My bike got nicked a few weeks ago, which was a bit annoying. I did hope that whoever took it needed it more than I did, and I needed it quite a bit. They nicked my helmet as well, so nice to see health and safety messaging having a positive effect.

It also had a flat tyre that needed inflating every couple of rides, which might not have provided a total upper body workout, but it didn’t hurt. So when the inevitable recession was finally announced I was reminded these are desperate times.

“Thank God,” said Tina on hearing the news - about the recession, not the bike - explaining, “if it’s here, we can climb out of it.” She was right of course; her optimism was like knowing we’re heading into summer immediately after the shortest day, even though it’s still really bloody freezing for months.

Maybe times weren’t so desperate after all.

The language was a bit more colourful; she’d just lost most of her crop and fencing when Cyclone Gabrielle took them out to sea, but her farmer’s determination remained. Bruised but not broken. Climbing out of anything requires momentum. Momentum requires a catalyst and that’s what ideas are for.

Thinking our way out of things seemed like a good subject to write about and besides I had plenty of ideas lying about. Some, with good reason should probably be left lying about, but you can make your own mind up.

I liked the idea from Te Pāti Māori of removing GST from food. It’s good for everyone and because of that helps demonstrate Te Pāti Māori leadership. Their president John Tamihere had made the astute observation of how a growing tribe of largely younger voters make decisions based on conduct and character not skin colour.

Te Pāti Māori have a huge opportunity to woo voters of any ethnicity, but because their focus has been on winning Māori seats, I wondered how many pakeha knew they could give Te Pāti Māori their party vote, and so I sent John this thought, ‘anyone can vote for common sense.’

Te Pāti Māori policy must be upsetting someone’s polling data, because by the look of it, the pushback has already started.

The article did get me thinking that maybe an even bolder idea was in order. An idea to help address a whole lot of problems.

So here’s one I prepared earlier:

Let’s start with food waste.

If food waste were a country it would be the third largest carbon emitter in the world, said a 2013 UN report. Approximately 30 - 40% of food is wasted across the supply chain. In New Zealand we threw away $2.4 billion of food in 2021. I expect we’re not throwing away as much these days, but still.

Another problem; 32% of New Zealanders are obese and another 34% overweight. The index is far greater against Maori and Pacific Islanders. In 2021 the Sapere Research Group estimated the direct cost to our health system at two billion a year.

The biggie is child poverty. It costs NZ an estimated $10b per year. - John Pearce, Analytica, 2012. Of that total $3.5 - 4b was estimated to be the cost to the health system.

It’s quite hard to get an accurate fix on this one, but in the 2020 budget the Government set aside $22.1 million just to improve the measurement of child poverty. To be fair, this was down from the 25 mil that was set aside to measure it - incorrectly it would appear - two years earlier.

Food insecurity is a result of poverty, and equality lurks not far behind. According to a recent article, living costs have risen over 18% in the last seven years for households getting some sort of benefit. But only 13% in homes that aren’t. As usual, not everyone’s taking the same hit.

Joining all of this together is food. More specifically diet. When I wrote this, a loaf of white bread was $1.19 at Pak‘n’Save. “A good diet costs a lot,” observes nutrition expert Professor Elaine Rush in the same article.

To to help fix all of these problems; food waste, obesity, and child poverty, you’d simply just have to get everyone eating exactly the same thing.

A controlled diet, to be blunt. Which is of course impossible because who would agree to it? Or follow it.

Oh wait, that’s right, we’re already doing it.

Each week tens of thousands of New Zealand families pay for fresh food in a box - a controlled diet - to be delivered from My Food Bag, Hello Fresh and others, proving it’s not only possible for people to eat the same food, done properly it’s actually highly desirable. I can’t imagine anyone’s ever been embarrassed by a Hello Fresh delivery.

The MSD have already trialled My Food Bag for Emergency Food grants, but since ‘emergency’ and ‘food’, are words that shouldn’t be used so closely together, just give a Food Box to everyone that wants one. Every week.

‘Are you mad? What about the cost?’

Glad you asked. The cost to feed 1.85 million households, five meals per week, with an average of three people per household, is $9.6 billion a year. And that’s at retail, $100 per food box, with no allowance for efficiencies of massive scale.

The challenge is how to pay for it all without any tax increase, as you can’t just find 10 billion down in between the couch cushions. Well, actually you can, as this chart from Treasury quite clearly shows. Look at the second largest item.

No functional classification, 33 billion dollars.

Huh?

That’s right, 33 billion. On something that doesn’t even have a name, and clearly serves no purpose at all. Everything else looks pretty reasonable. Health, social welfare, defence, police. It’s all there. There’s $14b set aside for ‘other economic’ activity. It’s a decent chunk of wedge which I assume includes things like tourism, but again, how would you know?

There’s enough detail to mention spending $411 million on ‘fuel and energy’, but I’m none the wiser as to ‘energy’ meaning the power bill, or a whole lot of Peanut Slabs someone’s racked up on the parliamentary Z petrol card.

There’s even a lazy $435m allocated to ‘other’. As dear Squeeze would’ve said: “Matey, you can almost do something with that.”

‘No functional classification’ is just Wellington for ‘stuff’ and at the very least it’s a line item that could stand a bit more scrutiny. To paraphrase Alexander Skarsgard’s Lukas Matsson character: “We need to get in there and cut shit close to the bone.” This is about spending less money not more.

Food waste, obesity and child poverty are problems that cost taxpayers about $14 billion a year, give or take. Which is quite a lot more than 9.6 billion. Sure, it’s not that simple, but isn’t it? Prevention is always cheaper than repair.

Once you’ve dipped into the ‘no functional classification’ fund and found the money, you’d have to market the idea quite cleverly. But hey, with ‘free food’ or ‘controlled diet’ as messages, there’s something for everyone. The good news is the Government has way, way more comms people than the country has journalists, so time for the dark artists of the Terrace to get to work.

Supermarkets will take a hit. Or they won’t, and become part of the distribution pipe instead. Or, they get out in front and lead the charge. Any loss of employment would be absorbed by the creation of s new supply chain. Insist on the idea being a sustainable, ethical way to support our local food producers. B Corp it up the wahzoo.

Maybe the Food Box won’t be revenue neutral, but it certainly won’t ‘cost’ anywhere near $9.6 billion either. Maybe we’d have less domestic violence because there’s less worry about how to feed the family. Maybe there’d be less anxiety, and increased productivity from not having to waste time working out where the next meal might be coming from.

Maybe fewer bikes will get nicked. The butterfly effect and all that.

Some people hate this, no surprises there. You can always find a reason not to do something, especially if you put some effort in. Others are more positive.

It’s all good either way. Debate is healthy and we need more of it. They’re just ideas after all, nothing to be afraid of. Sooner or later one comes along that gives us the momentum we need.

It’s how we climb out.