Do you have an opinion to share? Submit a Letter to the Editor at Sunshine Coast News via news@sunshinecoastnews.com.au. You must include your name and suburb for accountability, credibility and transparency.
- Read the story: Iconic car park set to make way for parkland
It seems that come hell or high water, this council is doing everything it can to force people to use its white elephant car park.
Removing the free parking area on Mooloolaba beachfront will do nothing but force visitors away from the area, which is something business owners don’t need.
Graham Kelly
Probably the best thing to happen to the beachfront. People have legs and 300m is next to nothing. Cafes and restaurants will have as much or more patronage without traffic passing in front of them. Good on you.
Richard Courtenay, Witta
These sorts of free car parks and simple access to the beach is what sets us apart from places like the Gold Coast. This space is enormously popular and will be sorely missed.
Can’t wait for the council elections because we need a broom through it.
Bob Carroll, Maroochydore
Leave Mooloolaba alone. Stop taking car parks.
The council only wants you to use the paid car park, and card only.
Gloria Berwick, Maroochydore
That’s a great idea, a facelift for the beachfront at Mooloolaba. But what about the elderly and infirm? Not much good for them. They no longer will be able to enjoy this special area – but of course they will still go on paying their rates and so on, just as they have all their lives to help fund this new development. Does that seem fair to you?
Perhaps there will be an ample “drop and go” zone, so that at least those who are lucky enough to have someone who will drive them will still be able to visit occasionally. Never mind about all the rest of us.
Also, what about the mums and dads with children, who have been enjoying the very expensive but certainly well-loved and amazingly well used playground area? How many councillors have ever had to find a car park in such an area, get all the children out of their seat belts and into strollers and holding hands, while also lugging the bag with snacks, spare nappies and water bottles for everyone? Then, on top of all that, they have to cross roads and lug everything and everyone all the way to the fabulous new playground and adjoining beach. Very few, I’m guessing.
Such a pity to spoil it for so many people. There surely is a way we can keep parking for, say, 100 cars and still complete the renovations. If the renovations are purely for the sake of appearance, then I say don’t do them. If they’re essential for the rising sea levels, let there be a way to compromise.
Brenda West-Newman, Bli Bli
It would be fairer if you reflected an accurate picture of the parking in Mooloolaba. The 150 odd carparks on Beach Terrace are not relocated to the ParknGo, they are lost to Mooloolaba. We will have 150 less carparks, all of which are now two hours free, a recent reduction from the old four hours free.
The multi-storey 700-space car park is not on Brisbane Road, it is on Smith Street. There is a badly marked driveway entrance to the car park from Brisbane Road bordering the Avani Hotel building site.
The public approval you reference for the foreshore redevelopment has been judged by many to have been a carefully slanted presentation designed to ensure the council got the outcome it wanted. Roll on the next council election in March when we might get a new council willing to stand up to their bureaucrats and demand a more transparent advisory that takes into account the opinions of the ratepayers and the wider community.
Brent Torrance, Sippy Downs
- Read the stories: Federal funding for Coast projects axed and Coast road upgrades ‘thrown into chaos’ by cuts
I can’t believe the feds have pulled their funding for the Sunshine Motorway upgrade. It looks like the Federal Labor Party wants us long-suffering residents to set up GoFundMe pages to get vital road projects completed.
Warren, Sippy Downs
Another disgraceful, dishonest display of shameful politics, especially between the state and federal politicians. This Labor incompetence is appalling. The distrust is obvious. This in-house bickering is totally outrageous and proves the Labor Party even lies and disagrees with itself. How can anyone possibly trust these clowns??
L. Terrens, Alexandra Headland
It’s pretty obvious why we got the chop: safe LNP government seats in the area. Labor knows it will never get into power in the Sunshine Coast area. “Why waste money in a safe LNP area, let’s save it for some pork barreling down the track.”
The proposed rail upgrades will probably go the same way for the same reason. Don’t trust any of them.
John Sandow, Minyama
- Read the story: Coastal expert weighs in on controversial plans for seawall
Listen to the experts, not the council and other groups with no experience of the science. Europe has centuries of controlling the ravages of the ocean on the coastline, so look at their harbour designs to find out how to prevent silting up.
Richard Courtenay, Witta
I believe a terraced seawall would take up valuable beach area, much like the avalanche of rocks in front of the park area further north.
