Help for hungry kids, but parents responsible

Chester Borrows PHOTO/FILE

LAST week, the Government voted against a bill that would provide lunches free for all kids in low-decile schools.

Since then, my inbox has been flooded with emails telling me what a nasty, mean fat cat I am.

Most follow exactly the same format and have been merely cut and pasted from a template. They all read: "You voted so that children in need will not be fed. I am not mad, I am very disappointed, actually I am mad, too."

My response was to comment that they were so outraged that they couldn't bother to construct their own two-line email to describe just how outraged they actually were. Then I went on to articulate what the Government had done to feed kids who were hungry at school, but I have to admit, after about 20 or 30 genuine replies, I got too busy to respond.

The taxpayer pays for every school that wants to provide breakfasts to hungry kids the ability to get in on the Fonterra-Sanitarium-government sponsored breakfasts-in-schools campaign.

Most schools don't avail themselves of the opportunity because they believe that families have the first responsibility for feeding their kids. But schools do provide breakfasts and lunches free of charge to hungry kids on a case-by-case basis.

The Government also supports Kids Can which provides raincoats and meals at lunchtime; it provides free fruit to low decile schools; and social workers in schools to look after the welfare of poorer kids.

The taxpayer pays for the Working For Families scheme to substantially subsidise lower to middle income families and has insulated about 180,000 homes so that kids keep in better health, but also so that their parents don't spend so much money on power bills and doctor's visits.

The taxpayer gives free doctors visits up to the age of 13 and accommodation supplements are available for low income families who need to pay the rent or mortgage if these are too big a proportion of their wages.

An article sent to me by a local doctor said: "I costed three healthy breakfasts: two scrambled eggs on lightly-buttered wholegrain toast with salt and pepper - cost $1.39; five minutes to prepare; quick-cook porridge with a banana and a sprinkling of brown sugar - cost 94c and four minutes to prepare; three Weet-Bix, milk and a sprinkling of sugar - cost 55c and two minutes to prepare."

The article was written by the sibling of an All Black and acknowledged the assistance of the state and the local church in their upbringing.

It also made the point about the relative cost of a single cigarette at nearly $1 each.

The debate can be seen as quite simplistic because it doesn't take into account the other costs of pre-existing conditions that may impact on families struggling to make ends meet. But the proposition that all kids in low decile schools require feeding does exactly the same in reverse. Some poor kids attend high decile schools.

The reasons why some kids don't eat breakfast may have nothing to do with the food available at home. Just like the emails which assumed all MPs were well paid, rich as hell and did not care about poor people.

Most of us accept there are folk who struggle to make ends meet. Most of us accept that some are genuine cases of need, while some are their own worst enemy and, sadly, their kids are lumped in there, too.

But all agree the first responsibility with feeding kids lies with parents - and where that can't be done, need should be met on a case-by-case basis.