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 given to letters of 100 words or less.
- Read the story: Brain bleeds, skull fractures: stats reveal e-transport dangers
The story says “make sure children have the required and appropriate safety gear and are supervised”, but what about adults?
I was surprised and disappointed that the wearing of protective headwear was not explicitly mentioned, particularly when it seems there are very few children or adults doing so, including when riding pushbikes.
I am surprised to learn that children under 12 years old are not permitted to ride e-bikes and e-scooters, and that 12- to 16-y-ar olds are to be supervised. I have not observed these rules, nor the wearing of helmets, being policed.
As a driver and pedestrian, I fear for the safety of e-vehicle riders as well as myself and other drivers and walkers. While driving, I’m afraid of hitting and injuring or killing a rider, especially given the often erratic and risky behaviours I encounter on the roads, the lack of protective equipment and prolific absence of e-vehicle lights at night.
While walking, I’m afraid of being knocked over by a speeding rider on the pathway, which could result in both of us sustaining a serious injury. I have often encountered such situations while walking along the foreshore at Mooloolaba.
I definitely find these vehicles a concern and feel they introduce unnecessary risks to all. I would appreciate seeing their use being policed much more heavily, or having them completely removed from public use.
Janelle, Buderim
How many of those people are even wearing the right safety gear and are all over public roads?
These things may be fun but riders should also be licensed to be on any road as they go up to speeds that some could not even handle. They are dangerous to pedestrians too. It’s time they should be registered and licensed to ride.
There are too many young ones trying to use them like skateboards at times. They are not for doing jump tricks: their wheels should be on the ground at all times.
Carrol White, Palmwoods
- Read the story: Swamped: 350 calls for help as falls top 400mm
Did you know that when a vehicle enters floodwaters flowing across a road, that your wheels now become floats, no longer gripping the road surface as firmly as before.
Your vehicle now becomes a barrier that has to be pushed out of the way, into the flooded creek.
Reginald Bower
We have been the least impacted council by Tropical Cyclone Alfred.
Other councils, which have been impacted, still managed to dynamically work around and collect their garbage from residents, despite weather wind and rain, even on the Sunday. Sunshine Coast Council’s response is “we will just collect your bins on your next cycle”. Then, due to community pressure and backlash, they now are collecting garbage only, and only if you submit a report.
But, as it turns out, they are flat out refusing to collect recycling. The next collection is not for two weeks.
Despite supplying council with photos of overflowing recycling bins with rubbish strewn all over the road, two streets away from water inlets, council could not care, sticking to its “wait until next cycle”. No care factor.
Let’s not mention that this service has already been paid for by the ratepayer and the weather is, and has been, fine to do collections. This is council just refusing to provide a paid-for service.
I have reached out to the mayor’s office and nothing achieved.
I am at a loss. How does our council care so little of its civic duty? This is a service that has already been paid for, poses an environmental risk as bins are out on kerbside, are overflowing and are littering.
What will it take to get council to do its job, own up to its poor ability to plan dynamically and execute solutions based on the situation and essentially do its job? I’m sure it’s awfully convenient to wait until the next cycle, but recycling doesn’t wait.
Jose Rehbein, Maroochydore
After this rain event I suggest the public are directed to take their sandbags to a specific central foreshore place, such as Golden Beach, so the authorities can utilise them productively. If the public store them, they turn hard and useless.
Keith Guy, Caloundra
- Read the story: Sleepbus service could return after charity steps in
Sleepbus! What a wonderful idea. It’s nearly unimaginable for most of us to “walk a mile in the shoes” of someone who is experiencing homelessness.
For about four months when I was 19, I experienced homelessness. I don’t think I slept more than a few restless hours a night for that entire time. It will make a huge difference for folks to have a safe, good night’s sleep.
Good on ya!
Jeff Tuttle, Caloundra
- Read the story: Greens announce candidates for Coast electorates
One ‘progressive’ proposed policy that the ‘community’-minded Green candidates failed to mention was to introduce an inheritance/death duties tax on hard-working Australian families, who over many years have built up their asset base, only to have the Greens wanting to eat into this equity to feed other ‘progressive’ agendas.
If they form part of a minority government, we can be well assured that Labor will follow this course, also looking at negative gearing and residential capital gains.
