The Latest Breaking News from Chris Hipkins

Prime minister offers measures to ease cost of raising children as part of promise to focus on ‘bread-and-butter issues’ ahead of election

The cornerstone of the Government’s cost-of-living package won’t kick in for almost a year. It isn’t the big ideas Budget Grant Robertson would have liked to deliver and leaves it exposed to attacks from the Opposition in election year, writes political editor Jo Moir.

New Zealand police are treating a deadly hostel fire as suspicious as a grim search of the 92-room building resumes on Wednesday.

A devastating fire ravaged through a hostel in New Zealand's capital early Tuesday morning, taking the lives of at least six people. Here's what we know so far.

The cause of the fire is not known, but emergency services are treating the incident as suspicious.

Wellington (AFP) - A fire ripped through a four-storey hostel in New Zealand's capital in the early hours of Tuesday, killing at least six people as others fled for their lives, with some plucked from the roof.

A fire ripped through a hostel in New Zealand's capital overnight, killing at least six people and forcing others to flee the four-story building in their pajamas.

Emergency services teams begin work to assess the fatal fire at Loafers Lodge, determined to understand how the tragedy occurred.

Authorities have described a "confronting" scene at a Wellington hostel where at least six people died in a blaze early on Tuesday.