Paola Totaro asks if Australians are more sexually repressed than the supposedly prim and proper English ("Oh Big Ben, you're ever so naughty", August 16-17). She could safely extend the comparison to any other country in the Western world.

It is revealing of her - and Australia's - level of inhibition that she cannot even use the word "erection", replacing it with "enthused" to describe the man in the scene on British television that so shocked her and her expatriate friends.

Our stereotype as laid-back, anti-authoritarian people who delight in surf, sun and sex belies the truth that we are prudish to the point of hysteria. This could explain why we have the lowest sex-drive among developed nations (average once per 10 days, as opposed to Germany's high of three times a week, according to a recent survey), but there are many other indicators.

One is the extraordinary level of censorship Australians permit, to the point of banning adult movies that contain a "prohibited fetish" (candle wax is a no-no).

In the 1970s, naked flesh was an accepted feature of Australian TV and film in such productions as Number 96 and Alvin Purple. Now the Office of Film and Literature Classification has a special category warning of the dangers of "breast nudity". In the 1980s, magazines with nude figures on the cover could be sold in newsagents - they now have to be wrapped in opaque plastic and kept at the back of the shop.

I don't know if the link between political and sexual conservatism has been established, but there is evidence it exists in Australia. The further we move to the right, the more we seem to accept restrictions on sexuality that a generation ago would have been unthinkable. And those who say nothing about it play into the hands of the self-appointed guardians of public morality.

It says much about our society that images of sexual arousal are considered confronting. Unless you think the act is pornographic, why would you think that images of the act are?

People who feel this way need to deal with their own phobias, rather than trying to impose their beliefs on others. The first step is to drop the fig leaf of faux-chastity and accept that sex, unlike so many human motivations, is a positive force.

Andrew Dalton Annandale

Time to make some tough decisions on Murray-Darling

The Australian Bureau of Statistics identifies cotton as the largest water user in the Murray-Darling basin, with dairy, grazing pastures and rice close behind ("Cotton sucking life out of Murray", August 16). However, measuring only the water diverted from the Murray is insufficient to calculate the total amount of water required to produce food, which includes rain.

Animal grazing takes up half of the land in Australia and uses half the rainfall, which could otherwise be feeding plant crops much more efficiently or nourishing native forests. By phasing out animal agriculture, we can begin to use this natural resource more sensibly and, in turn, allow our plant crops to become less dependent on the Murray.

Will Schmidt Surrey Hills (Vic)

It is one thing to grow rice in the Lismore area, where it does not require irrigation, but it is insanity for the Government to allow cultivation of irrigated cotton and rice crops when our major river system is in its death throes. Rather than waste taxpayers' money buying back water that does not exist, Mr Rudd should declare a national water crisis and demand that farmers grow more water-efficient crops.

Lyn Bagnall Mondrook

The Federal Government is working to suck the blood out of irrigation communities in the Murray-Darling basin. Irrigation farms are the economic steam trains that power many rural communities. Many small towns have stopped because of lack of irrigation water. If the Government continues to buy irrigation licences from farmers, these towns will be left as skeletons, without the production drive to pull them out of economic and social death. Who is going to pay the social costs that will follow this great crusade to "save the Murray-Darling"? Who will pay to relocate and retrain the people left in dying towns throughout regional Australia?

Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong should stop seeking metropolitan approval, and work with farmers and towns to create efficient irrigation systems, whereby the environment can flourish. Such systems can power regional Australia to feed the nation and the world.

Tom Quigley Trangie

Do we really need to buy cotton clothes? I don't believe so. I have a full wardrobe of clothing made from hemp and it's stronger than any cotton clothing I've owned. It's also beautifully soft and much longer lasting. Why can't the cotton growers convert to hemp? If they refuse, the Government can compulsorily acquire the land; it would not hesitate to do so if it wanted to build a highway or erect power lines.

As for growing grain to feed livestock, whatever happened to good old grass-fed cattle? Cattle farmers won't stop feeding their cattle grain until restaurateurs stop buying it.

I live in a city whose water supply is constantly under threat from cotton growers up river, and I'm sick and tired of nothing being done about it by ineffectual governments. Don't buy cotton clothes and don't buy grain-fed beef. The alternatives are better and you'll be helping to save a river.

