Tariana Turia is to be the minister in charge of implementing the Whanau Ora policy - potentially the biggest shake-up of the welfare system in decades.

NZ has one of the highest school dropout rates, with the sixth-lowest high-school completion rate in the developed world, a report has found.

Jobless Asians are barred from work in their native countries because of their NZ citizenship.

John Armstrong writes that the backbone displayed by Brownlee and Bennett will please the National traditionalists, but we'll have to watch it bend again in election year.

Susan St John, associate professor in the economics department of the University of Auckland Business School and spokeswoman for the Child Poverty Action Group, questions the results claimed for new rules on benefits.

Work testing sole parents on the DPB is an unjustifiable breach of human rights, Attorney-General Chris Finlayson told Parliament today.

Long-term unemployed, sickness beneficiaries and single mothers on the DPB with children over six are about to come under extra scrutiny under new Govt reforms.