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SMH Editorials

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten have each displayed political opportunism over 457 ...

Trump card leaves migrant workers at a loss

Rather than playing the migration card, the Turnbull government's priority must be to better match the 457 visas with skills shortages, without disadvantaging Australians who are skilled to do the same jobs.

Sydney 2026: the Herald examines the shape of the city to come

By any measure, the coming decade will be a tumultuous one for the city. And it is with this knowledge that the Herald ...

Sydney can never be full. In a globalised economy, the city must invariably evolve and grow. The city's industrial composition will change. Demand for different types of housing will emerge. Powerful interests will fight to preserve privilege. New pockets of disadvantage will be created, and should be broken down. These are some of the dynamics that will inevitably shape the future of a city, like Sydney, beholden to the movements of trade, commerce and migration.

Pill-testing protests: It should not have come to this

One in 10 Australians over 14 years of age has tried ecstasy (pictured).

The Australian summer music festival season is about to ramp up. The risk to festival fans is ramping up too. For many young Australians drug taking is part of the festival experience, but with illicit drug manufacturers becoming ever more creative in their pursuit of unscrupulous profits the dangers have never been greater.

Don't scrap hate speech laws, fine tune them

Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission head Gillian Triggs and Attorney-General George Brandis have clashed ...

The real issues are: whether the term "good faith" is too loose and ill-defined so as to make the defence difficult to predict and access; and whether the words "offend" and "insult" are so loose as to encourage relatively frivolous cases and as such impose an unjustifiable limit to free speech.

Four ways to fix the Bob Day disgrace

The High Court will in effect determine who can and cannot replace Family First's Bob Day.

The Day case is particularly concerning given it involves deals with the government and taxpayer-funded schemes that could give rise to doubts about undue influence, not to mention constitutional breaches. Inevitably, that erodes public trust in government.

Our Cup runneth over with underdogs

First woman to win the Melbourne Cup: Michelle Payne in 2015 at Flemington.

We unite to cheer on 24 nags, most from overseas and most worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and most owned by millionaires or billionaires. Why?

Dreamworld betrayed our trust

Sun-Herald editorial dinkus.

Ardent seems to have its remuneration priorities all wrong. Safety and transparency must rank above profit. In the long-term this will benefit everybody.