Jeff Thornton Broken Hill

Abolish fees to encourage cars for a purpose

Why do governments place any annual cost on vehicle registration ("Cheap rego for small cars", August 16-17)? And why should the Federal Government and Opposition try to outbid each other to blunt fuel-price signals with excise reductions? A more effective offset that preserves the incentive to reduce vehicle use is to abolish the fixed annual fee. It would encourage people to maintain two or more vehicles for specialised purposes - a small car or motorbike for commuting if public transport is impractical and a larger vehicle for family holidays, etc.

The only rationale I can see for high rego or insurance costs is to get older vehicles off the road, which may have been valid when most of them had wheezing carburetted engines. Now that even old bangers are fuel-injected and fairly efficient, that rationale has faded. Climate-change considerations must include the carbon cost of new vehicles, even if we recycle the old ones.

Murray Scott Heathcote

Michael Duffy's praise of low-density, car-dependent urban development ("Orbital is the way to go for diverse transport needs", August 16-17) ignores the energy and environmental costs.

Uncongested freeway motoring is certainly more fuel-efficient per vehicle kilometre, but this benefit is overwhelmed by the fact that freeways encourage more traffic and longer trips, and promote patterns of development that make high car-use unavoidable. The cities that spend most on roads also spend most on transport altogether, use most energy for transport, and produce most transport pollution per person. This is not a good model for an oil- and carbon-constrained future.

Geoff Dawson Narrabundah

It is not surprising that Michael Duffy believes public transport based on a Sydney CBD-centric rail network is unable to moderate car dependency and its negative impacts in a dispersed metropolis. After all, the Transport Data Centre was recently reported as reaching a similar conclusion.

Rather than just more roads, an alternative to the dispersion is to refocus on a number of regional cities to bring jobs, services, entertainment and recreation closer to home in a more structured way. This is the vision behind the metropolitan strategy.

It needs the support of a multi-centred rail network that offers time-competitive links between Sydney and regional cities, and between those cities. Sadly, our governments seem to lack the financial and intellectual capability to plan and provide such a network.

Peter Mills Warrawee

Rest of the braves weren't

John Howard may have proved he was no coward ("I'm no coward: why John Howard refused to go", August 16-17), but in doing so Peter Costello and the rest of the Liberal Party were exposed as just that.

Richard Murnane Hornsby

Lynton Crosby's five golden rules are sound advice for any politician ("Lessons for Nelson in unlikely election win", August 16-17). However, a sixth should be considered by those aspiring to leadership: will I have the wisdom, courage and humility to know when it is time to go for the good of my party?

Lorraine Nelson Frenchs Forest

Awards not discriminatory

Mike Carlton suggests in Saturday's column that a reason for Major Harry Smith not being awarded a Distinguished Service Order could have been that he was not a graduate of Duntroon. Carlton is either misinformed or mischievous in saying that it was "not quite pukka for a Portsea wallah to get a DSO, what?"

I was standing near Brigadier David Jackson and Lieutenant-Colonel Colin Townsend at Long Tan on the morning after the battle. They were discussing awards and I was not a part of the conversation, but I know both men (now dead) would be deeply offended by Carlton's comment. As would the "army top brass" of that time. And so, I'm sure, is Harry Smith.

In that same war Major Pat Beale was awarded a DSO (to add to his Military Cross) and Major Peter Badcoe was awarded a Victoria Cross. Both were Portsea wallahs, what?

Owen O'Brien Lieutenant-Colonel (ret), Roseville

Fair crack of the whip

So a police spokesman says, "All I would suggest, if a situation arises again, leave it to the police to handle" ("Gatecrashers flee whip-wielding dad", smh.com.au, August 17).

That's all very nice, but I wonder how long they would have taken to get there. Dion Driman could have been seriously injured by then and his house wrecked. Sorry, but these hoodlums deserve a bit of their own back rather than the slaps on the wrist our court system seems to hand out to them. If the report is accurate, Driman deserves praise, not possible charges. I hope they have bruises and sore spots to nurse.

