Latest from Social Welfare

Inquiry coming

Families in need but renovated house empty

Boarding house horrors

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.

Mum refused food aid under tough new rules

Starving boy eats roach

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.

Drama role brings Shadow into the light

Changes to welfare abuse programme announced

Injury brings pile of debt

Fewer on dole but disaster gives public payroll big hit

Under-valued mum under pressure

Govt to mount full-scale welfare reform

John Armstrong: Report pulls punches but quite tough enough in election year

John Armstrong: Key feeling queasy

What do you think of the Welfare Working Group's proposals?

Massive welfare overhaul proposed

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'.

Key: Work-testing when child three makes sense

Prime Minister John Key says he is open to work-testing beneficiaries when their youngest child turns three.

Govt rules out cutting the dole

The Government won't consider reductions to main benefit levels including the sickness, invalid's, unemployment and domestic purposes benefits as part of any welfare overhaul recommended by the Welfare Working Group tomorrow.

Editorial: Flippant line bad look for Key