Budget 2014 lifts government spending by $1.5 billion or 2 per cent in the coming year but that will represent a cut in real per capita terms, writes Brian Fallow.

For political tragics, Budget days are the most exciting outside election days. The uninterested 99 per cent will remain more passionate about Queen's Birthday traffic queues.

Aspiring first-home buyers looking for a leg-up into the property market in yesterday's Budget had little to cheer about.

Start-ups pouring money into research and development will get a cash-flow boost under a tax measure that is seen as a "great response" to the sector's challenges.

Editorial: The Budget manages the election-year trick of appearing both fiscally responsible and socially generous.

New Zealanders will welcome the family focus of today's Budget, Prime Minister John Key says.

Finance Minister Bill English has defended today’s modest Budget measure to trim the cost of new homes as one step in a larger programme to improve home affordability.

Here are ten things you need to know about the Budget.

A data visualisation of where the Budget money is going.

Graeme Wheeler delivered a trenchant defence of the bank's curbs on high loan-to-value ratio home loans yesterday when challenged by National MP Jami-Lee Ross that the regime had been "almost too effective".

A "cheap date" in Auckland is more expensive than many major world centres and in Wellington it will cost even more, says a survey.

The Reserve Bank is indicating the removal of restrictions on high loan-to-value home loans may be gradual rather than a now-you-see-it, now-you-don't affair.

Giant listed landlord Goodman Property Trust pushed up annual after-tax profit 72.1 per cent, making $134.1 million in the year to March 31.

The Reserve Bank's restrictions on low deposit mortgage lending took more borrowing out of the system than expected.

The Australian Govt will today start selling one of the nation's most unpalatable Budgets in decade after an axe was taken to almost every area of spending.

ANZ says its Truckometer indicator is still pointing to an economy trucking along at a solid clip.

Studies show that diversity is a good thing in the workplace - it brings better ideas, more creativity and freshness into a business, it also helps organisations understand and work in different markets.

A union body leading prosecutions over the deaths of forestry workers has applauded a coroner for tackling the problem, which it described as unsustainable and intolerable.

Two British health researchers are gearing up to challenge New Zealanders' unusually high tolerance of what many countries consider a social evil - inequality.

The number of house sales fell 20 per cent last month, with sales declining across all regions, but prices continue to rise, latest figures show.

Web-based tests have become a key gateway to landing a job, a potent screening tool that can effectively bump a CV to the top of a manager's pile.

A survey off the North Island's East Coast has uncovered a huge hidden network of frozen methane and methane gas.

This is a Budget that needs to be familiar and reassuring, writes Liam Dann. National will be banking on English reminding middle NZ that we've survived the GFC in good shape.

Think of your manager as your number one customer, says psychologist Keith McGregor. It's a concept most people haven't thought of when they complain "my boss never listens to me" or "my boss takes no interest in what I'm doing".

The strength of the surge in net immigration will influence both the outlook for interest rates and how long loan-to-value ratio curbs remain in place, says Reserve Bank Deputy Governor Grant Spencer.

Sorry, but the careers literature starts to define you as an older worker around the age of 45 years - but in some ways it's a bonus because it's a strong message that it's time to rethink and revision your career.

There's so much cheap iron ore flooding into China that rates for the ships that carry it are forecast to jump almost 70 per cent by June.

Inspired by Sheryl Sandberg's best-seller, Lean In, I decided to form a group of like-minded professional women who were interested in talking about career advancement.