State parliamentary committee chaired by South West MLA calls for action on children facing food insecurity

A State parliamentary committee chaired by a South West MLA has called on more to be done to address food insecurity for disadvantaged children. The Joint Standing Committee on the Commissioner for Children and Young People, led by Murray-Wellington MLA Robyn Clarke, tabled its Hungry for Change report in Parliament late last month. The committee investigated the challenges children impacted by poverty face in getting enough nutritious food and effectiveness of options to help address the issue. Following a year-long investigation, it made 58 findings and 24 recommendations to the State Government. One of the key recommendations is for the Department of Education to create a pilot public school lunch program made up of low socio-economic metropolitan, regional and remote schools. Ms Clarke said Tasmania’s pilot school lunch program offered a great insight into the feasibility and effectiveness of such a program in WA. “We visited some schools in low socio-economic suburbs of Hobart and saw how much the students appreciated an accessible, hot, hearty lunch,” she said. “Teachers and principals at these schools told us how it made a difference to attendance and positively impacted concentration and behaviour.” As it currently stands, the country’s only government-funded lunch program is for the Northern Territory’s remote schools. The committee recommended targeting any program towards the most vulnerable students, with the cost of providing free lunches to all public school students estimated at between $400 million and $600 million a year. It said any school lunch program needs to be implemented alongside effective food literacy programs. Some of the other recommendations include a review into government funding of the School Breakfast Program, better supporting pregnant women facing food insecurity, placing children’s rights at the heart of initiatives to address poverty and for the State Government to consider adopting a human rights charter to better protect children’s rights. A State Government spokesperson said it would review the report and provide a full response at a later date. “The State Government recognises the importance of good nutrition and a healthy regime in supporting the mental and physical wellbeing of students, and their readiness for learning,” he said.