Universal allowance needed for children

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Wed, 10 Oct 2012 10:01a.m.

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Victoria University professor Jonathan Boston says New Zealand needs to do more to help its at-risk children.

Victoria University professor Jonathan Boston says New Zealand needs to do more to help its at-risk children.

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10/10/2012 9:42:49 p.m.

Concerned wrote:

Dave and Mia, are you foster parents? if not, are you able and willing to provide good stable care for abused and / or neglected children? Our CYFS system can't remove more children from their parents as there is nowhere for them to go. There is a desperate need for caregivers who can put in the time, finance and energy into children over the long haul. In this situation it's either that (and not only you, but many more kind souls) or some of your tax money. We are ALL accountable. This issue is not the child's fault. They have no control here. If we don't want "money thrown at it" Mike then don't give the money to the parents - provide the food directly. It is that simple. The cost may seem huge short-term but I'd bet the long term savings would far outweigh the initial investment.

10/10/2012 2:37:45 p.m.

Mike wrote:

How much will providing lunch in School cost?

Well if employ people vs use volunteers etc they will be cost around $4 a lunch per student.

2011 figures have 760,000 kids in school.

Call it a cost of 3 million a day.

is around 200 school days?

cost 600 million to NZ a year.

Thats operating cost.

Almost all NZ schools lack facilities to prepare lunches on the scale needed so they will require probably $5-10 billion in investment to build the facilities etc.

We can't afford this currently. We need parents to take some repsonsibility and if they dont we need to do something about getting them to take responsibility for the problem.

The problem of hungry kids is not about money.

Some it is the kids themselves, some is the parents. Some is lack of education of knowing how to budget, live within a budget and live helathily on a budget.

There were kids not getting lunch back in the 80's, and this that scheme to help such parents has just seen money thrown at the problem and the problem grow. Throwing money doesn't work.

10/10/2012 12:50:17 p.m.

alison wrote:

First we would need a govt in power to actually believe that there is child poverty in nz and secondly we would need that govt to give a damn. NZ should have put in place funding to provide for school lunches years ago. It is way more cost effective to nip it in the bud before we end up with a nation of malnourished, brain impaired, under educated and sick citizens in the years to come.