The deathknell sounded for yet another custom this week, with the TAB hanging up the service which let punters place bets over the phone by talking to an operator.

Teina Pora's legal team are right to hold out on the Government's compensation offer until the issue of inflation adjustment is resolved.

Bullies once confined their behaviour to the schoolyard. The digital world has changed all that, as our revealing series about cyberbullying illustrates this week.

We will never know precisely why a 29-year-old American went to a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and started shooting people.

This year has carried hopes of a breakthrough for "pay equity", which means equal pay for women not just with men doing the same work but with men doing different work.

Back in the day Wales could run on to a rugby paddock and field a team stacked with A-list names.

In a country where it is perfectly safe to drink water from a tap, it is incredible that anybody can make money by selling water in bottles.

Why should this Pacific nation, half the world away from the sovereign's palace, retain a foreign head of state?

Pity the British. Here in NZ we have referendums on subjects such as the flag; they have them on the make-up of their nation and its place in the world.

A week ago, when the Budget had delivered no answers to the hyperinflation of house prices, the PM told us to wait for a National Policy Statement.

Why are some people still smoking despite everything that has been done to discourage them? Why should the next four annual increases make any difference?

The Government has settled on a simplistic solution to the Auckland housing shortage.

In sport, as in business, politics and all competitive pursuits, it can be as hard to stay ahead of the game as it is to get there.

This country would benefit from many more people, and better preparation for their arrival.

NZME yesterday applied to the Commerce Commission for approval of a merger with its main rival in the business.

This is not a Government that often springs surprises, for which we should be grateful most of the time.

A party of off-road driving enthusiasts set out in 13 vehicles on Sunday to tackle a notorious high-country dirt track before it was closed for the winter.

The Labour Party surprised many people last week by advocating the complete abolition of boundaries on urban expansion.

A survey of 1777 secondary school teachers has found nearly half believe the national assessment system, NCEA, is adversely affecting their teaching.

It is often said in favour of prisoner rehabilitation programmes that every offender has to be released eventually. That's not quite true.

We should be reducing debt faster while the good times last, not talking about tax cuts.

The theory of tradeable quotas always sounded too good to be true.

Whatever the source of the demand for Auckland houses, it will remain insatiable if the Government pretends it is purely a problem of supply.

The Bachelor NZ, the television show which unravelled off-screen these past few days, ended its season a ratings hit.

The Government should tilt the market in favour of those still waiting for the Kiwi dream.

A man drives into a bridge and a city grinds to a halt. Such is the impact of a crash on Auckland's vulnerable motorway system.

The election of a candidate of Islamic Pakistani extraction as mayor of London is a proud moment for Britain and inclusion of minorities in its politics.

It is not often that international solutions work so well but when it happens, it deserves a tentative cheer.

The Auckland RSA deservedly took a barrage of criticism for its failure to include wheelchair-bound veterans in its dawn parade to the Auckland cenotaph.

Let us not soften the language we use about a man who hits a woman. It has been called domestic violence or partner violence.