Hitting a kangaroo in a car at speed can be a dangerous, traumatic and often expensive ordeal, not to mention the unpleasant experience of killing an animal or leaving it to suffer.

I work in the tourist industry and would like to feel proud to promote the region’s tourist features. I find myself often having a conversation with visitors about the dead and rotting animal remains spewed all along the Monaro Highway.

If I find it confronting, imagine tourists visiting our region.

While it is impossible to prevent animals being killed on our roads, the challenge for the ACT government along with the NSW government and Snowy Monaro regional council is to arrange for the regular removal of the roadkill, which would also provide an economic return for a local contract business. Other large businesses that depend on their clients having an all-round positive visitor experience should also be encouraged to contribute to the cost of regular carcass removal.

Juliana Johnston, Cooma NSW

Far from contradicting my letter of September 21, David Hobson (Letters, September 26) merely confirms my statement that kangaroos become much more visible in times of drought when they move closer to humans habitation and the ‘‘long paddocks’’ of the roadsides, in search of food and water.

There is nothing alarmist about predicting that extinction is inevitable for any species that does not produce young until females are at least two (males considerably older), produces only one baby per female per year, suffers a staggeringly high infant mortality rate, does not produce young at all in times of drought, is harvested in numbers that appear to have no basis in logic, is subjected to uncontrolled hunting by any yahoo with a gun, across most of its range (ie NSW and Queensland), and is mown down with the greatest of pleasure, at a rate of ‘‘three per kilometre’’, by every hoon driving a car with a bulbar.

Frankie Seymour, Queanbeyan

When thinking about the harmful impact of our current level of plastic usage and the drive to reduce it, I often wonder why The Canberra Times wraps in plastic every paper it home delivers. This is particularly odd given Canberra’s low rainfall. That’s a lot of unnecessary plastic being deposited on Canberra driveways every morning. Surely in the interests of the environment The Canberra Times could go back to delivering unwrapped papers as the norm, and either only using the wrapping machine when rain is definitely forecast, or scrapping it altogether and we’ll live with the very occasional wet paper.

L. Bentley, Braddon

Patricia Watson (Letters, September 19) and other correspondents are right to be concerned about the appearance of today’s Canberra; it’s not a patch on the Canberra of yesterday nor the Queanbeyan of today. The ACT government should be doing more but it seems to me that our residents and businesses should share more of the responsibility.

In the Canberra of the past, residents maintained their gardens and nature strips and kept hedges and trees clear of footpaths. They didn’t use their nature strips as a garage nor as a dump for unwanted items or shopping trollies.

Businesses used to clean outside their premises. Today too many take no care beyond their front door; putrid bins and equipment line the back lanes and the front of premises are often neglected. At a licensed club near O’Connor shops, dozens of cars park on what should be a nature strip but is now pot-holed bare dirt. In nearby David Street, at a single house building site, 10 or so vehicles are parked regularly on the nature strip and the concrete footpath has disappeared along with the grass.

The government should work harder on its maintenance, cleaning and gardening, and enforcement of parking and other laws, but we citizens should be doing more to reduce the effort required of the government.

Help vision-impaired

It is heartening to know that the ACT government is busily dealing with the assumed mainstream issues of concern to their constituents such as using gender-neutral language in their publications; legalising cannabis and assisted dying. I wrote through Access Canberra six months ago (in March) highlighting the inadequate accessibility aids at Canberra Stadium for the vision-impaired such as myself and asking for an audit to be undertaken by Vision Australia.

I followed this up on September 5 through Access Canberra citing the original reference number only to receive a reply asking me who I had referred to matter to, which seemed odd given Access Canberra directs the flow of correspondence.

I am still awaiting a reply to this reasonable request after six months.

Rohan Goyne, Evatt

Phillida Sturgiss-Hoy’s letter (September 25) lauding the easier availability of the abortion drug RU486 in the ACT reflects our community’s convenient denial of the truth that life begins at conception.

Why do we continue to be bombarded by the views of people such as Sturgiss-Hoy who wish to mask this fundamental fact of the beginning of life by the use of misleading, emotive nonsense such as the woman’s right to choose above all other considerations?

It seems to me that if you have no regard for life at its beginning then you are unlikely to value anything about life after that.

John Popplewell, Hackett

Like Frank Breglec, I have been mightily impressed with Ms Orr’s work at the royal commission into the financial sector (Letters, September 25). This country is replete with bright young things whose speciality is style, rather than substance. Yet Ms Orr’s surgical exposition of the various evils in the financial sector has been just exquisite, and a thing of beauty. (I have also been greatly impressed with her colleague’s, Mr Michael Hodge QC, very competent performance.)

If there is a Rowena Orr QC fan club, I would join it in a trice. I look forward to her future contributions towards making a Australia a better country.

Gordon Fyfe, Kambah

Marco Bass (‘‘Michelle Guthrie was staggeringly unqualified for ABC role’’, September 26, p16) is absolutely right with his analysis of the current ABC malaise nationally as well as at state and territory levels.

Nevertheless, I don’t agree with his implication that the new managing director need necessarily be a journalist. As a state program director I was responsible for all ABC radio and TV output including current affairs but I had to be across the needs of, and provide support for, all program areas. The managing director’s role is to provide similar leadership and support across the board, albeit at a higher level.

The role of editor-in-chief is a specialist and highly sensitive one inevitably involving political pitfalls and should be the ultimate responsibility of the head of news and current affairs, not lumped in with the rest of the managing director’s onerous tasks. Furthermore, as Bass alludes, there is also the need for journalistic supervisory roles to be carried out at intermediate levels to spot and weed out errors that will inevitably occur at the front line.

This means, of course, adequate resources to provide these additional skills that once were taken for granted but are no longer available. It is the managing director’s (and the chairman’s) role to persuade governments of the need to adequately fund the ABC so it can carry out these vital tasks.

Eric Hunter, Cook

I fear I must take issue with your indefatigable correspondent Douglas Mackenzie of Deakin who opined on September 25 that Tony Abbott was lacking in integrity. Perhaps Mr Mackenzie is unaware the former PM could resign from Parliament and draw a pension of some $300,000 a year compared with the relatively modest $200,000 a year he draws as a backbencher.

The former PM is prepared to keep up this sacrifice for a further six years as the Member for Warringah, thereby saving taxpayers over $1 million.

What an example by the special envoy on Aboriginal matters.

Tony is walking the talk in ensuring that lifestyle choices are not supported on the public purse.

What selflessness!

Ann Darbyshire, Hughes

As the report ‘‘Liberal leadership ‘unlikely’ but Abbott signals wish to stay for six more years’’ (September 22, p7) makes clear, Tony Abbott has a rather inflated opinion of his own character and ability as a politician.

He claims the Liberal Party would ‘‘struggle’’ to find someone better than himself replace him in his seat of Warringah. He also brags that he can’t imagine the party finding a candidate ‘‘who’d come close’’ to him in his ability to represent the seat and ‘‘make an impact on the national debate.’’

I can’t help wondering how much effort he puts into representing Warringah, and in what way he makes an impact on the national debate, when he expends so much time and effort on attacking his political enemies, including those in his own party.

Abbott decries politicians who ‘‘smile to your face’’, then peddle ‘‘dreadful judgments and lies to others’’ behind your back. Mr Abbott would do well to remember that he said when he deposed Malcolm Turnbull that ‘‘there will be no wrecking, no undermining and no sniping’’ and proceeded to do all three.

It seems to me that Mr Abbott is showing some of the ‘‘integrity deficit [that] is killing our public life’’.

Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin

I propose a possible solution to the difficulties experienced by federal political parties (well, one in particular) in choosing candidates with gender diversity.

First, reduce the number of federal electorates to the House of Reps by a factor of two, but require each electorate to return two members, one male and one female.

Second, change the requirements for Senate seats such that instead of electing six non-specific senators for each state, three male and three female senators would be elected.

Each territory would have one male and one female senator.

Any registered political party or grouping putting forward multiple Senate candidates would be required to nominate an equal number of male and female candidates, up to three of each.

Single independent candidates may still nominate, but will need to nominate their gender.

Equally, non-binary people candidates would have to choose to be included on either the male or female ticket.

This is unfortunate, and I apologise for this, but just getting male/female equality will be a big enough challenge.

There will always be other issues which will be raised, but they will be soluble.

Graham Starkey, Bruce

President Trump has indicated that a second meeting with the North Korean President may take place ‘‘very soon’’ (’’Headline here’’, September 26, p13). Meanwhile, South Korean President Moon Jae-in has had a most amicable meeting with Kim Jong-un in the northern capital Pyongyang. Kim took his counterpart for a car parade through the city, where the cheering crowds were a good indication of official feeling in that very regimented society. Kim has said he would make a return visit to Seoul later this year.

The two leaders of a divided Korea have two main alternatives before them. The first is to opt for the continuing impasse, a truce line along the foreign-imposed border of the 38th parallel, with the impoverished though belligerent north parading soldiers and missiles and political invective, and the south, prosperous but intimidated, feeling the need for the protection of Big Brother across the Pacific.

Second alternative: a reunified Korea, with no longer the need for expensive military hardware, with instead peaceful commerce, and the satisfaction of a reunified country brought about by leaders who will go down in history as defying the Cold War machinations that had divided their country. Should the second alternative be chosen, a meeting with the American President might not even be needed, though he would be welcomed to join in the celebrations.

Harry Davis, Campbell

STOP DRAINING THE RIVERS

So here we are in what looks like a serious drought. But that’s OK because we’ve got ourselves some big dams and there’s no need for water restrictions.

Apparently it’s our God-given right to suck as much water out of the rivers as we want. I don’t suppose anybody’s stopped to think that this water is vital to the health of our rivers and our farmers.

AR Taylor, Giralang

AGED ‘CARE’ SCANDALOUS

The Four Corners programs on aged care were devastating to watch. While some evil staff are unspeakably cruel, the true villains are those who decide that $6 per day, three incontinence pads per day, five minutes to prepare for bed and six minutes to dress and shower is the model of aged ‘‘care’’. Slightly lesser villains are those tasked with checking standards. If the homes featured had 100 per cent scores for compliance, what was the standard they complied with?

Maria Greene

UNFAIR ACCUSATION

Could Albert M White (Letters, September 26) please cite a selection of chapters and verses in support of his surprisingly characterising as an ‘‘Old Testament principle’’ the tendentious opinion he, whether justifiably or not, ascribes to ‘‘Scott Morrison’s acolytes’’ that ‘‘welfare recipients are ‘poor’ because they are wicked’’?

Len Dixon, Ainslie

ENOUGH SLATER ALREADY

I’m grateful a decision has been reached on Billy Slater’s shoulder charge so I won’t have to watch any more of the incident (five times on one TV news broadcast).

Greg Cornwell, Yarralumla

TURNBULL A SCAPEGOAT

If Justin Milne sacked Michelle Guthrie as a favour to Malcolm Turnbull, it seems a bit odd to wait until Turnbull had been shafted. Is Turnbull now useful to the Liberals only as a scapegoat?

SW Davey, Torrens

ABC NO NATIONAL ASSET

If Adrian Gibbs believes that the ABC is the glue that holds Australia together, then I think he maybe have been sniffing it.

Mark Sproat, Lyons

SHAKESPEAREAN TRAGEDY

To paraphrase King Henry II: Will no one rid me of this troublesome journo?

Thos Puckett, Ashgrove, Qld

RU NOT ABLE TO STOP THIS?

Daily I get hundreds of emails with the suffix ‘‘ru’’. They come through my business website. My website host knows the problem and can do nothing. The Russian emails are never orders for the pivot hinges that I make in my Yarralumla garage. Is it just me or are thousands of business hours wasted trashing junk emails. Is it beyond our government IT boffins to do something about this poo?

Howard Styles, Kingston

Email: letters.editor@canberratimes.com.au. Send from the message field, not as an attached file. Fax: 6280 2282. Mail: Letters to the Editor, The Canberra Times, PO Box 7155, Canberra Mail Centre, ACT 2610.

Keep your letter to 250 words or less. References to Canberra Times reports should include the date and page number. Letters may be edited. Provide phone number and full home address (suburb only published).