Pat Newman: Hora Hora school principal on the Education Ministry telling schools not to let students take leftover lunches home

The Ministry of Education has told schools receiving free lunches to not let children take home leftover meals.

The Ministry has cited food safety concerns - and says uneaten meals should be returned to the supplier to avoid extra risks. 

Hora Hora school principal Pat Newman says his school's seen no incidents of any students getting ill from leftover food. 

"There's no proof - the only lunches that anyone's gotten ill from is the ones that were supplied from the Ministry in the first place. We actually take better care." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, we're never going to know for sure what tipped
the government into finally cutting the fees free policy, but
I would like to take some credit for this show's
part in it, because we have harped on about the
need to get rid of that policy so long it
actually started to even get boring for me. But as
with everything, persevere and you will succeed. And finally the
policy is gone. We had it confirmed by Winston Peters

(00:20):
on Friday. Now I've already had emails from people who
are upset about this. I've heard students complaining about this.
I've heard some parents complaining about this, and I understand
because it is never fun to have free government money
taken away from you, and it is because of this
kind of angst that free government money is so rarely
taken away once it started to be handed out. But
this policy was a dog from the start. It costs

(00:43):
perhaps three hundred and fifty million dollars a year. Three
hundred and fifty million dollars a year is a lot
of money, and for that money, it didn't do what
it was supposed to do, which was to lift enrollments
from poorer kids, which means if it didn't do what
it was supposed to do. If the kids were going
to go to UNI anyway, and we're still going to UNI,
then all we were doing wasting three hundred and fifty
million dollars. And to the people worrying about students living

(01:04):
in poverty or unable to afford to study, please remember
we tax payers already subsidize about seventy percent of what
it costs Kiwi kids to go to university. We already
provide interest free student loans. It is already globally relatively
cheap to go to university.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Here.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
You could argue that our system in this country for
university study is already so good that even when we
made it more generous, it didn't lift enrollments. It's already
generous enough. Now I'm not going to I am rather,
I am going to withhold judgment on Nikola and Winston
and what the plan is from here on in, because
they are typically for this government saving money only to

(01:44):
spend it again. They're going to take some of the
money and they're going to spend it on trades trading. Now,
that might be a good idea, but then again it
might also be the same kind of slop as fees
free just in a more worthy place, we'll see, but
for the cutting of Justinder's wasteful and pointless free year
of study rip. And may we be more careful with
our spending in the future.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Ever do for ce Ellen.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Nineteen ninety two is the text number? Maybe standard text
free into visa prime. Maybe maybe if we get round
to it. We'll talk to Trish and Josie on the
huddle later. But we have got a chocol block show,
so let's crack into it. Ministry of Education has told
schools not to let students take left over school lunches home.
According to a bulletin that's been put up on the
ministry's website, any spare lunches should be returned to the
supply because they're worried that any lunches that go home

(02:28):
may be a food safety risk. Pat Newman is the
principal at Horder Hodder School and is with us. Now, Hi,
Pat here, come out, Welcome back to the show mate.
Now do you send spare lunches home?

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yep?

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Why?

Speaker 2 (02:42):
Well, I think it's a hell of a lot better
than actually throwing them out just for the sake of it,
because we've had no incidence of anyone getting ill from it.
There's no proof there is the only the only lunch
is that anyone's got ill from or taken wrongly. Who
are ones that were supplied by the ministry at the
first place? We actually take better care. And in our case,

(03:03):
we're a little bit different because we're a contractor in
the way we I employ staff to cook lunches and
the ministry only pays is for ninety percent of them.
So for every hundred lunches we do that, we only
get paid for ninety of them. So the ten that
I send home each day I think is coming out
of our money anyway.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
Yeah, is do you believe the food safety reasoning? Because
that seemed like bollocks to me.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
It's bollocks's that's a polite way of putting it. But
we can't say there's Oh we could now because the
checks on it's gone, so we can say, yeah, bollocks.
Bollocks are more bollocks. Look, I got really incense because
I flicked you up something earlier. But mister Seymour, I
made the comment that I'm a kin to a shoplifter

(03:50):
because I said, yeah, because I was sending home to lunches.
The left over, and.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
I can sort of see where they're coming from, because
what they're trying to avoid is schools getting into a
pattern of overordering the lunches and then having so many
suplus they just send them home. And perhaps by forcing
the schools to send the suplus back to the supplier
kind of knocks that on the head. Can you see
that logic?

Speaker 2 (04:16):
I can see where their thinking comes from. Whether you
say it's logical, I don't agree with, but they can
see where their thinkings come from. Do you think there
will be The whole thing is by the time we
sent by the time we send the food back, if
we were going to do that, it would be extra
costs seening it back. On top of that, in our case,
we've already had to provide the food, you know, white wasted.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Yeah, not fair enough. But you know how the other
schools they have the little carrier. The people come in
with the carrier bags and then offload the lunches for
today and then take the other lunches away. In that circumstance,
you can kind of see the logic there right.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
Well. The only logic I think is that they probably
don't want the parents to see the food that they're
providing the quality of it. Yeah, that's probably what I'm
That would be logical.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
We care what the parents think because the parents aren't
feeding their own kids, so they can bugger off, can't they.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
Well, at the same time, the ministry tells us we
have to take notice of everything the parents tell us,
so they can't have one thing in the other. Look.
At the end of the day, I actually question whether
they've got the legal right to tell us what to
do about that anyway.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
Are you going to continue to do what you want yet?
Yeh ye, of course you are.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Pat Over, Well, listen, I would rather send home something
that was left over, that was nothing wrong with it,
and have a kid have it for tea or family,
then throw it in the rubbish or send it back
to the ministries for them to throw in their owner.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
I can understand your logic.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Pat.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
It's always good to talk to you, mate. Thanks very much.
It's Pat Newman, the principle of hord to Hood School.
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