Prime Minister John Key has defended the urgent passing of controversial legislation which restricted who could be paid for caring for disabled family members.

The Pacific community has stamped its mark firmly on New Zealand society. There are 20,000 more Niueans living here than in Niue.

About 3000 long-term state house tenants will be moved out into the private housing market under a surprise Budget move to put all existing tenants on fixed-term contracts.

The Government has agreed to develop a warrant of fitness scheme to require rental housing to be warm, dry and safe.

Pastor Kafeba Mundele and his family may be pushed out of their state house because he earns too much money - but his income may be halved in September.

People who look after their highly disabled adult family members are at last in line to be paid by the Government - but only the minimum wage.

Dealing with the government is like dealing with no other business because the government can usually muster the numbers to make law, writes Mai Chen.

A South Auckland school has started a foodbank for families who can't feed their children - and hopes today's Budget will help other schools with hungry pupils.

Editorial: The benefits in terms of new business, growth and jobs are readily apparent. The other side of the story is, however, less alluring.

Police need to be able to pursue drivers "otherwise we turn the roads over to the criminals," says New Zealand Police Association vice-president Stuart Mills.

After a riot at Perth's Banksia Hill juvenile detention centre, more than 140 teenage inmates were moved to Hakea high security prison

KiwiRail has accepted responsibility, apologised and admitted "failures" over an accident in which a train hit a woman in a wheelchair at a level crossing in Auckland.

It is for those who appointed her to justify their decision and the process that was followed, writes Rajen Prasad. It is for them to explain their understanding of the contemporary race relations challenges for NZ.

Budgeting services have been given a last-minute funding reprieve which means they are now unlikely to have to lay off staff.

Philanthropist Sir Owen Glenn has recruited four more big names for his inquiry into child abuse and domestic violence.

Korean Aucklanders are hoping that their new $1.5 million community centre will help to keep their culture alive in New Zealand.

The number of hungry people seeking food at night in my diocese has doubled in the past two months, writes Bishop Denis Browne.

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.

A legal high lobbyist says synthetic cannabis is a low-risk psychoactive substance that had not caused any death and was statistically safer than alcohol.

Guilt-ridden working parents who worry they don't spend enough quality time with their kids should relax, according to experts.

Budgeting services are facing cuts and New Zealand's only hostel for asylum seekers may have to close because of the ending of a government scheme.

Kiwis are more polite about their racism than people in other parts of the world, says university lecturer Camille Nakhid.

Martin Luther King she is not, but the new Race Relations Commissioner adopted some of the American civil rights legend's soaring rhetoric yesterday.