Yesterday we saw an article in the NZ Herald by Isaac Davison highlighting that the charity “KidsCan” is reporting that they are feeding 10,000 more hungry students at the start of term 4 than at the beginning of the year.

 

Kidscan chief executive Julie Chapman, who founded the charity in 2005, said “It’s the worst we have ever seen it,” we have fielded calls from principals who were in tears about the hunger and poverty they were seeing among students.

 

This problem is being severely exacerbated by government policies which have seen food prices rise to 13 year highs.

 

Data from Stats NZ last week showing prices rose 8.3 per cent in the year to September, including a 16 per cent increase for fruit and vegetables. This is being driven by a combination of pandemic supply problems, the war in

Ukraine, labour shortages and tough local growing conditions.

 

Prices of fresh fruit and vegetables are predicted to rise greatly as a result of the government decision to introduce rules relating to on farm GHG emissions. The rules proposed have been loudly opposed by the agricultural sector and many other representative groups as unworkable and likely to cause many farmers to walk off their farms. They will reduce our export incomes and see the prices for fresh food escalate rapidly.

 

The Herald article stated:

 

“Parents are living in deficit every week. For the first time in 17 years, we are having teachers and principals break down on the phone to us because they are seeing the level of deprivation, particularly in that food space. In the 1000 schools and daycares which Kidscan supported, the number of children needing food support had risen from 44,000 in Term 1 and 2 to 54,500 in Term 4.”

 

Edmund Hillary School in Papakura is one of 39 schools on the wait-list for Kidscan support.

 

“The kids are tired about 20 minutes into class time,” principal Kataraina Nock said.

 

“They are literally lying on the floor and I am thinking ‘What on earth is the matter?’.

 

They can’t concentrate because they haven’t got anything in their tummy.”

 

In the newly-introduced equity index for schools, the lowest possible score is 569. Edmund Hillary School is rated as 539. It is one of 950 schools around New Zealand which qualifies for the Government’s food in school’s programme. But that was not a complete solution, Nock said.

 

“The kids are arriving at school hungry and we can’t wait until the delivery of the lunches. We had to start making them toast in the classroom.”

 

The school has reintroduced a breakfast club and is feeding between 50 and 80 students each morning with temporary funding from the Ted Manson Foundation. That funding will run out at the end of the year.

 

As the high cost of living had worsened the impact of Covid, some schools have played an increasing role in supporting families.

 

Te Puke Primary School principal Andrea Dance said the last two years had been difficult for families in their region. Fuel, food, and housing costs had all risen, and some had struggled to get back into work.

 

For some students, her school was now providing breakfast, lunch, dinner, and in a handful of cases, a hot shower and a lift to school.

 

“The kids are really happy and they want to be at school. But we have families that are really struggling, so we try to eliminate all those barriers so that school is one thing these kids can count on.”

 

Dance said there had been a silver lining to Covid-19, because schools had to become more connected with families while they were at home.

 

“What I’ve noticed in the last couple of years is parents are actually asking for help when they need it – with food packages and other things. It is actually okay to ask when they are struggling, which is great.”

 

Shelley Cook, a special education needs coordinator at Coastal Taranaki School, said between 40 and 50 children ate breakfast at the school each morning.

 

Students were initially ashamed about asking for help with meals, she said. The school had to work hard to remove the stigma of food assistance.

 

“People on the outside of the communities might comment that surely it’s the whanau’s job to be able to feed their kids. It’s not that they can’t or won’t, but … there is massive financial pressure on whanau at the moment.”

 

This situation has developed over the course of our current Prime Minister’s term of office since her election in 2017, the election where she stated that one of the main drivers behind her getting into politics was child poverty.

 

Yet we see this current Labour government lead by her, pushing policies that will make them look great on the international stage but which will have detrimental effects on our internal situation within NZ such as inflation, costs of living and levels of child poverty.

 

Policies such as the proposed rules on GHG emissions reductions for farmers which are not fit for purpose and based on modelling of unproven science which ignores the facts relating to current carbon sequestration on farms.

 

The government is prepared to put our economic situation in a position of danger and drive up food prices even higher, by introducing these rules yet they cannot find a way to prevent another 10,000 children from going to school hungry!

 

It time our headline grabbing, virtue signalling Prime Minister focused her attentions on the problems here at home instead of roaming the globe making speeches that are worthless in both content and message.

 

It is a criminal indictment on our government that in a country such as ours, which produces enough food to feed forty million people world-wide, we can have 54,500 children needing food support; going to school hungry.