Fuelled by the highest rate of unemployment in 13 years, the queues snaking along the pavements outside the Auckland City Mission have nothing festive about them.

Economists and psychologists have long been engaged in understanding behaviour when compromise and self-interest collide, writes Ananish Chauduri.

World dairy prices have risen in the last online auction of the year.

Editorial: Ultimately, this revenue-raising exercise may be less significant than the check on the Government's spending programme.

Fonterra's Trading Among Farmers (TAF) share trading scheme received its final, albeit retrospective, seal of approval at the annual meeting yesterday.

Editorial: In matters related to oil and gas exploration, the Government is becoming accustomed to putting a brave face on detrimental developments.

Food prices fell 0.8 per cent last month, with vegetables leading the charge. Food prices have now fallen 0.6 per cent over the past year.

Fonterra has revised its forecast payout range for the 2012/13 season to $5.90-$6 per kg of milksolids, up 25c per kg compared with the previous forecast.

Debate about the benefits of corporatised or privatised water models has been simmering for several years.

The Kingston Flyer's owner has put the business up for sale, on the same day he suspended operations because of safety concerns.

Real wages for many New Zealanders are falling, writes Peter Lyons. "It is becoming very hard to make ends meet for those at the bottom of the ladder who operate in the most competitive labour markets."

A survey has found that Generation Y women in New Zealand are less satisfied at work than their male counterparts.

NZ is becoming a finishing school for future Australians, says David Shearer.

Every hour, at least seven cars pass by Ame Khan's shop front window or, occasionally, someone comes in to order his specialty, "the Bro Burger".

Tens of thousands of New Zealanders will be excluded from Australia's new national disability insurance scheme.

Fonterra is hunting for new world headquarters.

The terms of trade fell for the fifth straight quarter in September, to be nearly 10 per cent off the peak in mid-2011.

Units in the new Fonterra Shareholders Fund have debuted at $6.66 per unit - a $1.16 premium to their $5.50 issue price.

Kim Dotcom is keen to buy the mansion which the Govt barred him from owning, after details were revealed during a hearing about the internet tycoon's finances.

Aucklanders will have to wait longer to catch a tram from Britomart to Wynyard Quarter to help trim rates next year.

Some New Zealand institutions are crying foul over the high level of foreign ownership in the newly-formed Fonterra Shareholders Fund.

For the past two years a gleeful band of Eurosceptics in the Anglo-US political establishment have been arguing that the euro cannot survive.

Units in the newly-formed Fonterra Shareholders Fund have been priced at the very top of the dairy cooperative's $4.60 to $5.50 indicative range.

Planning for the illegal spying mission on Kim Dotcom happened out of earshot of the Government's legal advisers, the Crown Law Office says.

New Zealand will not sign a Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement unless it removes tariffs on dairy products and allows the state-owned drug-buying agency to stay.

New Zealand's ports are at a critical point - improve their infrastructure to support the expanding cruise ship industry or lose the business.