Food in Schools?

Ben Clark
13 years ago
Categories: john key, schools, slippery
Tags: Food in Schools, promises

While looking at something else, I came across John Key’s 2007 promise to provide Food in Schools for poorer schools.

I wondered what action had been taken on that promise? Well they allowed junk food back in all schools, but I don’t think that counts as helping hungry kids at poorer schools. But there was just one thing that they did do: a well-televised, $320,000 pay-out to KidsCan at the end of The Big Night In Telethon that raised money for the charity.

Apparently that $320,000 will fund food for 7,500 kids.

That’s about $42 per child – how many meals will that be funding for each of them?

And then we see the traditional recycled National MP press release flowing about it, with all faux localness.

Nikki Kaye shows some editing, by only doing Great Barrier, rather than her entire electorate, and adding a sentence on the top and bottom.

Another 4 just insert their electorate name in the title, their name in the first line and some local schools in the appropriate position:

John Carter tells us how far that $320,000 has gone in Northland. Tim Macindoe (who?) – tells us about Hamilton West. Michael Woodhouse gives us a Dunedin North (List) look. Todd McClay tells us about all the Rotorua schools helped.

The 7500 kids are spread across 150 schools apparently (which means one class per school gets fed), so that’ll be about 2 per electorate. One has to be suspicious of the (identical) Nikki/ John/ Tim/ Michael/ Todd quote: “I’m really pleased that local schools will benefit, including…” – particularly in John Carter’s release with 17 schools. There are a lot of poor Northland Schools, but with 29 schools in 4 and a bit electorates nominated (and Judith Collins has another 5), I’m pretty sure that’s the complete list of schools in each electorate, not an “including” list…

Simon Bridges hasn’t gone for the recycled press release, with significant re-writing, but there’s another school in his electorate.

But it all adds up to maximum PR per dollar spent rather than truly fulfilling John’s election promise by making sure our children have full tummies ready for learning – which would cost a whole lot more than $320,000.

Although this post should be covered by the opinion section of electoral law and shouldn’t need authorisation, here’s mine anyway, just to be safe:

Authorised by Ben Clark, 54 Aramoana Ave, Devonport