On the 22nd of October, Associate Education Minister David Seymour announced a bland array of new school lunches and (not) the number of job losses.
These lunches replace the existing school lunch programme introduced by the last Labour government, Ka Ora, Ka Ako, after they conceded that yes, children do learn better with full tummies.
Not just food, but healthy food, is a gateway for increasing focus and engagement amongst tamariki and rangatahi who previously went without.
Initially, Seymour was unhappy with the premise of feeding kids for free all together but, after public feedback and media scrutiny, he backed down.
Instead of the previous lunches, costing at an unacceptably “woke” rate of $8.70 per lunch according to ACT’s figures, the government has opted for a delicious $3 replacement.
On the day of the announcement, Seymour and his out-of-touch government MPs stood around poking at a lump of powdered mashed potato next to what can only be identified as jelly meat in gravy wet cat food — contrasted from the background only by the tinfoil tray it came in.
Seymour, wincing after the first bite and fluttering his eyelids, unconvincingly concluded, “That is so good, like that was…. um, really good.
“I was prepared to say ‘oh yeah, it’s good’ but it actually is really good.”
His goons nodded in agreement at the wet cat food, neglecting to address the fact that the move put 70 local businesses out of secure contracts, forcing them to fire staff and find work elsewhere.
These are the very demographic ACT say they’re looking out for the most.
Te Puna Kai, a local Waikato caterer, will be losing four of their five contracts.
This means they’ll be making 180 instead of 1000 lunches a day, and will be forced to lay off 15 of their staff.
The lead company the government is replacing these small businesses with, Compass, has had a number of morally inexcusable scandals ranging from serving undisclosed horse meat to trying to bribe UN officials to award it $300 million in food contracts.
They were forced to pay the equivalent of $86.7 million NZD in the subsequent UN court settlement.
The Health Coalition Aotearoa (HCA) outlined their “significant concerns” over the quality, nutritional standards, and controls for the new programme.
It emerged that Compass had previously lost one third of their total school lunch contracts after poor quality and service, and has been criticised over their supply of gross Dunedin Hospital food.
“Cabinet has given a[n] $85 million contract to a group led by a company that, just months ago, was forced to do a performance management plan due to poor quality and service,” said Dr Kelly Garton, an HCA spokesperson.
The lead company, Compass, supplies prisons, hospitals, and schools with notoriously poor quality food.
It’s so bad that one Canadian prison in 2008 found potentially fatal bacteria in the food being served to inmates.
Additionally, they ‘unknowingly’ served horse meat to schools in Ireland and Britain, and during the Covid-19 pandemic served revolting dishes to schools and were forced to issue an apology.
They overcharged a New York school and were ordered to repay $18 million in 2016, and Dunedin Hospital received a number of complaints for the quality of food supplied there as well.
Compass has also had a number of workers’ rights scandals, including hiring a slave labour company and committing ‘fire and rehire’ manoeuvres with outsourced cleaning and kitchen staff.
Despite all this, Seymour and the government parties are working with them to cut costs and stop “woke” school lunches being served.
The government would rather serve schools prison food from a company exposed for not giving a toss about the people it's feeding, than spend a few more dollars and support local businesses to deliver quality food to hungry kids.
It says a lot about a government when they would support a multi-billion dollar foreign company and take from working Kiwis to do it.
The Prime Minister, before a week or so ago, owned seven properties, each worth over $2 million, a total of $21.145 million.
His property portfolios grew by $4.3 million in 2021, and he made $90,000 in capital gains every week in 2022, more money than he made as CEO of Air New Zealand.
He was the wealthiest MP as Leader of the Opposition, and once Prime Minister, he chose to give $3 billion in tax cuts to landlords.
This month, he sold one of his Auckland properties.
On that property, that he bought for $650,000 in 2015, it was listed at a set price of $945,000. That’s a capital gain of $295,000, which he paid no tax on.
Earlier this year, the government repealed the old bright line thresholds, opting instead for two-year period.
The bright line test has gone back to its initial two-year period, as was firt introduced in October 2018.
The new bright line test applies if you have sold a property on, or after, 1 July 2024.
That means any residential property sold within two years of it purchase date with be subject to tax on any profit made from the sale. Property owners buying after this date will only have to pay tax within in that two-year period.
That’s just under the amount of time that he’s owned the property, meaning he’ll pay no bright line and no capital gains tax.
New research from Victoria University has found that the richest people in Aotearoa are paying less tax than others in nine similar OECD nations.
We are one of only a few who have no tax on capital gains, no kind of wealth tax, and have the most pathetic income tax rate.
The Prime Minister and almost every other sitting member of Parliament own multiple properties and have investments in businesses, giving them all an interest in keeping the tax system stuffed and the housing market in favour of landlords.
They don't work for us. We work for them.
UPDATE (4 December, 2024):
The PM has sold his third house this year after changing the brightline test, meaning he made $300,000 tax-free on this sale - likely over $760,000 in profit on all properties sold this year.
Luxon just sold a two-bedroom unit in Onehunga for $930,000 - more than $309,500 than he paid for it in the first place ($620,500).
Had his latest property sale been the same as his asking price, he would have made total capital gains of $769,500 from the three sales. But he won’t actually tell us.
Original images sourced from NZME, RNZ, 1News, Three News, unless stated otherwise