More than 860 victims who were abused while in state care have been given the option of a fast-track settlement.

The petition comes as the Salvation Army said it fed 9.5 per cent more people last year in its Midland region than it did in the year before.

Lauren Knight recalls the night police visited her house after an anonymous bystander wrongly reported her for slapping her children.

A major shift to more voucher-type funding of social services, including health and education, is proposed in a new official report.

A controversial anti-vaccination organisation has come under fire for comparing compulsory vaccination to rape in a social media post.

The This Doesn't Mean Yes campaign is tackling the insidious myth of women 'asking for it' through clothing or behaviour.

New welfare benefit figures confirm that New Zealand is splitting into two: Auckland and Christchurch, and everywhere else.

A cafe owner in the US who was 'heartbroken' to discover a homeless person was searching her rubbish for food has put up a sign inviting them to come inside for a free meal.

A pregnant mum of two has been left with less than $300 a week to feed and clothe her family after a formula for child support payments came into force.

Larger subsidies for first-home buyers and extended paid parental leave are among a raft of Government changes which kick in tomorrow.

Kelly Brown found a new "family" on the streets of Auckland after being removed from his biological family at the age of 7.

A tough new policy cracking down on beneficiaries with unresolved arrest warrants has resulted in the issuing of thousands of alerts.

Leading Maori tribes are lobbying to get first bidding rights for state houses when they start going up for sale this year.

It is difficult to erase the suspicion that the social housing policy is motivated by ideology as much as anything else, writes John Armstrong.

Why are we burdening some of the poorest mothers in the country with lifetime debts while writing off the tax debts of some of our richest citizens?

Latest figures show 309,145 people, or 11 per cent of the working-age population, were receiving a benefit at the end of December.

The ten largest amounts of wrongly acquired benefits totaled more than $2.14m last year - but advocates say most of the $23 billion paid out was genuinely needed.

The latest figures show nearly one quarter of our 1.1 million children under 18 live in households with very low incomes after housing costs.

Nineteen youths with unsettled upbringings were honoured for their outstanding achievements at a special ceremony yesterday.

The Families Commission is rebranding today taking a name which almost identical to that of a French supermarket chain.

The Treasury is looking to "crowd source" policy ideas about how to improve the effectiveness of welfare spending.

Bill English's masterplan to radically "reform" the Labour-initiated, octogenarian state housing scheme has all the hallmarks of being ideological for ideology's sake.

The most notable item in the Government's third term agenda outlined to Parliament yesterday is an intention to hold "job fairs" in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane aimed at New Zealand....

If an investment approach is suitable for other beneficiaries, education and healthcare it should also be applied to government superannuation, writes Peter Lyons.

A pianist who was homeless in Hollywood for a year and a half says he never lacked for company on the streets.

Prime Minister John Key has split housing issues across three ministers as National speeds up its shift toward developing social housing by private providers and reducing reliance on state....

Dear John and David. Please forgive the first-name familiarity. I'm older than you are so it doesn't feel terribly out of order.

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.

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".