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Speaker 1: The Windes can pack up and say sorry, because it

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Speaker 1: looks like you can provide school lunches at a much

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Speaker 1: cheaper price and with less waste, and they look more

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Speaker 1: than good enough to eat to meat katsu, chicken, buttered chicken, pasta,

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Speaker 1: salads at three dollars ahead intead of the previous government's

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Speaker 1: eight dollars sixty eight. There are still the moners, though,

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Speaker 1: if you listen to Morning Report, more for you. But

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Speaker 1: this is the sort of whining that's been going on

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Speaker 1: this morning.

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Speaker 2: I'd like to see the modeling because I'm not convinced

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Speaker 2: that you can do it for three dollars. I need

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Speaker 2: to see the modeling of how that's seemed possible, particularly

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Speaker 2: when there's so many dietary requirements.

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Speaker 1: David Seymour's with us a very good morning to you.

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Speaker 3: Good morning.

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Speaker 1: So even though you display the lunches for all to

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Speaker 1: see yesterday and eat them, they still want to see

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Speaker 1: the modeling.

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Speaker 3: Well, the funny thing is I'm a recovering electrical engineer,

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Speaker 3: so I actually do know quite a bit about mathematical modeling.

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Speaker 3: And what I've never seen in politics is anyone that

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Speaker 3: talked about bodeling that don't understands is usually a sort

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Speaker 3: of a prop that the intellectually feeble rolled out when

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Speaker 3: they don't know what else to say. I must make

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Speaker 3: the point. That's why I don't go on morning and

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Speaker 3: report and haven't done for the last five years. The

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Speaker 3: truth I've found the cure to cancer. That's sort of

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Speaker 3: a wave. They've done it for the wrong reason, so

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Speaker 3: we'll fall them. Isn't a great thing on the microssing request.

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Speaker 1: Yes, it is. Having said that, one of the other

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Speaker 1: complaints and what was the other complaint. The other complaint

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Speaker 1: is the company or one of the companies you've hired,

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Speaker 1: have some sort of auditing process internationally and they've been

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Speaker 1: found wanting true or not.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that is true. I mean you've got big contractors

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Speaker 3: providing large amounts for meals, and the risk is always

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Speaker 3: that once you're in the door, the quality of the

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Speaker 3: contract and declines. But when this is not new, we

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Speaker 3: know that and what we've done has been a lot

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Speaker 3: to the challenges that other government departments such as Defense,

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Speaker 3: for example, have had with the same contractors. Said think

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Speaker 3: you can make it work as you can, and we're

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Speaker 3: basically built into our contract really strict monitoring so that

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Speaker 3: we can ensure the quality stays up. So yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 3: but this is not new right, Like many of the

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Speaker 3: contractors that were previously in place, people were dissatisfied, and

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Speaker 3: you sign a contract, you have to manage it.

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Speaker 1: Have you been surprised? I know this is a slightly

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Speaker 1: softball question, but have you been to I'm getting really

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Speaker 1: depressed at the number. I mean, you've solved the problem.

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Speaker 1: You've irrefutably solved the problem at three dollars. I saw

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Speaker 1: what you've served up. I see it, I get it.

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Speaker 1: It's edible. You fix the problem. Yet people still don't

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Speaker 1: want to see that it's fixed, indicating that there are

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Speaker 1: people who literally will not accept that you're right and

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Speaker 1: you delivered, and there's something wrong with us, isn't there.

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Speaker 3: Well, let me put it out of the way. I

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Speaker 3: think what has been done is actually quite amazing. But

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Speaker 3: it's not really me that's done, and I just let

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Speaker 3: a group of people get on with it. And if

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Speaker 3: you look at these businesses, if you look at the

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Speaker 3: Volume Expert Advisory Group, people like Steth Theramunger who led it,

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Speaker 3: people like the Heart Foundation who volunteered people that just

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Speaker 3: came off from business in one case. You know, we're

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Speaker 3: getting pretty big pay cuts. I suspect for the government

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Speaker 3: daily rate is a bit less than they normally expect,

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Speaker 3: but they did it for New Zealand. Those people actually

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Speaker 3: really pulled together something really different. The Ministry of Education

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Speaker 3: yesterday said, you know, we were not used to operating

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Speaker 3: like this. It's been a real eye opener for us.

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Speaker 3: So all I've done is bring together a group of people, business,

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Speaker 3: voluntary sector, government and say here's a big target three

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Speaker 3: dollars can we do it? And actually, given those conditions,

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Speaker 3: they've underway and we're basically if we've done this as

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Speaker 3: a government five years ago, if labor had adopted this model,

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Speaker 3: the total savings to date would be eight hundred and

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Speaker 3: sixty million dollars. Instead, we have eight hundred and sixty

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Speaker 3: million more debt that you know, ironically that the children

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Speaker 3: get the lunches will have to pay more than anyone.

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Speaker 3: So look, I can see why some people might be

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Speaker 3: indignantal but you know, we've done something quite different here.

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Speaker 3: We've done something I always looked in COVID. I thought,

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Speaker 3: why can't the government work with business more? So that's

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Speaker 3: all we've done, and maybe people come around to believe

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Speaker 3: it someday.

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Speaker 1: Is that a whole of government model you can sort

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Speaker 1: of splash about the place.

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Speaker 3: Now, Well, I certainly think there's other areas where you

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Speaker 3: just ask yourself, white the slate clean. We're not doing

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Speaker 3: it the old way at all. And if we had

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Speaker 3: to solve this really clearly defined problem, how would we

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Speaker 3: do it? And yeah, I'm thinking about a few other

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Speaker 3: ways we might be able to do it, such as

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Speaker 3: around school attendance.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, what about the opportunity for businesses who can see

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Speaker 1: a very very large program and they make something that

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Speaker 1: is in the lunch, whether it be the rise, the

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Speaker 1: chicken or the whatever that can feed into that. Surely

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Speaker 1: there's an opportunity there.

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Speaker 3: Well, there's massive opportunities. We had almost twenty companies at

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Speaker 3: the launched yesterday. You take chickens for example, they're taking

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Speaker 3: eighteen tons of chicken every two weeks for this program.

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Speaker 3: So I'd say, good news for text and play us,

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Speaker 3: great news for kids, but disaster. If you're a picking

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Speaker 3: good just.

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Speaker 1: Talk to you, appreciate it. David Seymour, Associate Minister of Education.

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Speaker 3: For more from the Mic, Asking Breakfast, listen live to

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Speaker 3: news talks, it'd be from six am weekdays, or follow

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