Pokie numbers in pubs and clubs across Auckland will drop under a new unified Super City policy.

When Robin Vinod turned 17, he couldn't sign a tenancy agreement or be responsible for bills - but that was when CYF left him to fend for himself.

He will be heir to riches of which the other 361,480 babies who share his birthday can only dream, writes Brian Rudman.

Police smashed a window in Hone Harawira's car after he ignored repeated requests to move out of the path of a truck at an Auckland housing protest last year, a court has been told.

Sir Owen Glenn's inquiry into family violence will go ahead with only half of its original budget remaining and with Sir Owen's own role still in doubt.

We don't really see the street. Most of us don't even look. Kids look, as I'm about to find out, but we adults, most of us walk on by, our attention fixed on anything other than that dude over there

The idea that New Zealand has become one of the most unequal societies in the developed world is just not supported by the data, writes Brian Fallow.

A doctor's certificate is often a ticket to social welfare. From this week it becomes a recipe for work. At least - that's the hope.

Sickness will be at best only a temporary excuse to avoid work under the new welfare regime that came into force this week.

Doctors have been told that putting patients on welfare is akin to putting them on "an addictive debilitating drug ... not dissimilar to smoking".

School ball costs have soared as social pressure leads more girls to spend up to $300 in salons.

An welfare advocacy group is warning that thousands of Kiwis will suffer under newly implemented changes to the beneficiary system.

Even being the sole carer for triplets can't excuse Jared Chase from work obligations under the new welfare regime.

Devaluing the outsider is probably the most common cult-like behaviour in everyday society, but it's not so easy to identify one's own crazy faults, writes Deborah Hill Cone.

Sole parents have got a clear message from today's welfare upheaval - planning to go back to work has to start from the moment a baby is born.

Hopefully the agreed provisions in the bylaw for socially responsible intervention to deal with the problem of begging will remain intact. writes Mike Lee.

The Govt says it's on track to reach all 10 of its public-sector targets on welfare, crime and health - but admits there could be some "bumps" on the way.

Auckland Council commissioners who want to ban begging have lost the plot. They do not recognise that no one wants to beg. We live in a society that encourages winners to take all and beggars to take what they can get.

When did this country become so mean? Did it begin in the 1980s, when greed became good and success became more about what you had than the sort of person you were?

Mick Brown is the little boy lost saved by a loving foster family, who went on to spend his adult life giving back.

About one in six Australians cannot afford to rent a home, with young families - especially single parents with children - among the worst affected, new reports show.

Instead of recriminalising begging, a better guide is the Homeless Action Plan the old Auckland City Council initiated in 2005, writes Brian Rudman.

A publisher was "gobsmacked" to receive a complaint about using a Maori greeting in an email to a prospective client.