Nearly half of New Zealanders are living pay day to pay day without a nest egg to fall back on in case of emergencies.

Contributor Bryan Gould says the Key Government's direction will see New Zealand "become an economic satellite or colony of China ... or be first absorbed into a greater Australia on the way".

Prices of dairy products recorded their smallest gain this year, edging up to a new record.

Young people are overlooking the agricultural technology sector as a viable, well-paid career option, says Gallagher.

Join us at noon today for a live chat with Federated Farmers president Bruce Wills. You can send in your questions now.

Editorial: During her 11 years in power and up to the time of her death, Margaret Thatcher divided the British people as few leaders before her.

Labour Minister Simon Bridges ignored advice from Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment to raise the minimum wage to between $13.80 and $13.90 an hour.

Geo-politically, socially, environmentally, economically, financially and spiritually, the world and state of human affairs is in a state of unparalleled flux and change.

The latest attempt at giving farmers a presence in Parliament and a potential rival to Act on the political right is getting close to attracting enough members to register for next year's election.

Rio Tinto is doubtless more than happy that the Government has stepped in to try to broker a deal over the electricity supply contract for the Tiwai Pt aluminium smelter.

Asians are dominating in visitor and international student numbers and in most family-migration categories to New Zealand.

Richard Reed walked around London every day for eight months fruitlessly looking for a place to open his coffee shop.

Fonterra enjoyed strong earnings in the first half and has raised its payout forecast to farmers for the current year.

Profits have soared 33 per cent at our largest exporter Fonterra, but the dairy giant warns its performance is unlikely to be repeated in the second half of the year.

Farmers throughout the North Island continue to hope for rain as the big dry bites hard, making conditions for some worse than the 2008 drought.

Banks invited us to recall that ugly Dotcom episode, replete with allegations of impropriety, writes Toby Manhire. Not so in Shearer's case.

The New Zealand economy grew at the fastest quarterly pace in three years in the tail-end of last year.

Prices of dairy products surged to the highest in two years in Fonterra's latest Global Dairy Trade auction as drought curtails production in the North Island.

Editorial: It is always useful to get a global perspective on issues that are the subject of local political wrangling.

The jump in output in 2012 was primarily led by agriculture (up 29.8 per cent) due to good growing conditions.Statistics New Zealand

We can expect to see the price rise steadily again over the coming months, writes Liam Dann. The commodity price of dairy has been tracking up since it hit a worrying low last winter.

Some time next year, what could be the world's largest research project will be presented to the United Nations' Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change.