The Green Party will launch a campaign on Sunday to pressure the Government to fund the proposed Auckland city rail link.

The Maori Party and the Green Party are asking the Government why prosecution rates of young Maori appeared to be far higher than Pakeha for the same crimes.

Were senior Cabinet ministers asleep at the wheel? Did they fail to step in soon enough when problems at Solid Energy were apparent? John Armstrong investigates.

Officials are investigating a proposal which could lead to the Pike River mine being turned into an opencast coal pit stretching into a national park.

A Green Party conference in Napier has been told plans for the Ruataniwha water storage scheme in Central Hawkes Bay are "subsidised pollution".

National has risen above 50 per cent again in the latest 3 News political poll, while Labour and the Greens polled 43 per cent between them - well short of a majority.

Proposals to change the Official Information Act are at odds with the Government's claims it is committed to openness and transparency, the Green Party says.

Times are very tough in manufacturing. The global recession has merely contributed an additional woe to a sector whose share of economic activity has been declining for more than two decades.

Auckland Green MP Julie-Anne Genter is trying to find a woman who retrieved her luggage after a driveby theft from a bus stop.

More leading export companies are on the verge of moving overseas due to the high dollar, Opposition MPs were told yesterday by manufacturers.

A lot of exporters of manufactured products had been waiting for an opportunity to vent anguish over the high exchange rate, writes John Armstrong. The targets of the anger - John Key, the Reserve Bank, Steven Joyce and the Treasury - were absent.

Stopping asset sales, getting government backing for the Auckland CBD rail link and engaging everyday citizens in the political process will be among the Green Party's key goals for 2013, co-leader Metiria Turei announced today.

The Government says the Green Party's shared equity housing policy would lead to more debt without solving New Zealand's housing affordability crisis.

John Key says Hollywood finds New Zealand more attractive than other countries because it does not have a strong union movement.

Green Party list MP Gareth Hughes talks to political editor Audrey Young about heroes and holidays.

Eugenie Sage, Christchurch-based Green Party list MP, talks to political editor Audrey Young.

A Christmas story from an associate, who was in a Salvation Army op shop when a family - mum, dad, and three children - stopped by to drop off a new bike.

It is never easy seeing a dream lie in shreds, and for all the inevitability, the end of National MP Tau Henare's tilt to be Speaker was no exception, writes Claire Trevett.

Government-backed low-interest loans to undercut "loan sharks" could be on the cards in the wake of a pragmatic final report of an expert group on child poverty.

The Reserve Bank is watching the housing market, but at this point not so much like a hawk as like a dove, writes Brian Fallow.

If any bias has been on display it is Norman's against the banks, commercial and central, writes Brian Fallow.

It was one small step for the Labour Party, but in terms of a morale boost it was one giant leap for party leader David Shearer, writes Claire Trevett.