The fight China will take to the brink of war
Peter Hartcher 12:00 AM The world’s two greatest powers are competing for military dominance of the western Pacific Ocean and the contest is about to intensify.
Latest Comment
Liberals need the ticker to take on reform
Peter Reith 9:00 PM If ever there was a political opportunity to start the rebalance of Australia's labour market, then this is it.
Why Bondi doesn't want a makeover
Adrian Newstead 8:51 PM I love Bondi. But the soon to be abolished Waverley Council has had an unwelcome epiphany.
Spin can't hide the harm of negative gearing
John Daley 12:00 AM By refusing to change the tax laws, the government is missing out on $5 billion a year.
My father and the Burma Railway
Matthew Abbott 1:28 PM For nearly 1300 days my father was tortured and starved and saw death up close. He witnessed an Australian soldier's road-side execution with a Samurai sword and once saw a Gurkha behead a Japanese officer with his kukri.
Surgeons trained on living animals save lives
John Cunningham 12:00 AM In emergencies, surgeons, whose training has been as realistic as possible, can make the difference between life and death.
Copying the cronut is not food plagiarism
Megan McArdle 11:46 AM You can trademark the cronut name, but you can't trademark "deep-frying a croissant".
We have become allergic to modern life
Jane Shilling 11:47 AM In 2016, it appears that an individual without an allergy is almost as exotic a phenomenon as my poor friend Jonathan and his guinea-pig intolerance.
Reality hits budget reform - and voters lose
9:00 PM Without a tax white paper process to allow public assessment and a cohesive strategy, the government has resorted to scare campaigns.
APRIL 26
Negative hearing for status quo on gearing
9:00 PM Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has made it clear the Coalition will make no changes to existing negative gearing and capital gains tax arrangements and has signalled this policy will be a focus of the election campaign.
Column 8
9:00 PM Busted! "Australia Post refuse to attempt delivery to our apartment in North Sydney," alleges Ken Taylor.
Marginal electorates are the battleground
Tim Dick If Sophie Mirabella is "the most honest politician in Australia" - as Crikey called her on Friday - then the widespread malaise with Australian politics is well founded. We're all rooned.
Time to celebrate successes not failures
Scott Colvin Before you ask, my credentials are these: A grandfather who served in the Royal Air Force and a grandmother so committed to combatting fascism that she kept a list of suspected sympathisers in her purse.
Maritime borders still split our countries
Jose Ramos Horta The maritime border dispute between Timor-Leste and Australia dates back at least to the 1960s.
How this woman is making you healthier
Amanda Vanstone Minister Sussan Ley understands what healthcare should look like in the digital age.
Prime Ministers or Anzac entrepreneurs?
Nicholas Bromfield The last quarter of a century has seen an explosion in prime ministerial engagement with Anzac Day. Prime Ministers have displaced the RSL as the custodians of the legend, acting as Anzac entrepreneurs.
Our finest war artist missing in action
Ross McMullin This year marks the centenary of Will Dyson becoming Australia's first official war artist. Ballarat-born Dyson, a remarkably talented and versatile artist-writer, had struggled to find a congenial niche in Australia.
Rrim reaper trades scythe for lawnmower
Harry de Quetteville A few years ago, when I was the London Telegraph's obituaries editor, people would worry on my behalf. "What are you going to do when all the military heroes have died?" they asked.
View from the Street
Andrew P Street And who's sulking most about how persecuted they are at the ACL conference? Your news of the weekend, reduced to a snarky rant.
Anzac Day 2016: We will remember them
Some never did speak. Many of those fortunate enough to return chose, for personal reasons, not to discuss what they had witnessed. A century later they are all silenced.
APRIL 25
Letters to the Editor
5:00 AM The article about Breaker Morant relics recently discovered (April 23) comes as no surprise.
Column 8
We regularly receive exasperated emails from readers baffled and infuriated by Friday's mind-bending Cryptic crossword, but rarely are they as succinct as this one, from Bob Smith, of Coffs Harbour, who opines "DA should see a shrink."