Odille Esmonde-Morgan Terranora

Elitist view of law

To take matters to ridiculous extremes, the chagrin of Miranda Devine's North Shore dinner party guests who have lost, or are about to lose, their driving licences is probably shared by pedophiles who feel they have been incarcerated as a result of nannyish attitudes to child protection ("A fantasy world of bullet-proof Aussies, August 16-17). There are plenty of bad laws, but they are not bad simply because "sensible, professional married couples" are caught out by them.

Cliff Jahnsen Bowral

Undergrads of high standard

Tony Smith's notion that the quality of university undergraduates studying to become teachers is substandard is offensive to all our members and those who taught them ("Class struggle marches on", smh.com.au, August 17). Candidates admitted for undergraduate teaching degrees at Sydney University last year had to achieve a UAI of at least 82.40, and we have many students who achieved well into the high 90s. Clearly, these students did not just barely pass the HSC.

Michael de la Pena, Secretary, Sydney University Education and Social Work Society

Need to more than prescribe

Stephen Carroll (Letters, August 16-17) offers intriguing solutions for the health sector. Practising as a GP, as I have for 30 years, is not simply prescribing antibiotics for a urinary infection or the pill for contraception. Each attendance involves intricate history-taking, examination, diagnostic, investigative and therapeutic considerations. Even with six years of undergraduate study, it takes several years of further training and experience to obtain a reasonable standard in general practice.

Giving nurses prescribing authority would result in two distinct levels of medicine - a limited, nurse-run one and a more thorough doctor model. If the public is willing to embrace the nurse-model, fair enough. But remember, the Government is mainly trying to cut costs, not necessarily seeking the best clinical outcome. If my family or friends get sick, I know who I would recommend they see.

Dr Ashley Berry Lugarno

Quality not commodity in the opera game

Well may Bryce Hallett ask, "where is the next Sharman or Armfield?" ("Opera favourites for next year, Bliss comes later", August 15), especially if that question was triggered by the assurance from Adrian Collette, the chief executive of Opera Australia, that his company "needs to keep an eye out for the next generation of directors".

Collette is unpersuasive partly because last year Opera Australia presented a dreary and pretentious production of The Barber Of Seville in preference to a version proposed

by just the kind of young director he claims to be seeking. As Elke Neidhardt's brilliant Don Giovanni showed, age is not the issue, although the absence of a new production from her in the 2009 line-up does suggest the company has difficulty in recognising quality.

And that, surely, is the kernel of Fiona Janes's criticism ("Sharp notes on opera standards", August 15): whether the administration of the company can judge good singing or whether being a marketable commodity is the more important criterion.

John Carmody Roseville

On the world podium

Grant Hackett winning a swimming heat is front page news ("Hackett fighting fit for gold, gold, gold", August 16-17); the crisis in Georgia is on page 17. The first relates to the possibility of a medal, the second the possibility of nuclear war. Isn't there something askew with our priorities?

John Hill Turramurra

The column about Ireland under the "One World, One Team" banner (August 14) belittles a smaller nation and its sporting efforts. We could add "again, no medal expected" after a significant proportion of the Australian team names.

The reference to a sportsman "appropriately named" Paddy was insulting. Use of the term Paddy to collectively identify Irish people is considered derogatory by many.

The writer suggests the boxer Paddy Barnes possesses a face "only a Celtic mother could love". How would it appear if a foreign journalist made such a reference to an athlete, claiming they possessed a face only a Maori, an African-American or a Koori mother could love? The racial slur is obvious and individuals from those groups would be justifiably incensed.

Jennifer Haughton Woonona

Colour blind

Thanks to Mike Carlton ("Faster, higher, stronger but no fun", August 16-17) for pointing out what is wrong with the Australian landscape: "green and gold … simply don't work as colours together". All those green wattle trees in golden bloom are the blemish on our scenery.

Bruce Hanna Heathcote

Lost for words

Duncan Armstrong would be lucky to get a bronze in my book, Eddie Raggett (Letters, August 16-17), until he learns to substitute "women" for that sexist term "girls".

Maureen King Lane Cove

The next time I'm asked whether I can believe it, or told it's unbelievable, I'm going to throw a brick through the TV.

Steve Moore Leumeah

Team spirit

Forget the $4990 jacket signed by Grant Hackett, Lauren Jackson and James Tomkins; I want the one signed by Matt Celotti and Nick D'Arcy.

Sophie Kunze Penrith