Deja vu as PM's style mirrors king of chaos
Peter Hartcher 1:57 AM There are striking similarities emerging between the prime-ministerial ways of Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd, according to a Labor campaign veteran.
Latest Comment
How selfies hijacked our sense of self
Judith Ireland Congratulations, world. We have reached peak stupid. This week, a man hijacked a plane flying from Alexandria to Cairo and forced it to land in Cyprus.
Why Donald Trump has done women a favour
Jacqueline Maley Donald Trump's run at the presidential nomination has been one giant, ego-saturated piece of performance art.
Malcolm Turnbull's challenge: be like Mike
Sean Nicholls As NSW Premier Mike Baird's experience so clearly demonstrates, sometimes the most difficult decisions are easiest to make in a crisis.
Republican circus rockets Obama's ratings
Anne Summers As the rest of the world looks on in disbelief and growing fear, Americans are taking a second look at the man who is currently in the White House.
Research confirms you're not an automaton
Cass R. Sunstein While governments and private institutions can nudge us towards certain behaviours, people are free to choose as they will.
Turnbull's problematic ideas fall on deaf ears
The biggest blow may prove to be his forced deferral until early next year of a decision on education funding.
Brazil's rough political game on road to Rio
Spare a thought for the people whose job is to co-ordinate the biggest planned event of 2016, the Rio Olympics. It's customary for the nation's head of state to declare the games open, but whose name to put on the invitation?
APRIL 2
Righting wrongs to aid healing
1:39 AM Thank you Waleed Aly for articulating how I feel about the blind spot we Australians have concerning Indigenous history.
Column 8
We have a wonderful solution to hand for the vexing question of the etiquette of divvying up an odd number of prawns between two people (Column 8, Thursday).
Turnbull starts pulling the big policy levers
Mark Kenny The cautious approach was a bad look for the PM. That's why bold policy ideas are now tumbling out.
Turnbull's most foolish investment decision
Jessica Irvine It's fair to say Malcolm Turnbull knows a thing or two about making a buck.
Why we should care about bribery in oil
Daniel Flitton The huge wealth of the industrialised West cannot be divorced from its history of exploitation, nor its modern day form of colonialism - corruption.
Why you don't need health insurance
Marcus Strom Every year people rail against private health insurance companies hiking up their premiums. Not me - I couldn't care less.
Second divorce shouldn't be source of shame
Flic Everett Anyone who's been through divorce once will have been bitten hard enough to know marrying again on a whim would be madness.
Think laterally about how to accept refugees
Jane McAdam Scholarships? Family reunions? Families sponsoring individual refugees? These are alternatives to resettling refugees that are worth investigating.
Compensation changes will hurt victims
Philip Bates The NSW Government has just announced its intention to overhaul compensation for innocent victims of motor vehicle accidents.
Turnbull must fight scourge of foreign bribery
Australia's response has been particularly flawed, creating losers across the spectrum.
APRIL 1
Turnbull tax idea dismantles Federation
Either we have federal leadership for the good of the whole country or we ditch the whole idea and break apart.
Column 8
"I've noticed something strange during my daily commute," reports Matt Petersen, of Randwick. "If I drive behind a hire car – the ones with the black and white HC plates – and have my headlights on, those plates magically turn white, so the numbers cannot be seen."
In the Herald : April 1, 1936
Ellen Fitzgerald The Captain Cook, the oldest pilot steamer in commission in the world, was nearing the end of an epic career, the Herald reported on this day in 1936.
Previously in Comment
Highlights
With friends like Malcolm, equality is far away
What is the point of a gay-friendly prime minister if he can't slap down those keen on perpetuating teenage hate, angst and suicide?
Apology
In last Monday's paper, the Herald reported the details of an alleged sexual assault under the headline "The horrifying untold story of Louise".
Turnbull, stop dithering on tax reform
The Turnbull government has yet to explain why we need tax reform. Meanwhile, Labor is strangely coherent on tax policies.
Why you really should pay a sugar tax
We know we've got a problem when it comes to sugar and obesity.
Class clown Joyce has centre stage to prove himself
Barnaby Joyce's capacity for populist revolt made him famous and effective. But the new Nationals leader will have to control his bluster if he is to be taken seriously.
Great irony of Ruddock's human rights appointment
I've heard of being kicked upstairs but this is ridiculous. I know people get promoted to their point of incompetence, but the UN? The Vatican? These are not incompetence-friendly situations.
Nauru: How long can we keep lying to ourselves?
The history of asylum seeker policy in Australia will be remembered as a story of how successive governments legislated their lies to justify a world of make-believe borders and compliance.
Fine art of ignoring the UN
One key point of illumination from Julian Assange's announcement on Thursday is the rich impotence of the United Nations.
Banks are using us to hedge their bets
We only need a tiny part of the financial services industry – the rest is just speculation and it doesn't stand up to close scrutiny.
Raising the GST to 15% is fiscal folly
If Australia goes down the path of increasing the GST to 15 per cent, it will be on the way to joining that collection of West European countries which are the highest taxed countries in the world.
Why Tony Abbott should leave politics
... and a few other Liberal MPs such as Bronwyn Bishop and Philip Ruddock should stop being so selfish and move on.
Disgrace oddity - how I tried to help David Bowie
Thirty years ago the writer interviewed David Bowie - and blew it entirely.
From the desk of our chief comment moderator
Fairfax Media's chief comment moderator Rob Ashton discusses the most-commented stories of the year, and offers advice for those who get rejected.
15 of our best comment pieces of 2015
Highlights from the Herald's opinion pages in 2015 - our most-read, most-discussed, most-shared pieces (plus a few editors' favourites).
In defence of the hangover
The common or garden hangover is a terrible and wonderful thing, a device of startling ingenuity designed (one can only assume) by the bloodless Calvin himself.
Bystanders struggle to do the right thing
I boarded my flight from Paris, happy to be going home. Until I met the man in the seat next to mine.
Why New Year's Eve is the most hypocritical night
One of my starkest New Year's Eve memories comes from when I was at university in New Zealand. I was at a house of a friend of a friend, and in that house I saw a man demonstrating his talent at opening beer bottles using his mouth.
The Australian fair go is dead
Elizabeth Farrelly: Why are we OK with this? How did the fair go slip so seamlessly into tooth and claw? Or was it always thus?
Captain's speech doesn't represent the Ravenswood I know
Throughout my time at Ravenswood, I experienced an environment that encouraged hard work, equality of standing, humility, and gratitude – virtues that I believe are the very foundation of the school itself.
Where to now for a newly unseated PM
Peter Hartcher: The government may have moved on, but Tony Abbott is still adjusting to his new reality and coming to grips with life beyond the prime ministership.
Big karma hits big pharma
Paul Sheehan: When a venture capitalist bought the rights to a drug and increased its price by 5500 per cent, there was widespread outrage. Now comes corporate revenge against corporate evil.
Islamic State thrives as big boys squabble
Waleed Aly: Force will not wipe out Islamic State because it is a byproduct of a much bigger conflict that needs to be resolved first.
