Social Development Minister Paula Bennett. Photo / APN
Social Development Minister Paula Bennett. Photo / APN
A 7-year-old regularly eats breakfast at school because her grandmother can't afford to buy it for her.
Saphire, from Hamilton, said she and other kids at Norton School went to the breakfast club if their parents couldn't afford to feed them.
Asked by Social Development Minister Paula Bennett how oftenshe ate there, Saphire replied: "Heaps of times when I don't have any breakfast because my nan doesn't have any money and my mum doesn't."
She thought nothing of not taking lunch to school and going to the sick bay to get it. But when the boys in her group said they only did it occasionally when they forgot, she quickly changed the subject.
Ms Bennett said there were two views on whether it was the responsibility of the parents or the Government to provide food. She had yet to decide which she agreed with.
Parents unable or unwilling to provide breakfast and requests for more after-school programmes so kids did not have to watch their parents drinking were raised by the children at the Western Community Centre school holiday programme.
Ms Bennett was speaking to the 5-to-17-year-olds as part of a public conversation for her green paper on protecting children.
