Comment

The Age Editorials

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Respect umpire on penalty rates reduction

The degree of the penalty rates had become not only out of step with modern life, but financially unsustainable. And unjust - Australia has three-quarters of a million unemployed citizens, and a lot these people are being denied work because of penalty rates.

The bitter obstacles on the path to peace

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After Israeli spies using counterfeit Australian passports were discovered to have assassinated a Hamas figure in Dubai in 2010, then foreign minister Stephen Smith rightly condemned the forgery as "not the action of a friend". A Mossad agent in Canberra was subsequently expelled and the entire saga marked a low point in relations between Israel and Australia.

The high real cost of those cut-price pizzas

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The report is the latest in a series that has shown widespread wage fraud - targeting vulnerable employees, including foreign students and recent immigrants - in the nation's $170 billion-a-year franchise sector.

Political pugilism is merely a sideshow

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There is a role for passion and strong language in politics – when it's primarily about public policy. Politics is not a blood sport; it's about the battle of ideas and measures to improve opportunities for the community.

A welcome buttress for our health system

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For far too long serious complaints about health care have been hidden from the public, putting people at risk of unsafe practitioners who continue to ply their trade.

Lack of dental care a cruel false economy

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Public sector options are minimal at best, forcing most people to either accept whatever the private sector decides they must pay, or avoid this aspect of their health until it becomes an emergency.