The take-home for this year's students is not to give up on their hopes if their marks fall just below the cut-off for the course they most wanted.

• Editorial

That state transport bureaucrats might cut safety corners in rail construction to get a project finished on time and on budget by the next state election defies common sense and decency.

Euthanasia is once again up for debate. The subject can arise for families anywhere, whenever relatives watch someone they care for suffer a lingering, painful death. Surely some means can be devised, the thinking goes, to shorten this suffering by earlier termination of life.

Sunny skies are forecast for Melbourne, with a top of 31 degrees for the start of the Australian Open. We hope the tournament is successful, and we wish all participants the best of luck.

• EDITORIAL

Homeless statistics are a serious reproach for all Sydneysiders. They tell us that our current efforts are not good enough.

Barack Obama failed to achieve the "post partisan" political change promised by his campaign but the expectations pinned on him were too much for one man to meet.

• Editorial

Our readers are having trouble understanding why setting clear rules around politicians' work expenses is such an insurmountable task for the Parliament. It's so hard to get the guidelines right, apparently, that every few months we must have a fresh scandal about MPs making spurious claims on the taxpayer's purse.

We wanted a fairytale, but we're getting a horror story. 

Michael Chamberlain's legacy is a lesson to the nation.

The Prime Minister has quite rightly asked his Health Minister, Sussan Ley, to stand aside pending an inquiry into her use of ministerial travel entitlements. She, equally rightly, has agreed.

For the Turnbull government these days, ineptitude comes in many forms, success in few. One of the latest examples is the decision to let Centrelink's computers loose on Australia's least wealthy and most vulnerable citizens in the weeks before Christmas.

A fortnight before Donald Trump's inauguration the President-elect has already begun to exercise his power, revealing to the world what sort of leader he might prove to be. He has given us some cause for hope and more for concern.

For some older Australians when they enter a nursing home, the loss of independence is a heavy blow.

There are changes Mike Baird could make to the organisation of his cabinet this month or next that would be both substantial in their effect and consistent with the traditions of conservative government. He should consider them.

To have people drown in NSW in unprecedented numbers is not just an accumulation of personal catastrophes. It is more like a challenge to this country's identity.

• COMMENT

The government's project to improve the quality and efficiency of fuel and cars on our roads is a worthwhile one.

With summer heat settling in over the next few months, plenty of us will be returning to beaches in favourite holiday spots up and down the NSW coast. Will we notice any changes there?

• Editorial

The Senate the Prime Minister insists is working already looks more like a Mad Hatter's Tea Party than an austere house of review. How much more intractable will it be if Pauline Hanson loses control of One Nation?

Each new year, the release of cabinet documents from 25 years ago reminds us of old battles. They can look rather quaint – passion recollected in tranquility. A set of documents released this year, though, has a different effect: it shames us. After a quarter of a century, the issue of Aboriginal deaths in custody remains as intractable as ever.

Supposed outsider victories have come at a cost.

• Editorial

If there is a persuasive rationale for the sale of the state's land titles registry, the government has yet to articulate it. 

• Editorial

We Australians love to reflect on our good fortune, on the things that make our country special and precious and among the best places in the world to live. For example, that we get to breathe some of the cleanest air in the world. How good is that?

• Editorial

At first glance there seems no good reason to wait a year to change the rules for selling painkillers containing codeine.

• Editorial

We can't argue against the fence around Parliament House in Canberra, because we don't know what the security agencies advocating it know.

In this fierce contest between sports, many codes will lose fans and finances. The winners, though, will be fans.

They are unscarred by the anger and hurt caused by disappointments, bad decisions or broken promises. They lack a deflating knowledge of the fears and frustrations that accompany grown-ups through life.

A mix of solutions is needed for a problem created by a complex interplay of factors beyond housing supply.

With interest rates at record lows, governments should take on so-called "good debt" to build productive assets then sell them off later. And plenty of super funds would be interested in the new project.

Here we are in the busiest shopping week of the year. We are spending billions - $48.1 billion to be precise, according to retailers' predictions - on gifts for each other, on food and drink to load up our Christmas tables, and on bars, restaurants and fast food to celebrate the festive season. Thursday is expected to be the busiest day of the week, but peak frenzy will be the fifteen minutes after 1pm on Friday, according to the National Australia Bank, which expects to process 360 transactions per second in that brief interlude. To avoid the rush, shoppers are advised to brave the aisles in the early morning or late afternoons.