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.
- Read the story: Ruffled feathers: complaints lodged over emu
Having had my own horses for many years and also being familiar with Norbit, I find it unusual that experienced riders would complain about an emu in a bush environment. Horses can be quite flighty at the best of times but it is up to the rider to understand and manage their behaviour.
There are lots of scary things in Parklands for a horse to shy at, including kangaroos, leaves, snakes, goannas, waving branches, possibly even people with dogs, so why pick on Norbit?
Having spent quite a lot of time with this much-maligned emu, I can tell you he is totally harmless. I’m not sure though that the snakes and goannas in Parklands are quite as benevolent.
If a rider is nervous and inexperienced there are safer places to ride so maybe that is a better option than culling our native animals. Emus are natives, horses are not. Leave the emus alone and stay in the round yard or dressage arena with your pony, if you feel unsafe.
Annabel Harris, Bli Bli
I believe the emu at the Nambour park should be allowed to stay and the people who are complaining should just use common sense when near it.
Frank Paige, Caloundra
Would be a very sad day to see Fluffy removed from the Parklands reserve.
Our cycling groups always look forward to seeing him on our regular cycling adventures to this beautiful park. This bird is friendly, lovely to interact with and doesn’t have a mean bone in his body.
Happy to support any initiative to keep him at Parklands or at worst relocate him to a caring home and not a slaughter house.
Ben Zietsman, Pelican Waters
- Read the story: Jane Stephens: the reality of cold hard cash
Yesterday I saw a prominent sign in a local business stating charges for card transactions. A warning bell rang that now we are being coerced into using cards, more and more businesses will now charge us higher and higher fees.
Seems there is a concerted effort between banks and governments to impoverish the lowest levels of Australians. Any compensating legislation seems to lag well behind.
Edwina McPherson, Glass House Mountains
The problems one can foresee in the future: how do we give our children pocket money? How does one pay for a poppy on ANZAC Day, or give to other charities?
We get interest charged for every card transaction, whereas cash is free. The implication of no cash just feeds the large corporations and banks, and all our transactions are traced. Very Orwellian and dystopian.
Phil Broad, Black Mountain
A cashless society will lead to big business being able to charge for small transactions, without any idea we are being charged every time a card is used.
I have in the past two weeks had issues at two shops when the internet went down. My belief is this is another case of big brother and big business colluding, while we all have tunnel vision.
John Parkes, Buderim
- Read the story: Green light for gallery vision and Point Cartwright plan
I totally agree with the dog ban. I used to walk out to the point at La Balsa but the smell from dog poo, especially in summer, was horrendous. I’ve been known to turn around and go back to the park and not bother to walk out to the point. Regardless of what dog owners say, they do not all collect their dogs droppings.
Diane Garvey, Caloundra
- Read the story: Aura South proposal going to public consultation
The figures show we require more housing by 2046 to cater for the population increase on the Coast.Understandably, this is an issue and housing is important. The article shows it (the development) will increase jobs.
I believe a lot of developments on the Coast provide jobs. However, not for the local community. After they are built, will jobs remain in the area for the increased population?The great concern of this development is that infrastructure seems to struggle right now with the population on the Coast. The roads are congested, accidents seem a lot more frequent, public transport options are not fantastic, roads in and out of these estates are not properly implemented before the housing developments are built and the streets are very narrow, in many cases only allowing room for one vehicle, especially when a car is parked.We have issues with the demand of the population growth. If someone would like to visit a GP, for example, the wait times are very long, sometimes having to wait a few weeks or more.Can the Coast handle the extra water run-off created and drainage required? Can our busy roads handle the extra traffic? Can our health systems cope? Can our police and emergencies services cater to this? Can our schools endure the extra students?Can we get the qualified people to fill these positions? Can the environment handle the impact of the increasing population? Can the Bruce Highway handle the demands of the ever increasing South-East explosion? Has the rail system been approved? How many years will that take to build?
