Monday, September 10, 2012



A good decision

Labour has come out in support of free school meals for children in decile 1 - 3 schools. Good. We have a problem in this country with kids going to school hungry - or not going at all because they are hungry. This will solve that problem. And the expected cost - $3 to $19 million, depending on the model used - is peanuts compared to the social waste (in terms of lower educational attainment, lost economic potential, higher crime and health costs etc) that that problem leads to in later life.

The government - which does not care about poor kids, unless they can provide a photo op for the Prime Minister - will no doubt claim that this is "unaffordable". Bullshit. Even at its most expensive, its still ~50 times cheaper than ETS subsidies, and ~500 times cheaper than their "Roads of National Significance" program, which seems to exist solely to subsidise their cronies and donors in the construction industry. It is simply a question of priorities. And National's clearly do not include anything further ahead than the next poll.