Senators put principle before self-interest
Annabel Crabb In the now-customary farrago of drama and low farce that is a working week in Australia's capital, something happened on Monday night that was both weird and surprising.
Four key areas Turnbull must address
Peter FitzSimons Win the progressive swing voters and be victorious in the coming election.
Baird government's public housing fire sale
Kirsty Needham Since January, the Baird Government has sold off $54.4 million worth of public housing to private owners.
Make the most of federal budget
Peter Martin Most of us reporting the federal budget get little sleep the night after. We are busy "unwinding".
Settle out of court, for the right money
Charles Waterstreet Australian Lebanese are bewildered that they can't buy their way out of trouble with enormous amounts of cash in our courts.
Careful where you direct your anger
Liza Power When fury boils over in a coffee shop no one's going to come off looking pretty.
Capital punishment barbaric
Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were executed by firing squad on the Indonesian island of Nusa Kambangan a year ago next Friday.
APRIL 24
Letters to the Editor
It amazes me that after all we have seen, 39 out of 91 pre-selectors still thought that Bronwyn Bishop was the best person to represent them.
Turnbull shrinks as Shorten grows
Peter Hartcher With a July 2 election all but certain, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has begun to grow into the job, while Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has been brought down to size.
Elections are as good as politics gets
Judith Ireland It may be cool to act like elections are a horrible affliction we are forced to endure on a triennial basis. But really, we should be celebrating their arrival, not complaining.
Anzac day is for all Australians
Saeed Fassaie Perhaps nationalism is a step too far, but I believe that every migrant should develop a reasonable sense of patriotism for Australia over time.
When does free speech become hate speech?
Julia Baird Is our definition of hate too broad, and offensive to those with diverging views?
'Who would steal a colour TV?'
James Robertson You're safer than you've been for a very long time. But who gets the credit?
Shorten may yet plod to the top
Jacqueline Maley The Turnbull honeymoon is over and voters are now wondering whether it's time to take Bill Shorten seriously.
Richard Glover: The rules of enragement
Richard Glover It's a crazy, over-regulated world when owning pet bunnies can send you to jail.
Challenges ahead as we rethink retirement
"The trends are incredibly positive for government finances and the economy as a whole".
Party for Prince: It's what he would've wanted
An enigma wrapped in a conundrum cocooned in purple, Prince let his prodigious multi-instrumental talents and lyrical wit do his talking.
APRIL 23
Letters to the Editor
WestConnex is promising to inflict more damage on Sydney. But help is at hand if we recognise what WestConnex is really for.
Previously in Comment
Highlights
Wrong museum, wrong place, wrong reasons
Does the government's planned Powerhouse-to-Parramatta move make any sense at all, to anyone, asks Elizabeth Farrelly.
Why you don't really need health insurance
Every year people rail against private health insurance companies hiking up their premiums. I couldn't care less, writes Marcus Strom.
The Trump plan that is a real danger to Australia
Donald Trump has made an idiotic and potentially incendiary claim about one of the world's most flammable strategic tinder boxes, writes Peter Hartcher.
The unfair truth about a woman's handbag
Like our brains, women's bags have to do 10 things at once. And that's tiring enough, even before tax, writes Annabel Crabb.
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, writes Tim Dick.
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, writes Jessica Irvine.
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, writes Peter Hartcher.
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 United Nations
One key point of illumination from Julian Assange's announcement on Thursday is the rich impotence of the UN, writes Annabel Crabb.
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, writes Ross Gittins.
Raising the GST to 15% is fiscal folly
If Australia goes down this path, it will join that collection of West European countries which are the highest taxed countries in the world, writes Paul Keating.
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 device of startling ingenuity designed (one can only assume) by the bloodless Calvin himself, writes Elizabeth Farrelly.
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, writes Catharine Lumby.
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, writes Tim Dick.
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?
