Act leader David Seymour says he has asked the Ministry of Education to look into reports that teachers are taking lunches off students.

Speaking to reporters in Auckland today, Seymour said the allegations had originated from one school in South Auckland, where teachers had taken lunches over several weeks from pupils who were members of one family.

He said the allegation concerned the pupils going home hungry. Seymour said the pupils had tried to call their parents but their phone was taken off them, given the Government’s phone ban at school.

Given he was the Associate Education Minister responsible for the free school lunches initiative, Seymour had asked the Education Ministry to look into the allegations.

”We don’t think this is acceptable.”

At the press conference, which followed the release of a government notice requiring public services to be delivered by need, not race, Seymour argued the new policy was “much less divisive”.

He said the release of today’s circular to the public service put an end to the need to contract a certain amount of public services with Māori providers.

Asked about the beneficial impact of having more Māori GPs which encouraged Māori to access healthcare, Seymour said the point of the circular was to look all the reasons why people might not present to healthcare services before classing people by ethnicity.

“It’s only when you can show clear evidence that it’s acceptable,” Seymour said of curating public services based on race.

Asked about his position on bowel screening being available for Māori earlier in life, Seymour said it was important to assess whether there were any other factors influencing worse bowel cancer rates for Māori and if race was the only factor, then he believed such priority was warranted.

“Health is the primary area where this is true, education might be one too,” Seymour said of where he’d seen the majority of services being delivered by race.

The release of the circular was late, according to the coalition agreement between National and Act. Seymour said it was more important to get it right than meet the deadline.

NZ Herald’s political correspondent Audrey Young yesterday criticised Seymour’s actions concerning the Treaty Principles Bill and his view of the assessment of the bill from Justice Ministry officials.

Asked to respond, Seymour said Young was entitled to her view as an experienced journalist but he said Act disagreed with how the public service had been interpreting the Treaty’s principles and therefore didn’t value the ministry’s critique of the bill.

Earlier today 

The Government has formally laid out its expectation that public services should be delivered based on “the needs of all New Zealanders”, fulfilling a coalition agreement secured by Act and New Zealand First that “need” should be prioritised over “race”. 

The Cabinet Office on Friday issued a circular – essentially a formal notice – setting out the Government’s expectations for “how the targeting, commissioning, and design of public services should be based on the needs of all New Zealanders”. 

Both Act and New Zealand First’s coalition agreements with the National Party include similar provisions to issue such a Cabinet Circular saying public services “should be prioritised on the basis of need, not race”. 

While the coalition agreement with NZ First said that should be done “as a matter of urgency”, the Act document said the notice should be issued “within the first six months of Government”. The coalition missed that self-imposed deadline, with the six-month anniversary being May 27. 

The circular says all New Zealanders “regardless of ethnicity or personal identity” should have access to public services “that are appropriate and effective for them” and “services are not arbitrarily allocated on the basis of ethnicity or any other aspect of identity”. 

“The Government is concerned that in the absence of clear expectations, agencies may use ethnic identity or other forms of personal identity as a proxy for need, and therefore a justification in itself for targeted services. The requirements in this circular aim to address this concern.” 

It says Cabinet expects when agencies may be considering proposals to target specific population groups, they should engage with their responsible ministers. 

They would need to have a “strong analytical case for targeted investment”, including “why general services are not sufficient” to deal with any disparity between the target group and the general population. The agencies should also provide an assessment of any potential opportunity costs in terms of servicing the needs of all New Zealanders. 

Agencies would also need to “regularly review services targeted to specific population groups to ensure they remain necessary to achieve their original objectives”. 

“Cabinet expects agencies will recognise that there are many variables that can be used to identify and assess need, and that all variables should be considered before ethnic identity is automatically used to determine need.” 

Act leader David Seymour is welcoming the move. Photo / Mark Mitchell. 

In a statement on Friday, Act Party leader David Seymour said the notice saying public services should be delivered “according to need rather than race” “honours universal human rights” and reflected “the values that Act campaigned on”. 

“Policies like ethnicity-based surgical waitlists and university admission schemes are corrosive to an inclusive multi-ethnic society,” Seymour said. “They take the lens of ethnicity, and look through it before any other. 

“The circular is sophisticated. It draws on the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination, to which New Zealand is a signatory. The convention forbids racial discrimination unless it is necessary, and even then it must be temporary.” 

He said the circular highlighted the Government’s concern about the public service “using race as a proxy for need”. 

“It says that, in establishing racial discrimination is necessary, it must consider all other variables before automatically using ethnicity to target services. 

“A colourblind public service is far better placed to direct its resources toward eliminating hardship and overcoming hardships that face individual New Zealanders.” 

The Government’s focus on need, rather than race, was evident this week when Health Minister Shane Reti intervened over OurHealth Hawke’s Bay, Health New Zealand’s regional arm, offering some free healthcare services to Māori and Pasifika. Act, which drew attention to the matter, said “targeting services based on race is lazy and divisive”. 

Reti said on Monday that his Government Policy Statement on health put need as the highest priority for service delivery and officials hadn’t “read the room”. 

Earlier this year, Finance Minister Nicola Willis said the delay with the circular was down to ministers focusing on other policy priorities and that she and Seymour were “broadly” on the same page. 

Seymour at the time said he told National he would rather get the policy right than hit what he admitted was an arbitrarily decided deadline. 

“I love working with Nicola Willis, I think she is one of the most professional and collegial people in the Government, but at the same time that doesn’t mean you nail everything on the first round.” 

Jamie Ensor is a political reporter in the NZ Herald Press Gallery team based at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub Press Gallery office.