David Seymour: Associate Education Minister responds to the criticism of the new school lunch programme

The Associate Education Minister believes the coverage of the new school lunches are blowing things out of proportion. 

David Seymour told Mike Hosking that the media are taking the worst of the reviews and comments about the lunches to make it seem “terrible”. 

“I read in the Herald this morning about a restaurant critic they had saying it was not the worst meal that I have ever had, it actually had a lot of vegetables in it.” 

He told the principals complaining that they had to fork out school money for pizza yesterday to “take a step back”. 

“This is a government with a $7 billion deficit, we spent $130 million on this programme while actually providing more meals for kids this year. 

“We are doing something new, it is only day five, day four in some places. So we gotta get a bit of a reality check.” 

Seymour argued that if there were to be a survey of the lunches 75% of students are still getting from their parents there would be “mixed reviews” as well. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Back to the business of this animal and plant health
products that are stuck on this list waiting for approval.
Ministry for Regulations undertaking this review of the current application
process and the Regulation Minister is, of course David Seymour,
who is with us. Very good morning to you, Good
morning make Did you hear Liz Shackleton earlier?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yeah? I did.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Did she make a comprehensive, incohesive case.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Absolutely, it's the case that she made to us near
the end of last year when we started the sector
review on agricultural and horticultural products. Since then we've been
out interviewed, listen to acy different stakeholders. We're put together
a paper for Cabinet with a set of actions to
unblock this and get these products approved so that Kiwi

(00:44):
farmers and the horticulturalists can be competitive. That will lead
to passing a law in Parliament this year, among other things,
just solving the log jam that you've got four different
government departments to called regulatory systems, very hard to navigate
and it takes five years to get something through some

(01:06):
time while you our farmer's competitors across the ditch are
already way laughing.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
Is there any excuse for having the system the way
it is.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
I don't think so, and that's why I was so
keen to have a Ministry for regulation. A few people
laugh said, you're creating bureaucracy against bureaucracy. But I think
what we will see as this review goes through, along
with the Early Childhood Center one in the head Dressing
and Barbara one, is you get a group of people
who are getting it from every angle by regulators. You

(01:39):
need someone to go and there, ask them what the
problems are, put them more in a coherent form, and
then allow the Cabinet to say, right, this is what
we're going to do. If we need to change laws
in Parliament, we will. In the meantime, we're also going
to in this case, for example, start saying to these regulators, okay,
we're actually the ministers. We want you to work together,

(02:01):
not just bounce applicants between you like pinball. And we
want also to see some targets that we're going to
hold you accountable for that hasn't been happening. Allowing people
to get the products they need in order to be
competitive globally has kind of been an afterthought.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
So the law this year. Once the laws passed. Does
it solve itself instantly or is there more time involved
there as well.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Well, you've got to bear in mind there's a backlog
of about one hundred products, and I don't want to
sit here this morning and say that we're going to
deal to every one of them this year. But what
I do know is that we're going to have new targets,
new law, new processes, and we'll start getting through them
much much faster and more sensibly than we have for

(02:50):
a very long time. And that's going to be I
think very welcome from the likes of Shackleton, and I
think it's probably helpful that she's getting out there and
making sure the pressure stays on even before the report
gets to Cabnet.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
Good while I've got your headline didn't look good. Is
the media picking on you and your school lunches or not.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
I think they are taking some of the worst examples
that they can find, in the worst comments that they
can find, and saying this is all terrible. But I
just make two points about that. First of all, I
read in the Herald this morning a rest on critics
who said it's not the best meal I've ever had.
It's not the worst meal that I've ever had actually

(03:33):
did have a lot of vegetables in it, and on
balance it's a pass. I think that's probably a fair
assessment from walking around the school hall at Otaku College
yesterday as I did, and asking the students. And I
make a second point is that we've had some people
school Princi balls and others saying this is not good enough.
We demand to buy the kids pizzas and now you

(03:56):
must reimburse us. I mean, I think we're going to
take a bit of a step back here in New Zealand.
This is a government with a seventeen billion dollar deficit.
We have managed to save one hundred and thirty million
on this program while actually providing meals for more kids.
This year we're doing something new and today is only

(04:17):
Ay five of it, or actually day four with school
holidays in some places. So you know, I think we've
got to get a bit of a reality check. We
need to do things better together and we are. And
by the way, still seventy five percent of students out
there whose meals are provided by their parents. And I
can guarantee you if you were to do a sample

(04:39):
of New Zealand children about their parents' lunch preparation. You
might get some mixed reviews there too.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Exactly, I can't let you go without asking about this
being zed thing and the coolie you're on board with,
Shane Jones, But what the hell's going on? How do
we get growth if banks are closing down legitimate businesses.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Well, there's two things going on here. All. I agree
with Shane up to a point that what's happening in
our society is best described as woe career. It comes
from the universities, it feeds into the graduates, and all
of a sudden, it's in the boardroom. You've got businesses
that are perceiving all sorts of agendas that actually most
of us never signed up to, wouldn't sign up to,

(05:19):
and don't support. But I also just raise this matter.
Most people who want to be in business for any
length of time have their focus on the bottom line.
And if you look at this country, the regulatory environment
or the Prime Minister went along to a university and
effectively banned the oil and gas industry and a speech.

(05:42):
There's been a real sheeheart on mining and especially on
whole over the last few years, not just in New Zealand,
but around the world, and often when you hear a
lot of ideology out of the boardroom, part of it
is this wakery, but part of it is they are
looking at the risk that they face from financing certain
industries and saying we're not so sure about that. So yep,

(06:06):
easy to beat up on the banks, and to some
extent I think it's warranted, but it's also critical that
we make sure with our resource management reforms, with our
critical Minerals list that I think Shane is scheduled to
announce today, and with our overall attitude to farming and
extractive industries, that we actually make sure that the regulatory

(06:27):
risk faced by banks doesn't give them a reason to
be nervous, for which I suspect some of the spokery
is actually a bit of a paint job on the
fact they're genuinely concerned. So let's make sure we get
the reduitary environment right, so these industries are genuinely welcome
in New Zealand, not just a risk to banks. Well.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
Sovid seymore act leader.

Speaker 2 (06:49):
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