Our kids deserve nutritious, delicious meals that are delivered on time. The Ka Ora, Ka Ako programme had been a great success, improving educational and nutritional outcomes for tamariki, boosting local economies, and increasing food resilience. Unfortunately, the National-led Government’s cost-cutting has led to huge levels of waste, local businesses closing, and students getting lunches cold, overcooked, and late. 

Petition begins

The Green Party is calling for Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to restore proper funding for  the school lunches programme, to drop the cut-price corporate model and restore the nutritious, timely, and community-led lunches we had before these changes. 

Instead of providing local jobs for local providers, or even schools employing whānau to make lunches themselves, the new system sends profits off-shore and incentivises doing it as cheap as possible. It is also clear that the lunches are lower quality and quantity, less nutritious, and regularly delivered late.  

Political decisions should be made to support tamariki. In Aotearoa, we value ensuring our kids have everything they need to be supported; a healthy home, an enriching education, and nutritious kai. Luxon’s government should not consider our children as just another line on his Budget where cost-savings can be made.  

Jason Ataera, the principal of Tairangi School in east Porirua said last year that the new programme was “funded to fail.” The current state of the programme demonstrates Jason was right, which is a tragedy for our young people.  

Our children deserve better. They deserve kai that nourishes them, setting them up to achieve to their full potential. Hunger should never be a barrier to learning.  

We call on Christopher Luxon to commit to restoring the full-scale, local and community delivered lunch programme in Budget 2025.

Petition ends