Day of cooking, tours and curious kids

She wore an apron and he wore a high-vis vest — not a 1950s sitcom, but a day on the campaign trail.

For Labour leader Jacinda Ardern there were no policy announcements but while Bill English was in Christchurch tromping about a kitchen cabinet company in his highvis vest, Ardern was trying to turn up the sainthood dial.

Her only public outing was to feed the children — literally.

Ardern spent the morning with the Feed the Need crew at the Salvation Army kitchen armed with a massive wooden spoon helping cook up Italian beef stew for school lunches. She then went to Rongomai School in Otara to serve it up to students.

Meanwhile, in Christchurch after a visit to the joinery factory, English announced an extra $120 million towards the Christchurch Stadium — taking the total to $179m. He also unveiled a paving stone for the new Sudima Hotel in Christchurch — the first five-star hotel since the quakes.

Then it was off for a walkabout at Riccarton Mall where he was the subject of some interest by a group of schoolboys armed with questions and phones for photos.

As for Ardern’s food programme, Feed the Need general manager Laurie Wharemate-Keung said they made 1500 meals a day and fed every pupil at two South Auckland schools.

Ardern has made child poverty one of her key targets, and Wharemate-Keung said she would be more than happy to be put out of business by the Government — or at least better funded.

The children were initially a tad confused about what Ardern’s job was. Having been told she had helped cook their meal, their initial questions were all about cooking.

However, one savvy child was not going to waste the chance for a bit of lobbying — telling Ardern the school had no hall and so the students sometimes got wet if it rained.

Among the titbits Ardern revealed was that she once wanted to be a police officer like her father, her favourite food was Mexican, liked the Marvel movies, and her mother fed her meatballs the night before.

As for English, there was one near miss. He was asked by one woman if there would be any new taxes and replied “you’ll have to ask the Labour Party”. It was intended as a dig at Labour’s announcements about water and fuel taxes as well as a potential capital gains tax — but Labour would probably like to take it as an admission they will be in Government after the election.