There are articles of self-flying transport from the Sunshine Coast to Brisbane. Will these be able to handle the weather patterns? How many of these will be flying in the sky to cater for all the commuters from the Coast to Brisbane? How much land will be required to take off and land these self flying options? To store them? Who is responsible should one fall from the sky due to a weather event?There are some wonderful ideas been thrown around. I am just not seeing a logical solution coming to fruition.
The Coast is such a beautiful place and I hope the changes and ever-increasing population is thought through – protecting the environment, the mental health and wellbeing of all, the impact for wildlife and flora and fauna – and respected by any developer. Catering for the increasing crime that comes with it, the accidents on the roads, the energy supply and waste management required.Are these quick-fix solutions or are they sustainably thought out solutions?
Linda Butler, Buderim
- Read the story: ‘Stress and anxiety’: homeowners brace for resumptions
Isn’t it about time people understand that they can’t all rock up here to the Sunshine Coast and live here?
There is only so much space and you have to go out further and not everyone can live on the coastal fringe. In the meantime, TMR are busily ruining rate-paying residents’ lives through their incompetence and no forward thinking. I can’t imagine what the impact would be to have your home resumed and your life turned upside down.
By all means, come and holiday but don’t just think you can all live here.
Noela Coulter, Mooloolaba
- Read the story: Council opts to halt sand nourishment works
I can’t help but think this story is just spin.
Seems to me that the replenishing of the sand to the dog beach is not working. No mention of why the project is behind schedule and what percentage of the job has been completed. Watch this space: all of the work completed so far will be un-one by mother nature before the work recommences.
Brett Officer, Cootharaba
Insanely expensive pursuits
Ted O’Brien, fresh from his ludicrously expensive fantasy of building a fast rail link from the Sunshine Coast to Brisbane, has now jumped upon an even more insanely expensive hobby horse: nuclear power stations.
For some perspective: the 250km/h Bullet Train in Japan required the construction of a new, dedicated, carefully graded and aligned standard-gauge dual track. But even along the densely populated regions of eastern Japan, the train only stops at centres with a population greater than 500,000, equivalent to the entire estimated population of the Sunshine Coast in 2050.
Then there’s the cost. One-way fares between Tokyo and Hamamatsu, about 100km to the south, currently cost about $A40. A completely new dual line from Maroochydore to Brisbane, with dedicated air-tight cabins like aeroplanes, and eight electric motors on each carriage, would cost at least $10 billion to build (based on European averages), and would almost certainly run at a loss. Continuing the line through to the Gold Coast might make the operation more financially viable, but would double the initial cost.
But that would be cheap compared with a modern 3.5-gigawatt nuclear power station similar to the new Hinkley Point C reactor in the UK, which, with all the safety and security features required to provide most of the ‘clean’ but not ‘cheap’ electricity needed in South-East Queensland in 2040 (the earliest completion date), has so far cost $45 billion to build and will require a further $15 billion to operate and maintain over the next 35 years.
That’s $60 billion for one nuclear power station generating less electricity than all the solar panels on Australian houses today currently deliver to the east Australian grid at less than a quarter of the unit cost of nuclear electricity. The whole point of the ‘renewable energy superpower’ concept is that in order for Australia to become a competitive export manufacturing centre, the power must be compellingly cheap.
What about small modular reactors? SMRs generating less than 300MW, running on highly enriched uranium, would be pre-fabricated and transported to site, where the sealed unit can be buried in the ground and tapped for electricity until it eventually runs out of fuel after 20 years. These may be useful for special cases, but aren’t currently available on the market. Similar reactors, like those in our very expensive AUKUS subs, also due in 2040, have never proved commercially viable.
And in closing, given the extent of ‘NIMBY’ reaction to anything vaguely ‘nuclear’, I suspect the local federal member might be invited to “stick it in his own backyard”. Any takers?
John Saint-Smith, Buderim
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.
