“Why would we punish the kids for not having food?”
Transom believed the Government should not be cutting costs for young children and said good food and education gave a great foundation for healthy and productive adults.
“The more you put in when kids are younger, the healthier they are going to be, the better educated they are, the more responsible economically providing citizens they are going to be when they are older.”
Attendance and classroom engagement could also suffer, she said.
The school is also supported by Fonterra which provides breakfasts and KidsCan which provides jackets and shoes for the students.
Transom said Ngāti Kahungunu made child-friendly meals which she said were enjoyed by all.
The menu included hot soup, nachos, sandwiches, mac and cheese, corn fritters and salad, homemade pizza, lasagne, butter chicken, fried rice, burgers, fruit, and yoghurt.
She said the students were not wasteful and school lunches taught students “good healthy nutritional eating habits”, especially as they became body conscious.
“We hear parents talking about the stress being taken off them because they don’t have to worry about providing food because their kids have it here and they eat it.”
She said change would place additional pressure on schools as they would need to store and prepare the food for Year 7 and 8 students.
“People just need to think about the kids involved and not the politics.”
The Ka Ora, Ka Ako school lunches programme was launched by Labour in 2019 and now feeds about 235,000 students at schools and kura facing socio-economic barriers.
The Labour-led Government had allocated $323.4 million for this year but it was not funded beyond that.
Questions over the future of the scheme were raised when Act Leader David Seymour was given ministerial responsibility over the policy.
Seymour attacked the programme during the election campaign, describing it as “wasteful” spending and urging National to abandon it if they got into power.
An announcement in May provides a reprieve with $478m in funding to keep the scheme going until the end of 2026, however, there will be some changes to how it operates.
For the rest of the year, the programme would remain as it was with all contracts and commitments in place.
From next year, a new model will be established to feed students in Years 7 and above and shave money off the cost. There will be no change in the way the programme operates for primary school students.
“The alternate provision model will use the Government’s significant buying power to save money on food, give schools more flexibility on what they provide, and significantly reduce wastage,” Seymour said.
While the top-up funding was in place in 2025 and 2026, a full redesign of the programme would be undertaken based on commercial experience, data, and evidence, he said.
Michaela Gower joined Hawke’s Bay Today in 2023 and is based out of the Hastings and Central Hawke’s Bay newsrooms. She covers Dannevirke and Hawke’s Bay news and has a love for sharing stories about farming and rural communities.
