Barry Soper: Senior Political Correspondent on Government directive to prioritise public services on basis of need, teachers eating free school lunches, and Waitangi Tribunal accusing Government of breaching Treaty

Cabinet has issued a circular laying out expectations that public services should be delivered based on “the needs of all New Zealanders”, fulfilling a coalition agreement secured by Act and New Zealand First that “need” should be prioritised over “race”. 

Senior Political Correspondent Barry Soper tells Heather du Plessis-Allan this should have been the case all along, but unfortunately, hasn’t been. 

Meanwhile, teachers are allegedly eating free school lunches and leaving students without.  

And, the Waitangi Tribunal has accused the Government of breaching the Treaty. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Barry so per seen your political correspondence with us A Barry,
good afternoon.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Had right.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
So this is circular. The circular that Cabinets issued is overdue,
but finally here.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Yeah, it's a ruling and in fact it should never
have been required, I think, I mean, surely every New
Zealander should be treated the same. But you'll remember it
was act essentially giving eight percent of their contracts to
MALDI providers. This is government contracts and the first of

(00:32):
all it was five percent. They upped it to eight
percent last year. And of course we saw recently the
case in the Hawk's Bay where young people were getting
free medical treatment from GPS if they were Maldi or Pacifica.
It shouldn't be the case. And as you said that
the circular has been issued by the Cabinet offers and

(00:56):
it's essentially saying there should be no ethnicity considered when
government contracts are let and that to me should be
I mean, it should have been the case all along,
but unfortunately it hasn't been.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Yeah, hey, what do you make of the teachers nicking
the school lunches at two of our college?

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Well, you know that's your old college, so you know,
I guess.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Type why I came out.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
That's right, that's what they produce. Yeah, it's interesting because
the mother had basically complained that two of our college
staff were eating lunches and the problem was that the
kids wanted to phone home to tell their parents this
was happening, but they couldn't do so because phones are

(01:45):
now a banned in colleges.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
They had to go down to the old on the
field day.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Didn't they go down to the office to get your
phone back and say I want to tell on you
for eating my lunch. Well they're not going to get
their phone back, so they go home hungry. But I've
got to say the school Lunch Minister David Seymour, he
has seemed to please explain to the.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
Ministry mostly Sellings. Will be very clear that one of
the jobs of teachers is to instill good values in children,
show children the difference between right and wrong, and it's
very hard for teachers to do that when the teacher
themselves is allegedly nicking their lunch and also repressing their
ability to seek justice by calling for help when bad

(02:32):
things like that happen. So it's certainly something the Ministry
of Education will be looking into and I look forward
in the near future to announcing more details about how
the healthy school lunch program will continue. I think it's
going to be better and cost less, but it's going
to be done for the primarily the benefit of the students,
not to have it nicked by someone else before it

(02:52):
gets to them.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Yeah, but it's his fault, isn't it really, because he's
made the lunges more tasty.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
Ye.

Speaker 4 (02:57):
Well, I mean the thing is, well, this this kind
of thing plays into his hands, right because it will
undermine support for the lunches because it will it will
absolutely wind a whole bunch of taxpayers up knowing that
reasonably well paid teachers are getting a nice little gluten
free sandwich.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
Yes, thanks to us.

Speaker 4 (03:14):
You're more than welcome, right, So it helps his case
to actually go harder on it. But there's nothing he
can do about it, because as long as he's rolling
out lunches to schools and teachers are hungry and in
a bit naughty, they will continue to do it.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Absolutely, you know it's going to continue happening. But they've
got to do so not at the expense of the kids.
And that's the problem. If they're Nikki literally.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
I can say that as well. What can you do
about it?

Speaker 2 (03:38):
Well, if does go home hungry, hopefully they will be
reported to the authorities and they'll be moved on. I
mean you can't, yes, exactly, they can't go there expecting
to get their lunch.

Speaker 4 (03:50):
Okay, quite your harsh punishment, Barry the White Tongue. Why
not accusing the government of breaching the treaty to strike
what eight from the White Tangy Tribunal or what.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
It's incredible really when you think this is the government
overturning a Court of appealed decision and that's what's got
the Whitangi Tribunal very upset. They've put out a report
today and they've pointed to a meeting between senior government
ministers and seafood representatives as one of the many instances
of the Crown breaching the treaty. With its foreshore and

(04:24):
seabed changes, they're going to make it harder for Mali
unless they've got a customary title that goes way back
to one forty and you know the changes are quite significant.
As Paul Goldsmith, who's the Minister in charge of this,
he said the notion of extending the distance from the

(04:47):
shore twelve nautical miles is patently ridiculous. He said, you'd
have to have a navy to patrol that, and that's true.
But what they're going to do is they're going to
cut down significantly the number of of customary titles that
Mary can have power over. But MARII in the end

(05:08):
will still have the power, but they won't be able
to dictate what is going to happen in that particular zone.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
Interesting, Barry, thank you very much. Listen. We'll wrap the
political week that was when you come back later on
about quarter past six. It's Barry Sober seeing your political
political correspondence.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
Listen live to news Talks it'd be from four pm weekdays,
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