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. Preference will be give to letters of 100 words or less.
- Read the story: Timelapse video reveals ocean’s impact on island
I’m so pleased you’ve highlighted the impacts of the latest ‘Bribie breakthrough’.
The views expressed by the Department of Environment, Science and Innovation representative, who repeatedly bleats that they are “observing and monitoring” the situation, is close to pathetic. They have maintained this stance since I notified them three years ago that there were seven locations within 1500m of the newly created breakthrough where the ocean had breached the Bribie Island foreshore dunes.
There is little doubt the latest breakthrough, clearly seen opposite the Caloundra Power Boat Club, will become the new dominant entrance as soon as we experience a combination of spring high tides with a low-pressure system whipping up big seas. This combination of events has occurred at least two times in the past two years. Tons of northern Pumicestone Passage water will have one agenda … to get to the ocean through the shortest possible route. That will be through this new entrance. I’d be very surprised if this doesn’t occur some time in the next six months.
This new breakthrough, now in its infancy, was expanded by moderate (2m-3m) seas and high tides a few months ago. Despite this, our civic leaders seem hellbent on keeping their heads in the sand.
This new entrance should be of enormous concern for residents at Diamond Head and the area around the power boat club. Tides will reach higher and wave surges are likely. The passage will inundate homes. The ongoing reluctance of local, state and federal government officials to address this issue is staggering. A rock buffer wall needs to commenced immediately.
Stephen Smith, Golden Beach
- Read the story: ‘Enemy of joy’: council panned for scrapping fireworks
I could not believe my eyes when I read what Sunshine Coast Business Council chair Sandy Zubrinich said regarding the scrapping of the New Year’s fireworks, that “the cancellation ‘undermined’ the region’s reputation”.
Oh please! Fireworks displays, or lack of them, do not and never have undermined any Australian region’s reputation. Very unwelcome and emotive words, Ms Zubrinich. I would expect far better from the Sunshine Coast Business Council.
I am very sure that the businesses at Mooloolaba will survive, fireworks display or not, and so too our reputation as a sustainable region.
Phillip Adamson, Maroochydore
Personally, I agree with cancelling fireworks, they are just an indulgence that wastes millions of dollars’ worth of our taxes across the nation every year.
Unless of course our council has so much money to spare and is loan free, then maybe it could be considered on a reduced scale. Is our council wealthy and cash positive?
Eon Radley
Yes, fireworks are a definite problem, particularly for birds, dogs and so on. If you don’t have them they will not miss them.
This should be put to a poll.
Richard Gooch, Maroochy River
I’m disappointed this is not happening for 2024-25. We will be spending $2000-plus to be up there this year (and that’s just on travel and accommodation) to celebrate my first Christmas/New Year with my brother and his wife in 17 years.
Well done, Sunshine Coast Council. Know where your loyalty lies with your visitors. We won’t be doing it again. Our senior years are catching up with us.
Mrs Hall, Happy Valley, SA
- Read the story: Property fund aims to raise $150m for luxury hotel
No, definitely not. High-rise in the middle of Caloundra is ridiculous.
We don’t want or need this in our beautiful low-key town, that’s why people love it so much. We don’t want to be another Noosa or Mooloolaba where you can’t see the sky, there’s horrendous traffic and accommodation that is not necessary.
Caloundra is perfect: we don’t need another hotel.
Berri Fanning, Caloundra
We can’t wait for the hotel to join us at Bulcock Beach. Bring it on we say.
Julie Whiting, Bulcock Beach
- Read the story: Your say: chateau build, estate rejection and more
It’s not often that I agree with all of the opinions expressed in the letters to the editor.
However, the selection of letters published on November 30 were all opinions that I wholeheartedly agree with. It shows that we have smart thinking and mindful people among us who are prepared to voice their thoughts on subjects that others shy away from.
I look forward to more sensible, thoughtful and balanced opinions in future issues. It makes for good reading.
Denise Maclean, Buderim
- Read the story: Collaborative effort set to address e-scooter issues
On Wednesday, just after 5pm as I drove south on Nicklin Way from Kawana shops, I was doing 60km/h in heavy but free-moving traffic, but an e-scooter idiot using the bike lane was doing at least 70km/h, endangering himself and others. We don’t have dashcam, maybe others did.
