Here is my take on the subject of feeding children free in schools:
Government funding for feeding children in schools is, in my opinion, not the answer to child poverty in NZ.

However, no right-thinking person approves of children going hungry and it is abhorrent that this third-world situation can and does exist in our own country.

In the interim the main thing is to know children who may otherwise have gone hungry would under such a scheme have full bellies, and therefore be healthier and better-equipped to progress at school.

It's only the Band-Aid solution to deep-rooted problems which cannot be solved entirely by providing free meals.

There are wider issues which must be addressed, beginning in the home, including educating families to be better-organised and budgeted, to live within their means and put children first.

Low wages and poor accommodation come into the equation and many must find themselves in a downward spiral from which it seems impossible to emerge, but there would also be those who can rise above.

Feeding children at schools is a substitute for, not a solution to, the problem of not being properly fed and cared for in the home.

Unless parents/caregivers make it a priority to nurture their children properly, there is little hope of getting out of this particular rut.

Georgie MacBrayne, Otumoetai.