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SMH Editorials

City can afford to dream large on Sydney Modern

Art Gallery of NSW director Michael Brand with designs for the Sydney Modern project.

Sydney can afford to dream large with Sydney Modern or, more to the point, can't afford not to. We need a contemporary cultural precinct to compete for tourism visitors not just with Melbourne and Hobart but also with London, Paris and New York.

No pension for politicians who betray the public

Eddie Obeid (left) and Ian Macdonald.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian's move to strip Eddie Obeid and his one-time colleague Ian Macdonald of their ongoing parliamentary entitlements may yet turn out to be the single most popular act of her time in office.

A needlessly bumpy ride for privatising bus services

Drivers across State Transit Authority depots  declared Thursday June 1 a 'Fare Free Day' in protest at the state ...

It is no fun to stand on the street in the cold wind or the hot sun and have a bus zoom past you, especially if it appears to have plenty of room for more passengers. It's also frustrating to pack your kids off to school in plenty of time and then have to explain why they were late - the buses, again.

Climate change denial's a bad joke

US President Donald Trump refused to commit to the Paris Accord on climate change when he met G7 leaders.

A Paris Accord without the US will set back global efforts to limit temperature rises and is likely to inflame leadership tensions in the Turnbull government.

A disgrace: One Nation's ABC blackmail threat

Pauline Hanson has backed off a stupid threat to the ABC.

Any political threat to hold the public broadcaster to ransom and threaten its independence undermines confidence in the parliament and democracy. It is especially hypocritical when One Nation was behaving in a manner not unlike the apocryphal swamp-inhabiting political insiders the party claims to despise.

To the grassroots of country footy, we salute you

Former Old Bar Pirates junior Boyd Cordner fronts the media as NSW Blues captain at age 24.

We salute the people of Kiama, Orange and Gulgong; and a big call-out to the good burghers of Tuggeranong, Wollongong and especially Old Bar near Taree. Seven out of the 17-strong Blues squad were born outside Sydney in towns and suburbs that don't always have the best facilities but they usually have the best sense of community and family.

The fight for public spaces steps up a notch

A woman walks through Moore Park, Sydney, at sunrise.

By now many of us have had the dismaying experience of being shut out of a favourite piece of park because it has been hired out for the day or the week for private use. That will keep happening until a sustainable way is found to pay for maintaining and improving our parks.

Illegal asbestos dumping: the slow-acting bomb

Editorial dinkus.

For some of the thousands of people who at any given time are renovating a home, the discovery of asbestos comes as a nasty shock. Possums in the roof or termites in the floor might be preferable. The thought of having lived with such a toxic substance is only slightly less disconcerting than the sudden urgent need to dispose of it

Turning anger into action against terrorism

A minute's silence and a spontaneous rendition of Don't Look Back in Anger at St Ann's Square in Manchester.

Every nation needs to review and upgrade anti-terrorism measures. We all need to accept this will be costly to taxpayers and to social cohesion. We also need to recognise that the enemy is not the vast majority of Muslims who decry violence;

Time for reckoning over Lindt cafe siege

The legacies of many involved in the Lindt cafe siege are at stake.

Did people have to die in the Lindt cafe siege? We await an answer to that question this week when NSW coroner Michael Barnes hands down his report of the inquest into the deaths of barrister Katrina Dawson, cafe manager Tori Johnston and serial criminal Man Haron Monis, two and a half years after they were killed when Monis terrorised the Lindt chocolate cafe in Martin Place.