The voters on the Sunshine Coast deserve a balanced view of what political parties are offering, both overt and covert. This becomes a crucial factor in transparency and trust. The voting public are now calling for more openness from their representatives and will be able to weigh up which party would genuinely represent their values.
I am not a member of, nor affiliated to, any political party.
Phil Broad, Nambour
- Read the story: Interest rate reduction improves borrowing capacity
The RBA’s decision to decrease interest rates by 0.25 per cent was very welcome.
The rate cut has come about because of Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ diligent and astute economic management. After being left an almost trillion-dollar debt by the Morrison Liberal/National government, it has been a slow process to turn our economy around, however it is happening even with the headwinds from overseas impacting on Australia.
It is also a relief that the Labor government has reduced inflation from 6.1 per cent to 2.4 per cent without increasing unemployment.
The nation is heading in the right direction to a better economic future. Why would we want to get back on track to the economic mess left by the previous government?
Robyn Deane, Nambour
- Americanisation of politics
While Tropical Cyclone Alfred was a threat to Australian communities, Americanisation of our politics threatens more widespread damage.
Several of our political leaders are being tempted to sip from the cesspool of American politics while our Clive is gulping it down with Trumpet of Patriots.
Why would we blindly mimic American billionaire politics with collateral damage to its citizens and friends abroad?
Instead, we need to inoculate ourselves from the slow-burn effect of a world made safe for autocracy rather than democracy.
Winston Churchill said America can always be counted on to do the right thing after it has tried all other possibilities.
This was during the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
The current gang of American politicians and oligarchs are not in FDR’s class and are trying all the possibilities they can get away with by brutal underhand deal-making, even with the democracies’ traditional enemies, while they penalise traditional allies.
Our politicians should not blindly kowtow to this bullying and irresponsibly sell out the Australian people to private American interests by seeking to implement their billionaire self-serving policies.
Garry Reynolds, Peregian Springs
- Who and what is the Chamberlain Reserve?
In the words of the developer of a new residential estate in Caloundra, reported in SCN: “Most of our current buyers have been locals who have expressed a desire to build their dream home on a large, premium block of land in a boutique location which is surrounded by the leafy Chamberlain Reserve in Little Mountain and just a few minutes away from Caloundra’s stunning beaches.”
If you’re contemplating moving into a new estate and are told that living next door to nature is good for you, wouldn’t you like to know more?
To give it its full name, the Jill Chamberlain Bushland Reserve is 48 hectares on the crest of Little Mountain and protects a range of coastal vegetation including endangered lowland rainforest. Its dedication on June 19, 2004, by Caloundra City Council honours a quiet and cheerfully determined woman, working tirelessly in the service of habitat and wildlife conservation with pen (or computer), binoculars, weeding tools and a skilled grasp of complex planning legislation and development application processes.
In Jill’s words: “I believe one letter is worth a thousand people jumping up and down and making a noise.” Attending council meetings, being part of community groups advising councils and developers on environmental issues, most recently with Stockland on the Aura development, and working with council staff (witness the success of the annual Sunshine Coast Wildflower Festival) have been powerful and persuasive tools in a long life of advocacy.
Letter-writing has formed just part of Jill’s commitment to the work of the Caloundra and later Sunshine Coast and Hinterland Branch of the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland (WPSQ), where she has given her time as secretary and president from 1995 to 2015. Still an active member of this community lobby group, established in 1963 by Sunshine Coast Citizen of the Century and Caloundra’s own Kathleen McArthur, Jill continues a role advising current members, attending meetings and Faunawatch outings for birdwatching and botanising.
Jill Chamberlain received in 2010 an Order of Australia for ‘service to wildlife preservation and conservation in Queensland and to the community’, and in 2014 became an Honorary Senior Fellow of the University of the Sunshine Coast.
For the new residents of Highpoint, the adjacent Jill Chamberlain Bushland Reserve indeed offers refreshment to those who understand that it is first and foremost a sanctuary for wildlife within increasingly rare coastal vegetation. Your care of your dogs and cats, and treading lightly, will ensure that the grey kangaroo as well as birds, insects and reptiles and the specialised plants and wildflowers have a future here too.
WPSQ Sunshine Coast and Hinterland Inc.
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 given to letters of 100 words or less.
