Lunch scheme feeds thousands of children
Talofa lava. I hope that you are your whanau are keeping well.
My recess week was full of select committee meetings and getting around the electorate.
Last Monday, I spent the day at the Ka¯piti office. The day started with a joint Beach FM interview with Barbara Edmonds, MP for Mana.
Mandy Savage, Ka¯piti Centre coordinator and senior health promoter from the Ka¯piti Cancer Society came in for a ko¯ rero. She let me know about some of the awesome services that they provide such as transport services and peer support morning teas. Mandy and the team are doing an awesome job helping those in a time of need and sharing aroha around the community.
I also had a meeting with Darren Littlewood from Aotearoa Housing to ko¯ rero about his plans for affordable housing in our rohe, build upon a model of partnership, sustainability and efficiency. Darren is doing some great mahi striving to work collaboratively with our community.
The Government has made some awesome announcements recently. We had the launch of the road safety campaign with target of zero road deaths. Stats NZ also released figures showing the Government has lifted 66,500 children out of poverty.
Last week, we celebrated two years since we launched the Ka Ora, Ka Ako Healthy School Lunches programme.
So far more than 211,000 students have benefited from 47 million lunches. Providing a daily nutritious lunch is one way to ensure Kiwi kids don’t miss out on learning, while also helping to ease pressure off wha¯nau.
As we continue to respond to Omicron, we’re boosting our support for Kiwi businesses. The Government has supported businesses right from the start and now we’re providing more support for businesses hit hard by Omicron. These include a new Covid Support Payment, the Small Business Cashflow Loan Scheme and extra flexibility for businesses around tax payment dates and terms, to help with cashflow pressures.
We are now in phase three of our response to Omicron. With the virus in the community, there’s another really important way we can help protect our friends and family, as well as our doctors and nurses — getting boosted. If you’re 18 or over and it’s been three months since your second vaccination, you can get your booster today. It’s easy to book, or find a nearby walk-in or drive-through clinic, at bookmyvaccine.co.nz. If you’d rather book over the phone, you can call 0800 28 29 26.
If you’re eligible but haven’t yet had your booster dose, I’d really encourage you to do that today.
This week I am back in the House. Follow my Facebook page to keep upto-date with speeches in the House and to see what I get up to during the week.
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