying to stop free school lunches in schools. Keep up the excellent work at school and all the best with your studies."Hon Nicola Willis: Point of order. Mr Speaker I came into the House thinking that I was entering the House for the imprest supply debate. I seem to have stepped into an alternative universe in which we're discussing the postal system in New Zealand.Tangi Utikere: Speaking to the point of order. Thank you Mr Speaker. I've listened diligently to my colleague Mr Davidson—Hon Nicola Willis: Oh God you poor thing!Tangi Utikere: Well Ms Willis—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): A point of order will be taken in silence. Continue Mr Tangi Utikere.Tangi Utikere: Thank you sir. I've listened diligently to my colleague Mr Davidson and what he has done from what I've heard is actually reflect on the decisions that have been made that are relative to the Budget. While the member may have just indicated that she has only recently come down to the House perhaps if she would actually understand—and she may wish to review Hansard when she goes back to actually see that the context in which my colleague's speech is currently being delivered is entirely within order.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Thank you Mr Utikere. I thank you for the points of order. I do reflect that it has been wide ranging in some cases on both sides of the House today. But I would invite the member in his last seven seconds to wrap it up.REUBEN DAVIDSON: Thank you Mr Speaker. This is a Budget that takes things away from the people who need it most. It won't do more with less; it will do less with less."