Seymour's lack of accountability over school lunch fiasco

Cheap slop Seymour's failures over the school lunch fiasco, and PM Luxon's failure to hold him to account are failing our kids.

What happens if you do an AI face swap of David Seymour and Christopher Luxon :)

While Associate Education Minister David Seymour is facing criticism for his handling of the school lunches fiasco, he has faced remarkably little accountability.

At the press conference after the Investment Summit yesterday, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon was asked¹ if returning to the original contractors² for providing the school lunches might be the best form of action.

“Again, let David run it, he is fully accountable, I hold him accountable for delivering it, he is working extremely hard at it and let him close it out.” - Christopher Luxon

Luxon has completely failed to hold Seymour to account. One could say he is out to lunch. Education Minister Erica Stanford called Seymour to a “please explain”³ meeting, only to have Seymour fail to appear. While Stanford refused to express confidence in Seymour, Luxon sided with him⁴.

“Yes, there are challenges⁵ where some of the food is not up to scratch, but David's working his way through the issues, and I trust him to fix it,” Luxon said.

When asked by media when he was going to meet with Stanford, Seymour responded that he was talking to the Prime Minister. He was effectively pulling rank. Political journalists such as Jo Moir⁶ appeared to endorse this position, claiming Seymour is the ‘third-ranked minister’ in the government - a debatable claim, as Seymour does not hold a major portfolio.

Yet the Cabinet Manual is very clear: “Responsibility for a portfolio always rests with the ‘portfolio’ or ‘principal minister’”. This means that on education issues, Seymour is accountable to Stanford in the first instance, not the Prime Minister.

The Cabinet Manual⁷ also states: