Surely Dr Shroot could provide some evidence? If he is correct, Canberra should have a markedly higher crime rate than states where smoking in prisons is banned. Since this is not the case, he needs to check his assumptions.

Punishment does not deter most crime. Many criminals believe they won't be caught.

Smokers are dealing with an addiction. As a doctor, Alan Shroot should know it is better for society to help a person deal with addiction, overcome it, and move on, than to use it as another way of inflicting punishment. We try to provide education, and other opportunities, so prisoners can find work and change their lives on their release.

"Smokin' Joe" Hockey dropped many prisoner support and recidivism prevention programs in his first budget in 2014.

These sorts of initiatives actually prevent crime and pay back the money spent on them many times over through reduced incarceration rates. The Liberals are "tough on crime" but they don't like spending money on preventing it.

As far as I am aware cyclists are required by law to wear helmets. I would suggest that for their own protection, and for the benefit of other road users, that they also be required by common sense, if not by law, to wear "high vis", or at least a coloured, top.

I had the experience recently of having to give way to a cyclist on the Flynn Drive/Alexandrina Drive, Yarralumla roundabout. I am a frequent user of that roundabout and, as at any roundabout, I am always cautious.

On this occasion, the male cyclist came down the slope from State Circle at high speed. He was dressed entirely in black, on a dark coloured cycle and therefore blended into the bitumen surface. I had to be alert to see him. Had I not seen him he would have been wiped out, presumably with me being liable.

Cyclists expect all the rights but don't always take sufficient personal responsibility to protect themselves. Perhaps the major parties could address this important safety issue among their election promises.

Andrew Barr is proud Canberra is the most progressive jurisdiction in Australia. But justice also matters to Canberrans.

Take the Labor/Greens "conversion practices" law. Opposition amendments to reasonably protect parents, teachers, and counsellors were rejected. Criminal sanctions remained in the bill although they were not recommended in the La Trobe report on which it was fashioned.

The ACT Liberals were set up to be painted as "ultra conservative" when they unanimously opposed the "ground breaking" legislation. Labor and the Greens have employed this mean strategy for quite a while.

The NSW premier must have skipped civics lessons on the way to her job. Tasmania has only a few tens of thousands more people than the ACT Gladys, but they've got five lower house seats and 12 senators ("Berejiklian takes swipe at ACT in push for federation reform", canberratimes.com.au, September 22).

Of course house seats are determined by population, not land mass. But Gladys doesn't have a go at Tasmania as a jurisdiction of [that size] "essentially having an equal seat at the table". Of course, tiny Tasmania has a Liberal government. Enough said.

If the letters pages are anything to go by a number of Canberrans are living happily in the past.

Oh, for a time when everyone could live on spacious single-occupancy blocks in low-rise houses within spitting distance of the lake. Oh, for a time when the lake was surrounded by carparks and paddocks.

Oh, for the time before light rail. Oh, for the old bus timetable - or the one before that, or the one before that... Oh, for a time when the (artificial) lake had slightly different (artificial) contours and boundaries to those proposed today.

But I don't think these views actually reflect those of the vast majority of Canberrans. This is a great and growing city. It cannot remain frozen in time. Let's embrace the Canberra of the future.

Well, fan my brow, cut off my legs, and call me shorty. On the very day my letter to the editor about the wilderness formerly known as Calwell (Letters September 18) was published the mowers have started.

Now that's impressive. If only they'd followed my other recommendation and had people picking up all the rubbish beforehand so we didn't get shredded rubbish.

In the meantime, M. Moore (Letters, September 20) finds references to the good old days "more than a little tedious" and notes "the one constant is change".

If that change is more graffiti, more littering, more crime, more drug use, wildernesses instead of pristine suburbs, growing poverty and homelessness, and suburban infill of thousands of little boxes towering to the sky (I sometimes wonder if there is a competition to see who can build the most boring apartments!), I'm not surprised that people look back on the "good old days" with some fondness.

Paul O'Connor expresses his distaste at the sight of drying washing hanging on unit balconies (Letters, September 17) and asks "how could this have been allowed?"

Most developers build apartment blocks with no clothes lines; they just whack in a clothes dryer. Job done.

This leaves the residents with two choices (a) use the electric dryers provided and contribute to both the size of their electricity bill and the increased carbon load of this planet or, (b) hang their laundry to dry naturally on their balcony; carbon neutral and free.

Res ipsa loquitur. (The thing speaks for itself).

Paul O'Connor (Letters, September 17) complains about washing hanging out on balconies. What is wrong with washing hanging out? It's the Aussie thing to do. The alternative is the unenvironmentally friendly dryer. This unnatural obsession with hanging washing happens in the US. We don't need this here. Better the washing is hung in the sun than a drier is used.

With an ACT election in the offing it would seem timely to remind Canberrans of the facts about the ACT government's annual kangaroo "cull".

Firstly, it is not humane. The code of practice under which the government conducts its killing actively permits its "hired guns" to bludgeon joeys to death, and to orphan at-foot joeys to die of hyperthermia, hunger, dehydration, and myopathy.

Secondly, the government falsely claims killing kangaroos during April to June avoids the orphaning of joeys. Yet the government's own kangaroo management plan admits that kangaroo joeys take 18 months to wean. So there is no time of year when joeys will not be orphaned in vast numbers by the killing their mothers.

Thirdly, the government claims it kills kangaroos because they are breeding to densities that are harmful to other native species. This claim has been debunked by CSIRO Plant Industries, which found that kangaroos at densities three times higher than those the government claims are "desirable", actually enhance the diversity and species richness of Canberra Reserves.

Fourthly, the annual slaughter is a waste of nearly $1 million of ACT public money because it achieves nothing. The government admits that every kangaroo killed will always be replaced by kangaroos moving in from outside the reserves; at least until there are none left outside the reserves because they are extinct.

Instead of killing, safe, vegetated corridors are needed to allow kangaroos and other wildlife to move freely through Canberra's reserve system.

Surely the Coalition government can find more than $5 million to help the ailing AAP. But of course most of us know the reason why they're being so mean. On the other hand, it's wonderful how Harvey Norman and Domain are using ACM as a significant stream of advertising. We all need to support accurate, fact-based journalism that covers all sides of an argument or story. How else can we make informed decisions?

To paraphrase Groucho Marx: "I wouldn't vote for any party whose supporters despise democracy so much that they destroy or remove competitors' corflutes."

So, Qantas is offering flights to nowhere. That's one way you can spend your $750 COVID-19 economic support payment. No wonder the world is in the state it's in, first world decadence under the guise of boosting the economy.

Who has the power to decide what the actually law is?

I'm not sure we should revert to the "old style" Floriade. The glorious displays of tulips, poppies, and pansies energising Canberra's suburbs, plus the community engagement involved, are a winner in my view. What do others think?

The Canberra Liberals won't ditch light rail altogether. They are talking about possibly rerouting from Woden to Belconnen. Why are Labor/Greens complaining their heads off thinking the light rail will be cancelled? The Liberals will go to an independent analysis to determine where the next stage should go.

Paul O'Connor (Letters, September 17) appears to be unaware we are living in a climate emergency. Nobody should be using electricity to dry clothes when they can be dried by the sun and wind. We need to get over Victorian-era sensibilities if we are going to save the planet.

John Smith (Letters, September 22), what are you suggesting? That everyone over the age of 65 is expendable? The economic benefits would be huge. No aged pensions, no aged care sector to bugger up the lives of the millennials. The sad fact is that many people would probably agree with this model of aged care, or something like it.

After years of cracked and broken shared paths, many marked with fading repair marks, there has been a flurry of activity repairing paths around Weston Creek. There have even (shock horror) been new paths laid along. If I was a cynic I would assume there was an election in the offing.

What blissful rain washing the stench of our flowering plum trees out of the air. A pity we missed the hail: it might have knocked their flowers off as well. Why do we continue to plant these trees which smell of rotting fish in so many Canberra streets?

The French call climate change by its correct name, "global warming". This is scientifically accurate and demonstrates the inevitability facing the world, regardless of climatic changes. Let's say it like it is please, always.

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