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Speaker 1: So curries, past the dishes, burritos and sandwiches are just

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Speaker 1: some of the options that are going to be on

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Speaker 1: the menu for next year for the school lunch program.

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Speaker 1: The Associate Minister of Education, David Seymo, who's in charge

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Speaker 1: of this, is with me. Hello, David, Hi, are you

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Speaker 1: providing all of these hot meals for three bucks a meal?

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Speaker 2: Well, there's been early market indications of what people might

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Speaker 2: ender to provide, and certainly the expert advisory group we've

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Speaker 2: had these are people that work in logistics and catering

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Speaker 2: at a commercial level. They believe that it's possible that

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Speaker 2: we're going to land contracts like that. It'd be amazed.

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Speaker 2: I know lunch can be expensive, but when you buy

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Speaker 2: lunch for two hundred and fifty thousand people every day,

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Speaker 2: you can get some better deals. By contrast, the previous

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Speaker 2: government was due in quarter of a million meals a day,

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Speaker 2: paying up to eight dollars sixty. I've got people that

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Speaker 2: work in my office and the beehive who say, man,

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Speaker 2: I do meal prep for the week and I don't

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Speaker 2: budget that much for my lunch. It just shows how

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Speaker 2: much money has been previously.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, how is it possible to get that level of efficiency.

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Speaker 1: What's going is it smaller portions? What's going on?

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Speaker 2: It's just that you're buying such large amounts. So I mean,

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Speaker 2: if you are running logistics and delivery, if you're running storage,

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Speaker 2: if you're doing cooking, it's always going to be cheaper

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Speaker 2: to do big deals in large amounts. And if you

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Speaker 2: talk to people like we've had somebody associated with Ryman,

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Speaker 2: you know they do about eight thousand meals a day,

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Speaker 2: that just got really good at doing it at scale.

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Speaker 2: If you talk to people at Kids Can Charitably Supported,

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Speaker 2: they actually budget two dollars per kid per day for

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Speaker 2: their meal. So you know, I can understand it's kind

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Speaker 2: of surprisingly seem like small amounts of money, especially if

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Speaker 2: you've been living through the inflation of the last few

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Speaker 2: years and the amount things cost. But these people who

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Speaker 2: have hired that know what they're doing and do it

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Speaker 2: for a job every day. I believe it's possible. Now

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Speaker 2: we're putting out the tender and there's every reason to

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Speaker 2: believe that we're going to be able to deliver what's

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Speaker 2: been indicated that the prices that have been indicated.

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Speaker 1: David, what's up with your new Ministry for Regulation needing

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Speaker 1: five communications staff.

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Speaker 2: Well, first of all, who are they communicating to? Actually,

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Speaker 2: a lot of it is listening. So for example, we're

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Speaker 2: doing a red tape reduction drive on early childhood, which

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Speaker 2: is terribly overregulated. They've had over a thousand people engaged

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Speaker 2: with that so far, and then there's also regulators across it.

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Speaker 1: Are you telling me the comm staff for listening to people?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's not just communications with journalism that you

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Speaker 2: might be familiar with. It's communications with a range of

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Speaker 2: different stakeholders, including the regulated parties that are part of

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Speaker 2: sector reviews, and eventually their job is going to be

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Speaker 2: to communicate with regulate tours across government. So it's not

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Speaker 2: just answering the phone when a journo rings up, which

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Speaker 2: I'm sure you'll be familiar with. What proportion of communication

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Speaker 2: in the wider sense?

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Speaker 1: What proportion of these are just media staff.

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Speaker 2: That I couldn't tell you, but as I understand it,

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Speaker 2: the job couldn't well it could be, but they at

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Speaker 2: least have to spend some of their time doing kinds

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Speaker 2: of communication.

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Speaker 1: All David, you're the guys who went hard at the

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Speaker 1: Ministry of Education for having too many communications stuff from

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Speaker 1: and at Health New Zealand as well. This looks a

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Speaker 1: bit hypocritical, doesn't it.

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Speaker 2: No, I don't think so, because if it was five

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Speaker 2: people answering the phone as pres secretaries for journalists that

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Speaker 2: rung up, I'd be pretty alarmed. But they assure me

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Speaker 2: that that's not the purpose. And if you want further

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Speaker 2: proof that we don't have a whole lot of people

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Speaker 2: doing comms for journalists, why are they trowing me out

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Speaker 2: here to do the defense of them rather than having

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Speaker 2: all of the supposed pre secretary story hired them.

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Speaker 1: Maybe they're not an idea. David, thank you very much.

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Speaker 1: I really appreciate your time. Make this David Seamore, the

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Speaker 1: Associate Ministry of Education.

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Speaker 2: news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow

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