Voters comparing social policies at this election have a clear choice: "Unrelenting focus on work" with National, or a softer line if Labour wins.

Most New Zealanders take their rights for granted, but they're rights often not realised by disabled people, writes Paul Gibson.

The Auckland Council was an early supporter of Te Ururoa Flavell's Gambling Harm Reduction Bill and it saw the legislation as a toolkit.

When I was in Christchurch recently to interview the two main candidates in the Christchurch Central electorate, I was shocked to see that people on the street seemed even more weary than ever.

David and Wendy Farnell blundered their way through a 60 Minutes television interview about their disabled son, Gammy, born to a surrogate mother in Thailand.

A new war on "loan sharks' should help bankrupt Auckland mum Farrah Matthews, who ended up paying $29k for a $12k car - borrowing money at 29 per cent interest.

Almost 1 million families will be eligible for low- and no-interest loans under a new Government-backed scheme aimed at saving low-income families from "loan sharks".

Peter Calder writes: Waikowhai Primary School in Mt Roskill is one of 15 schools where the seven-week course called Kiwi Kids has been run over the past eight years.

Epsom election candidates faced off at a public debate last night, with one promising to name a convicted sex offender with name suppression under parliamentary privilege.

A further 3500 young people on welfare could have their spending tightly controlled by an adult supervisor if National is re-elected.

I tuned into an annoying discussion on the radio this week. It was a bunch of baby boomers claiming young people who haven't seen war have no right to complain.

For the first time, US public schools are projected this northern autumn to have more minority students than non-Hispanic whites.

Let's not get sidetracked over whether or not Housing New Zealand's dog ban failed.

New Zealand's first sex offender register has been signed off by Cabinet, but will only be available to agencies and not the general public.

Pinepine Savage holds proof in her own life that it is possible to turn around a town that everyone had written off.

An Auckland Congolese family whose children are sponsored by NZ donors have been overwhelmed by readers' generosity since their story featured in the Herald.

I look in the mirror and wonder how I managed to survive the torture and humiliation I faced when I was a teenager, writes Jesse Greenslade.

Even while "the monstrous anger of the guns" was hauling millions to their death, the blame game was already well under way.

If he knows what's good for him, the modern gentleman will prefer brains, not blondes, according to a study of marriage.

When you are feeling in the depths of despair it does not help at all to be told to count your blessings, writes Deborah Hill Cone.

New Zealand has retained its rank as one of the world's most developed countries.

Kiwi donors are sponsoring three African children - in Mt Roskill. The trio came here as refugees in '08 need the sponsorship because the family can't make ends meet.

Politicians hate targets. The risk associated with them is all too apparent.

Helping close achievement gaps in our classrooms will be a priority for a leading academic appointed to a major new science education role.

Life-long street activist Sue Bradford has turned to the academic world in a bid to overcome the "mindless activism" of much of New Zealand's protest movement.

Is poverty for life? A Treasury report suggests not, writes Brian Fallow. Only 24 per cent of those at the bottom decile in 2002 were there seven years later.

In his Dialogue piece last week Professor Warren Brookbanks questioned whether a specific new offence relating to strangulation would deter domestic violence.

The Government is falling short of key targets it set itself for reducing child abuse and rheumatic fever.

Georgia Hageman was in bed at 4.30am when her waters broke and less than four hours later the 15-year-old Aucklander was holding her baby son.

Today, Pita Sharples will carry out the first reading of the new Maori Language Bill 2014 in Parliament.