Our ‘e-laws’ are clearly so inadequate. Why could no one who allowed these products to be sold not see how road safety and road rules would be flagrantly breached so often and so easily?
Ann Knight, Parrearra
- Read the story: Time’s up for freeloaders: council to take action at car park
It’s terrible to get a car park around Hastings Street, very frustrating. I like the four-hour limit, it gives others a go.
Michael Kuebler
- Read the story: Cheap fares across trains, buses, ferries to remain
Kudos for acknowledging in your story that Labor, at the conclusion of a six-week trial that commenced at the beginning of August, had committed to making 50c fares permanent.
The LNP Transport Minister’s preferred version of events, in his media release on which your story was based, was that “Labor used 50c fares as an election toy while the Crisafulli Government saw the real benefit for Queenslanders”.
That kind of churlishness typifies the new government’s media releases, particularly those emanating from the office of Deputy Premier Bleijie, in a return to the bad old days of “feeding the chooks”.
Peter Baulch, North Arm
- Read the story: Coast results emerge as Premier-elect knuckles down
It is time that both new Queensland Premier David Crisafulli and the Queensland public woke up to the fact that the Premier’s “adult crime, adult time” policy just won’t work.
The first thing to understand is that the problem involves juvenile teenagers. Do you remember when you were that age? The minds of juvenile teenagers just don’t operate the same way that adult minds do. At that age, they are still basically children, but trying to understand adult issues and prove themselves in an adult world. And on top of that, they are totally confused by the rapid biochemical changes that occur in everyone’s bodies during adolescence.
Kids of that age and going through those types of changes simply aren’t deterred by the thought of penalties. Education and positive social programs are needed, not populist punitive theories.
Another thing to consider is the financial cost. Prisons are extremely expensive to run. They rank with hospitals as probably the two most expensive institutions in our society. How many more prisons would have to be built to accommodate the Premier’s policy? Two? Three? More like five or six, I suspect.
But the most important consideration is that sending teenagers to prison just entrenches them in a criminal mindset. It doesn’t solve the practical problem facing society. It makes the problem worse, especially in the longer term.
I’d like the government to be led by experienced criminologists like Terry O’Gorman on this issue. We need to be guided by academic knowledge and historical experience, not emotive knee-jerk reactions.
Ross Buchanan, Bellbird Park
- Hidden in plain sight
Tucked away in dark rooms of clubs and pubs, we know people who can least afford it are losing scarce funds during a cost-of-living crisis.
Despite calling ourselves the Lucky Country, we are born losers who see more money per person gobbled up by gambling than any other nationality. People addicted to poker machines designed to do just that are often mature-age women – someone’s mum or nanna trying to escape a life of quiet desperation at home, especially if they have lost Pop.
Pokie venues offer congenial social opportunities with seniors’ meals and the friendship of the staff who acknowledge older women, who often feel invisible in the outside world.
Families may dismiss Nanna’s little flutters as a pleasant recreation getting her out of the house and meeting new friends. While certainly achieving that, at what cost? Rather than taking an active role in the community, Nanna is retreating to a cocooned artificial world and perhaps creating a ticking financial time bomb for herself and her family.
Recent studies find that people experiencing financial difficulties and those on the lowest incomes were most likely to engage in problematic gambling. Is Nanna cutting back on core health and nutrition costs and chewing up her savings to fund the addiction? Families may be aghast as the inevitable day comes in a crisis when Nanna needs to move into high-care accommodation and the nest egg that everyone was banking on is gone.
A sign of a good government is how it provides for the oldest and most vulnerable in our community, yet governments are part of the problem with their dependence on tax revenue from gambling to sustain their budgets.
Now is the time for politicians to stop talking tough about gambling addiction and shying away at the last moment from addressing a problem in plain sight to support seniors and their families sliding into an avoidable abyss of heartache and recrimination in their loved one’s last days.
Garry Reynolds, Peregian Springs
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. Preference will be give to letters of 100 words or less.
