Ryan Bridge: School lunches - David Seymour is the new Robin Hood

Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

Nothing is ever good enough for some people, is it?

You've got a centre-right government committing hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money to feed kids in schools, and they've managed to free up $130 million in savings in the process, and still, it's not good enough for some.

The Health Coalition Aotearoa, they're not happy, some dieticians say it's not nutritious enough.

"Simply cutting the amount of food that they are having and supplying a more processed, less varied diet is a complete lost opportunity for our health system."

I'll tell you what, it's more nutritious than nothing at all, an empty stomach.

Some said the food was too processed, it was one size fits all, it wouldn't appeal to the kids.

It's not meant to appeal to kids so much as feed them when they're hungry. I thought that was the point. And if they don't eat it, they're not hungry. It's simple.

Now, there are some bold claims being made by David Seymour which I am a little sceptical of like the fact that we can do this for $3 a meal. It sounds unheard of, but he gets the benefit of the doubt and my good luck for his cost saving crusade.

Guess where some of the savings are going, feeding 10,000 poor 2 to 5-year-olds.

David Seymour is the new Robin Hood.

In all the flurry of releases yesterday about this, there was one staggering number that stood out to me. Seymour reckons if Labour had adopted his model from the get-go when they launched this program five years ago, we would have saved $800 million dollars.

$800 million – they could have had that bike bridge over the Waitemata Harbour, or they could have had more rat tests, or whatever the hell they wanted.

It's true, there is no such thing as a free lunch, but thank the lord is at least now a cheaper menu.

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