Associate Education Minister David Seymour says to go fully halal certified would be an unjustified expense. Photo: RNZ / REECE BAKER
The government is being accused of racism and 'othering' the Muslim community, after failing to provide halal-certified school lunches.
RNZ reported yesterday that school lunch provider, Compass, has admitted that halal meals it delivers to schools are not halal certified - instead calling them 'halal-friendly'.
The meals use halal certified chicken and beef, but their facility is not halal certified.
Halal (meaning 'permissible' in Arabic) refers to practices that are permitted under Islam.
With reference to food, it is a strict dietary standard which not only applied to the ingredients themselves, but also their preparation.
Meat is slaughtered and prepared in a specific way, but must also not be contaminated by other surfaces, utensils or equipment that had not been cleaned, according to Islamic law.
Minister has "relied on laziness"
In a statement, Associate Education Minister David Seymour said to go fully halal certified would be an unjustified expense.
"To go to fully Halal certified would require the massive expense of separate preparation facilities, packaging, and distribution processes. I don't believe that expense would be justified," he said.
But the President of the Federation of Islamic Associations, Abdur Razaaq Khan, is calling Seymour's comments a bluff, and said it doesn't require a new kitchen at all.
"The Minister just has to pick up the phone, talk to MPI. He hasn't done his homework. He's just relied on laziness, I'd say - 'oh, you need a whole new kitchen', that's absolute rubbish."
Khan said the federation has been certifying halal providers since 1979, and there are many kitchens that produce both halal food and non-halal food out of the same facility safely, even using the same cutlery - and getting all the certification.
"How does he know that we won't give that service free of charge for our rangitahi? We do that a lot of times. What we are talking about is a Minister trying to cover himself. This is not on - and the same time, he's othering a community. I thought after March 15th, those days were over."
"He should be ashamed of himself - because he is putting to shame those 8 and 9 and 11 year olds at school, he is saying you are different, sorry, we can't look after you."
Khan said the Prime Minister needs to step in over halal-certification - and that some children had been served ham sandwiches in their supposedly halal meals.
"What is the message we are giving our children? We are giving our children - some of you, hey, your fine because you're like us. Others, because you're not like us, take it or leave it. That's exactly what the Minister has said. Is that type of New Zealand we want?"
A school lunch example at Otahuhu College. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
Students left out from school lunches
Papatoetoe Intermediate School principal Pauline Cornwall is also outraged.
She has been asking questions of Compass's halal certification for some time, as the school has about 200 muslim students on the roll.
"When somebody says that they provide meals that are halal, we expect those to be certified, because being halal means that they comply with islamic rules," she said.
"The Ministry had all that information, they knew our school had dietary needs and they particularly knew that we needed to have halal meals. If David Seymour and the provider chose to ignore the requirements for halal meals, and that means having certificated halal kitchens, that is an ethical problem."
Under the last government, the school were able to select their own school lunch providers, and Cornwall said they were able to get halal certified food.
She said it is a "fundamental flaw" in Compass to not have halal certification - and expects many of the muslim students at Papatoetoe Intermediate will now be going without the school lunches.
"We gave them the option to either change their choice to vegetarian, whether they wanted to continue, or whether they wanted to withdraw from the program altogether. We are now at 50 families who have agreed to continue, and I believe that number, now that it's hit the media, will away to nothing."
"That means a whole section of our community will not have the equitable opportunities that everybody else has."
"If we were doing this to any other group in the community - not providing something that was absolutely basic to their beliefs and culture - we would be calling it racist."
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