Social Development Minister Paula Bennett has ordered an investigation into at least 50 households...

Some of the proposals from the Welfare Working Group are anathema to the parties of the left.

John Key says proposed reforms of the welfare sector will be rolled out in the lead up to the general election, and he says the system should make it clear that people must support themselves if they can.

Children are living in tiny, damp and sometimes squalid boarding houses, while Housing NZ staff are discouraging people who are seeking help from formally registering their need, saying they have no business interfering.

Welfare agencies alarmed at extreme lengths some people go to just to eat. One desperate case of a Bay of Plenty child and his three siblings has been offered as a stark example of the degree of poverty in our communities.

A flat tax could create a system that benefits everyone, says Andrew Gawith

Applications for financial support following last week's deadly Christchurch quake are flooding in.

Mothers with young babies and sick and disabled people on benefits would be forced to look for work under a proposed overhaul of NZ's welfare system, which would see all benefits replaced by a 'jobseeker payment'.