Mooloolaba has one of the most dangerous shore breaks at times, with countless spinal and neck injuries, probably the most in Australia. An artificial reef about 200m off the beach would help retain the beach and produce some great waves for bodysurfers, swimmers and surfers, and eliminate the dangerous shore break.
Peter Bjorseth, Alexandra Headland
- Read the story: How $3.5m airport hub will help ease congestion
Great that there’s a new car rental terminal but how is it that there is no covered walkway to it from the main terminal? It’s a fair walk away from the main terminal, so if it is raining those car renters are going to get extremely wet.
It’s taken me back to the days when there weren’t baggage carousels within the terminal and your luggage turned up on the trailer in a car park type area. Sunshine Coast Airport stepping back in time.
Paul Henstock, Palmwoods
- Read the story: ‘Horror stories’ of local crime heard as police outline efforts
The Opposition must be very short of ideas if it still thinks crime stories are its path to power.
There has never been a safer time to be alive here. The ethics and effectiveness of juvenile detention have lately been as much a cause for alarm as the amount of crime that actually exists, but the LNP continues trying to frighten people into supporting locking up more kids for longer – even though its own local MPs are cinches to come out in righteous indignation against any proposal to establish a youth detention facility here on the Coast.
Peter Baulch, North Arm
- Read the story: Network lock-out sparks cashless backlash
Of course we must keep cash. There will be more outages and hacking. Cash is good for budgeting, teaching kids the value of money, no card surcharges, small purchases, pocket money and freedom from being tracked.
Money feels good. It makes you realise exactly what you are paying for something.
Andrea Charlton, Minyama
We have voted on gay marriage and Indigenous issues, which affects two minority groups. Why are we not getting to vote on going cashless? It affects the whole Australian population.
Mark Broster, Riverland, SA
Please stop this nonsense of a cashless society. Actual cash is the only 100 per cent certainty we have. There are always times we need just plain old cash and as an older person I rely on it. The internet is only as good as the person who uploads it and there are always hackers as well as the obvious problems with Optus.
Cash is the only constant. Make the banks give us access to our cash instead of dictating how we must pay for things.
Julie Foord, Ipswich
The meltdown of Optus digital services is just a minor glitch to what potentially happens if a global event occurs.
Massive solar flares, natural disasters and climate change events, geopolitical catastrophes and raw materials shortfalls for climate change projects (EV, solar, wind turbines) are just a few triggers that could cause massive electrical problems, stopping digital communication and services being provided at a global, country or state level for substantial durations.
If any of these events occur then cash will be king for basic human survival.
Robert Yuen
I think we should be able to choose if we want to use cash, so we should keep cash going. Don’t let them take it away.
Deirdre, Mount Warren Park, Qld
- Read the story: How you can get action on problem pathways
When using the footpath on Wises Road and approaching The Zone shops from the eastern end, there are only steps up to the sidewalk outside Repco and IGA.
People in wheelchairs, on wheelie-walkers and using walking sticks, of which there are many from the nearby retirement home, have no option than to go past the steps and through the traffic lights, then go past Subway to reach a ramp, then re-cross back over the busy entry road and carpark to get to back to Repco and IGA.
I have spoken to many people struggling up the steps, and all agree that The Zone management should take pity and rectify this poor planning. All users of the steps agree a ramp outside Repco would change a long detour of 200m into a simple 5m shortcut.
Alan Ward, Buderim
- Read the story: Your say: emu backlash, dog area changes and more
Analysis by climate scientists has found there have been significant global temperature rises between November 2022 and October this year, and they were the hottest in recorded history.
For the sake of our very existence, we must switch to clean renewable energy sources urgently to address human-induced climate change.
The Dutton Opposition’s energy spokesman, Fairfax’s Ted O’Brien, has been promoting nuclear energy and that we should buy small modular reactors (SMR) from the US company NuScale. NuScale has now cancelled its SMR project due to cost over-runs and their outputs being less viable than other energy sources; so, no SMRs to be had in the foreseeable future.
Face up to it Mr O’Brien, we are facing an existential crisis; we do not have decades to wait for the Liberal National Party’s pipedream of nuclear energy to become a reality.
Our children and grandchildren deserve to be handed a clean sustainable planet to live on.
Robyn Deane, Bli Bli
Do you have an opinion to share? Submit a Letter to the Editor at Sunshine Coast News via news@sunshinecoastnews.com.au. You must include your name and suburb for accountability, credibility and transparency.
